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) adapters. From $7.99 Amazon Anker USB C Hub 4-in-1 Connection For $29, you can maximize your download speed with Anker's USB-C Hub, which includes an Ethernet port (RJ45) on the end of it. On top of that, you get three USB 3.0 ports on the side. The actual cable measures at 1.3 feet and the hub's chassis is made from aluminum as opposed to cheaply made plastic. Anker also offers an 18-month warranty on its USB-C Hub. From $29.99 AmazonAfter months of rumors and a recent spate of Quentin Tarantino sightings around town, it's now official. The Oscar-winning filmmaker's next high-profile project, "Django Unchained," will shoot in New Orleans.
Aside from the announcement of its A-list cast, which includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Costner and Christoph Waltz, details on "Django" have been scarce -- and rumors about its shooting location unconfirmed -- since Tarantino announced he was working on it. On Tuesday (Aug. 23), however, the New Orleans Office of Film & Video confirmed that the Crescent City will be home to at least part of the shoot.
"New Orleans is excited to host the upcoming Quentin Tarantino film 'Django Unchained,'" Film New Orleans Director Katie Williams said Tuesday after the project was listed as in pre-production on the agency website. "This is a high-profile project with great talent and an acclaimed director. Films of this caliber have a powerful impact on our local economy, and reflect the confidence of producers and studios who continue to choose New Orleans as a filming destination. 'Django Unchained' is just one of the many high profile projects we expect to film in New Orleans next year."
Chris Stelly, the executive director of the state's film office, was a touch more cautious in his remarks about the film, reflecting the industry understanding that no project is truly "confirmed" until cameras are on the ground and rolling. But he agreed that the project stands to be yet another major feather in the cap of the local film production industry.
"While our office is aware that this production is very interested in filming in Louisiana, we have not received an application, nor can we confirm or deny their official status as of this time," he said Tuesday. "That being said, this production, should it determine that Louisiana is the best place for filming, will be another great title to add to our ever-expanding canon of work. It speaks volumes to the credibility of our incentive program and the hard work that is being done by our office to provide stability for filmmakers."
"Django Unchained" is expected to begin its New Orleans shoot in early 2012, with a release set for Christmas 2012.
Tarantino has described his film as a "Southern" -- that is, a film with spaghetti Western sensibilities but set in the Deep South. With much of the story taking place in Greenville, Miss., tax-friendly Louisiana had been mentioned as a possible shooting location since soon after a version of Tarantino's script leaked online in May.
Foxx is lined up to play the lead role, that of a freed slave named Django who learns a deadly new trade from a German bounty hunter (Waltz) who takes the recently freed slave under his wing. With his new skills, Django embarks on a journey to find and free his still-enslaved wife.
DiCaprio will play a plantation owner named Calvin Candie, and Jackson will play his trusted house slave. Costner will play a ruthless "trainer" who works for Candie, preparing his slaves to fight for sport.
Given the touchiness of the racially charged subject matter, there's room for controversy there, but Tarantino has said he's not setting out to make a message movie. In a 2007 interview with The Daily Telegraph, he said he wanted "to do movies that deal with America's horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like spaghetti Westerns, not like big issue movies."
"I want to do them like they're genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it's ashamed of it and (that) other countries don't really deal with because they don't feel they have the right to," Tarantino was quoted as saying.
"Django Unchained" is being produced and partly financed The Weinstein Co., which is no stranger to Louisiana. Among the locally shot titles it has acquired for distribution are the Miley Cyrus action-comedy "So Undercover," the Brad Pitt action film "Cogan's Trade" and the Kate Hudson dramatic comedy "A Little Bit of Heaven," all of which were shot in New Orleans and all of which have yet to hit theaters. In addition, it was the production company behind Denzel Washington's 2007 Shreveport-shot drama "The Great Debaters," and its Dimension Films shingle produced Forest Whitaker's 2009 Hurricane Katrina drama "Hurricane Season."
A request for comment from a Weinstein representative was unaswered as of this afternoon.
While the project will mark returns to town for many of the film's announced cast members, it will mark the first time DiCaprio and Waltz will be in town for work.
Related linksThe chicken legs wouldn’t cook right. Chelsea Savage, then 17, could feel tears welling up as she stood over the stove. She would be chastised for this, for not getting the skins crispy enough, for not pleasing the woman who ruled over her — who had Savage cook, clean, and watch her children without pay. If she lived in a world beyond the confines of a “church” where members were forced to wear Victorian-style clothes and pulled out of school, she’d be like the girls in the magazines she was forbidden to read: The ones who wore bangles and bright nail polish, and who dressed like members of the Brat Pack. But instead she was crying in a kitchen in rural Virginia, her hair pinned up like a turn-of-the-century housemaid. “I wasn’t even allowed to use the dishwasher, because then I wasn’t ‘building character,’” says Savage. “I was just so lonely.”
That was 1987. It’s hard to imagine that these are the beginnings of a woman who would go on to earn two advanced degrees and become a professional liability investigator for a large hospital, much less run for office. And yet this week, Chelsea Savage, now 46, is doing just that — she’s hoping voters in Virginia’s 73rd district will support her bid for the Democratic nomination for state delegate. If she is chosen among the party’s four candidates looking to make it on the ballot, she’ll take on Republican incumbent John O’Bannon, a 69-year-old neurologist who has held the seat since 2001 and has only once been contested by a Democratic candidate. In 2012, voters in the Richmond area backed Mitt Romney for president, but then in 2016, a change: Virginia’s 73rd district became one of 17 districts in the state with a Republican delegate that voted for Hillary Clinton. Now, Democrats are specifically targeting those districts in this year’s state elections, looking to flip seats from red to blue. A Democratic victory would be a major feat, but for Savage — an openly gay single mother who grew up not just poor, but about as far from political pedigree as one can get — it would also be a personal triumph. A signal of how far she’s come.
To understand who Savage is today, and why she’s seeking office, it’s necessary to go back to the dark corners of her life. That kitchen. The old church. A run-down trailer park. Savage was just 5 when her parents divorced and her mom moved her and her brother to Hampton, Virginia, where they ended up living in a single-wide. They’d eventually need government assistance through the Section 8 housing program to keep a roof over their heads. “The trailers were at least 20 years old,” says Savage. “They were falling apart. I remember one woman, her trailer had a hole in the bathroom and she would have possums come up in it.”
A couple living just outside the park befriended Savage’s mother, and they invited her to come visit the Charles Church Christian Life Center in Yorktown, where they were members. It’s worth noting that the church exists in a separate iteration today and with new leadership; while the building itself remains, it’s a different congregation than when Savage was there. But she and three other former members interviewed for this article describe the religious group in the 1970s through ’90s as a “cult” with roughly 70 members. “I refer to it as a cult, or definitely don’t call it a church,” says Sharon Neal, 43, who was part of the Christian Life Center (sometimes referred to as the CLC) as a child. “It was an extreme religious sect.”
Chuck Call inside the Charles Church Christian Life Center.
There’s also a private survivors group on Facebook where such members share their experiences living under leaders Chuck and Betty Call — who Savage says targeted “divorced women on welfare with children” like her mother. She describes these vulnerable women being lured into the group under the guise of support and community, only to be turned into working support staff for the Calls.
“As an adult, I’m like, they preyed upon crisis moments in people’s lives,” says Hannah Burns, the Calls’ 34-year-old granddaughter, who grew up in the CLC. “For me it was this sort of really disconnected, dated cult experience that took getting away from before I could call it that. But now it’s something I accept.” She adds, “I can only imagine what Chelsea was going through back then … There’s nothing like being told you’re going to be burned in hell for not wiping the counters down.”
Savage describes the fear of living under Betty — the Bible-thumping bad cop to what Neal calls Chuck’s more “love and grace” good cop. “We were always concerned that we were doing what Betty said was okay, because people believed she had this direct line to God and we could be going to hell,” says Savage. “We used to have these candles in the church, and [Betty] would light them, and all the women would [be] following her in a line. She would sing and we would dance with our arms raised, praying in tongues. We would follow everything she did.”
There’s nothing like being told you’re going to be burned in hell for not wiping the counters down.
“When you look back as an adult, you can see the level of manipulation and how interwoven Betty was in everyone’s lives,” says Naomi, 36, another former member, who asked that her last name be withheld for privacy reasons. There were several methods of control: It was mandated that members adhere to a strict dress code, which for women and girls meant long, dated dresses. “If it was too short, we would sew lace on the bottom or top … it was all very puritanical, very much Scarlet Letter,” says Savage. Additionally, most books were banned except for religious texts and approved novels, like Anne of Green Gables. And girls were groomed for marriage and motherhood at an early age — “One friend got married at 16 or 17,” says Burns. “You were supposed to get married as young as you could.”
For girls especially, marriage and homemaking were placed above education. This led to a devastating decision: When Savage was in the sixth grade, the Calls ordered that parents pull their children from school and teach them at home, in accordance with Virginia’s religious-exemption policy. It was at this point where former members say they were instead left to teach themselves, and with limited materials.
“Initially, the material that we had wasn’t even school material, it was just books about Jesus,” says Neal. Stripped of a formal education, Neal says she was regularly dropped off to care for the children. “They would leave all the kids at somebody’s house and we’d be locked up. We couldn’t go out, because we were supposed to be in school, and what if a cop saw us? I had it mentioned to me several times, ‘Stay off the street. Don’t go outside. Don’t go in the yard. Don’t let anybody see you.’”
An article from 2001 shows Chuck and Betty Call outside the CLC.
Savage did the best she could to educate herself, getting her hands on real textbooks and reading them alone on the steps of her mom’s trailer. She kept at it, mailing in exams to advance, and at 15, earned her GED. Her hope was that she could go to community college to begin studying to become a nurse, but she was told she was too young. Instead, “My only foray into the real world was that I was allowed to be a volunteer at the hospital,” she says. “I had my crazy, dated hairstyle and then my candy-striper dress.” Her volunteer work ended, however, when she was tasked with working as an unpaid nanny and maid for Chuck and Betty’s family, and after five years, she’d had enough. At least marriage would be something new, a way out. And so, at 23, Savage wed a man more than 18 years her senior who had three sons from a previous marriage.
“I remember feeling so depressed on my honeymoon,” she says. “I wasn’t in love with him. He wasn’t in love with me.”
There was one bright spot: Savage’s new husband had attended church dinners, but he wasn’t really a member, and more, he wasn’t trapped under Chuck and Betty’s spell. So when it became clear that Betty expected Savage to take his boys out of school, that’s when Savage knew she had to leave. “I remember sitting on the floor of the trailer, terrified … But a light bulb switched in me and I was like, I can do this. I can leave the church. And so I did, and I sent the boys to school, and I was so happy and excited about it.” Savage’s mother and brother remained until a couple of years later, and “I was dirt,” says Savage. “I was on the so-called devil’s list.”
The marriage ended after six years, due in part to the age difference and also that Savage wasn’t attracted to her husband — nor, she would later realize, to any man. But the couple had a daughter together, Victoria (“Tori”), and Savage’s ex owned a tuxedo-rental business profitable enough for Savage to attend nursing school. With a degree in hand, she finally had what she needed to make it on her own.
After the divorce, she worked night shifts as a hospital nurse so her ex could look after Tori. He eventually moved away, and she took on various nursing gigs — including one at a jail — to avoid the grueling shift schedule at hospitals. But the jobs were a long slog from the small apartment she was renting in Richmond. “Finally, I said, Chelsea, you need to get your butt back to the hospital, and I sucked it up and did it. The problem was that I had a 6-year-old by that time, and I didn’t have anybody to take care of her.”
Without affordable child-care options on nights and weekends, Savage sometimes had no choice but to bring her daughter to work, having her sleep in the nurses’ lounge. “I was so emotionally spent,” says Savage. “I had one credit card that I would put on another credit card, and so on. There was this day I was driving and I envisioned me and Tori on this bus — and I just wanted to get off … And then I had this image of Tori on that bus alone, hanging on for dear life, with no one to protect her. The bottom line, I told myself, is that you can’t get off this bus. You can’t.”
So instead of getting off, she went full steam ahead. Savage enrolled in online college courses and earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy between shifts, and then went on to get a master’s in health administration and a doctorate in nursing practice. While she was in school, she also joined the Virginia Nurses Association (VNA). Her volunteer work with nurses’ organizations marked her first steps into the political sphere. It was there that she found her mentors — former VNA presidents Shirley Gibson and Becky Bowers-Lanier, who both encouraged Savage to run for office “They would say, ‘When are you going to run?’” says Savage. “I kept saying, ‘Why do you keep picking me?’ I didn’t understand.” That they asked directly matters: One key reason fewer women seek office than men is because men are more likely to be urged to run, according to a 2013 study.
Chelsea Savage today. Photo: © Dan Iott Photography
Pushed by her mentors, Savage also applied for and was granted a scholarship to the University of Virginia’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership. Then, in a fateful coincidence two years ago, she sat at the same table as board members from Emerge Virginia — part of a nationwide network that helps Democratic women run for office — at an event. “They said, ‘You need to come do Emerge with us,’ and I said okay, because if people give me an opportunity, I take it.”
Savage wanted to jump right in, but she’d only recently come out as gay, and “I was trying to get my feet on the ground,” she says. For years, she’d been pulling herself away from the lessons of her childhood, but her sexuality was one piece that came later. “I was raised not to acknowledge what I want and who I am.” After she embraced her attraction to women — and a copy of Lisa M. Diamond’s Sexual Fluidity — “Suddenly, everything clicked.”
But would a gay candidate click with voters? “The first thing I said as part of Emerge was, ‘How much of an issue is being gay, when running [for office]?’” she says. “They told me it wasn’t a liability.”
“This is a different year,” says Julie S. Copeland, the executive director of Emerge Virginia, who has worked in Virginia politics for 28 years. “There’s a change in the electorate — whether it’s sustaining or not, it’s hard to know. But I think it affords [Savage] a donor base … And I think, we are in a time even here in Virginia where that’s not a shocking thing anymore.”
The real urgency didn’t hit until November 9, when President Trump was elected and a wave of anger and disbelief pushed progressive women to act; Emerge Virginia experienced a 200 percent increase in applications the following week. Virginia has seen a surge of Democratic candidates this year, 52 of them women (11 of whom are incumbents), looking to change the 66-34 Republican majority in the House.
With thousands of women newly interested in running for office across the country, it could be a sign of things to come in 2018, when the majority of states hold elections. Savage now has her eyes set on April 29, when she will face three other Democrats in Virginia’s 73rd district — two of them women who are also involved with Emerge — looking to win the party’s nomination in a caucus. “That has never happened,” says Copeland. “It’s always been our dream scenario that we have so many women that they are running against each other.”
If Savage makes it past the caucus on Saturday, her next challenge will be continuing to fundraise. It’s one of the biggest hurdles for any candidate, especially first-timers — and for women, per Copeland. “What we find for women in general is it’s not something we are used to doing,” she says. “A lot of women feel like they are asking for money for themselves personally, and that’s a hurdle we try to get past with training.” So far, Savage has raised a little over $14,000 — and if she wins the Democratic nomination, she’ll need to raise closer to $250,000. “You’re supposed to do a hard ask: ‘Will you give my campaign $100?’” says Savage. “It’s hard. I don’t have rich friends … I just tell myself, ‘Chelsea, you know how to call somebody on the phone. You know how to knock on the door. It doesn’t matter if you’re scared.’”
Sometimes the reaction isn’t what she’s looking for: Savage says she has had numerous people tell her they are waiting to donate until after the caucus; and then there was the email she says she received from an older voter, who suggested she keep her sexual orientation private. (To which Savage says, “I love that I’m the lesbian nurse!”) But sometimes it’s better than she could have imagined, when she can tell her story and engage voters on some of her tent-pole issues, including health care, education, equal rights, and child care.
Mostly, she’s looking to connect with voters who feel underrepresented; she wants them to know she sees them, because she is one of them. And even though she’s now a homeowner and her daughter is about to graduate college, she understands what it’s like to struggle. It’s one of the reasons she’s open about her story — all of it, even the ugly bits — on the campaign trail. “Recently I had given a speech where I talked about welfare, and after a woman came up to me in tears and said, ‘I haven’t had [a candidate] talk to me before that knew about Section 8 housing,’ and I just hugged her,” says Savage. “We were hurt. We were out there — mothers trying to keep a roof over our kids’ heads. Or, we were children living with that and seeing our parents go through it … teased because of our clothes. You don’t have to live in a cult to experience that. And we were silent. We were invisible. So I had to become the person who cared.” Her mind drifts to a familiar motivator. “I am on this bus,” she says. “I’m not getting off.”When you have to save user’s password in a database you should never store them in plain text for security precautions and privacy. If we do hashing the passwords before saving them to the database we will have a safety mechanism for not revealing them to the atacker.
One of the most popular but wrong way of hashing password was using md5() function that calculates md5 hash of a string. Hashing passwords with md5 (or sha1 or even sha256) is bad because these hashes can get decrypted.
<?php // plain text password $password ='secretcode'; // hash the password with md5 $md5 = md5($password);
Common solution to preventing decryption is using the salt.
<?php // plain text password $password ='secretcode'; // add random characters - the salt $salt = 'k*jJlrsH:cY]O^Z^/J2)Pz{)qz:+yCa]^+V0S98Zf$sV[[email protected]{utg%OlODS'; // hash salt and password together $md5 = md5($salt. $password);
This is still not good enough though - Rainbow tables. Cryptography is a large field and quite complex for lot of people so leave it to the experts.
Right & Secure way of hashing passwords as of PHP 5.5
Right way of hashing passwords is currently using PHP 5.5 and its native passwords hashing API which provides an easy to use wrapper around crypt function.
Example of PHP 5.5 native password hashing API usage:
<?php // plain text password $password ='secretcode'; // The cost parameter can change over time as hardware improves $options = ['cost' => 12]; echo password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT, $options);
In password_hash function there are two types of algorithms available. PASSWORD_DEFAULT and PASSWORD_BCRYPT. Currently PASSWORD_DEFAULT is PASSWORD_BCRYPT. In future there will be different types of algorithms supported and PASSWORD_DEFAULT will get replaced with a new type of algorithm. Good advice is to always use PASSWORD_DEFAULT.
The database password's field should be varchar(255) for future proof algorithm changes.
Using your own salt might not be a very good option. Leave that to the experts as well and use above bullet proof solution without setting your own salt. Salt is randomly generated by default in password_hash function.
Another option that is important to mention is the cost which controls the hash speed. On servers with better resources cost can be increased. There is a script for calculating the cost for your environment in the PHP manual.
Verifying passwords can be done with password_verify():
<?php // this is the hash of the password in above example $hash = '$2y$12$3BZAuYlYaaz4hdxuZRsEV.D69wq.oiT18cVhqoxIsmGkd4JbCq8Ai'; if (password_verify('secretcode', $hash)) { echo 'Password is valid!'; } else { echo 'Invalid password.'; }
Regenerate hash if algorithm or cost changed
When you change the cost or hashing algorithm, hash needs to regenerated. For this purpose, password_needs_rehash() comes to the rescue, This function checks to see if the supplied hash implements the algorithm and options provided. If not, it is assumed that the hash needs to be rehashed. This comes handy in case of server hardware upgrade and therefore increasing the cost option.
<?php // Check if a newer hashing algorithm is available // or the cost has changed if (password_needs_rehash($hash, PASSWORD_DEFAULT, $options)) { // If so, create a new hash, and replace the old one $new_hash = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT, $options); }?>
Password hashing in PHP versions <5.5
In case you’re not yet using PHP 5.5 or above there is a way to secure passwords in PHP version > 5.3.7 by using for example PHP library password_compat. PHP library password_compat works exactly the same way as does the native PHP’s 5.5 password hashing API so when you upgrade to PHP 5.5 or above you will not need to refactor your code.
Resources:Qld Health dismantled in wake of fraud scandal
Updated
Premier Anna Bligh has announced that she will abolish Queensland Health and "start again" in the wake of a major fraud scandal.
Ms Bligh says the arrest this morning of Queensland Health employee Joel Barlow for allegedly embezzling $16 million from the department was the final chapter in the life of the ailing agency.
Police expect to lay charges within the next day against Mr Barlow, who was arrested outside his inner-Brisbane unit and is under guard in Royal Brisbane Hospital.
Ms Bligh says the embezzlement was a result of insufficient financial safeguards within the department.
Queensland's anti-corruption watchdog has also launched an investigation into why the department and the police failed to follow up on a complaint about Barlow last year.
It comes on top of other problems like the payroll system failures and the jailing of former surgeon Jayant Patel.
Ms Bligh says she is so fed up with the scandals she is splitting the department in two. She says the department needs "a new beginning".
"No more reviews, no more task forces or committees; Queensland Health as we know it is over," she said.
"Queenslanders can no longer tolerate the sick administrative performance of this mammoth organisation.
"For some time now the administration of Queensland Health has been suffering because the current organisation is just too big."
Restructure
Ms Bligh says of the two new entities replacing Queensland Health, one will focus on frontline services and managing the hospital system.
The second entity will be a support agency to provide corporate services like finance, human resources and information and communications technology.
Ms Bligh has commissioned Shane Solomon, the lead partner of KPMG's healthcare practice, to advise on how to split the department.
"This is not an exercise in downsizing the agency. This is an exercise in radical restructure that will put more people onto the frontline," she said.
Ms Bligh says the restructure will not result in job losses.
"There are thousands of good people in Queensland Health who work hard, who want to do a good job and who want to serve the people of this state," she said.
"They have nothing to fear. Their jobs are safe and they can look forward to stronger leadership and more satisfying jobs."
The proposal will be the largest decentralisation of a public sector agency in Queensland's history.
Panic
Deputy Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls says the plan smacks of panic and desperation.
"We've been told time and time again that Queensland Health is about to turn the corner, that things are on the up, that the Government has things under control," he said.
"Now we find that the Government, in a panic move, is now putting the wrecking ball through Queensland Health."
Mr Nicholls says Health Minister Geoff Wilson should resign.
"He is the person responsible under every concept of Westminster responsibility," he said.
"He should take responsibility for what has happened and he should be resigning. If he won't resign, Anna Bligh should sack him."
Topics: health-administration, health-policy, federal---state-issues, government-and-politics, states-and-territories, brisbane-4000, qld
First postedIt’s been more than a year since food substitute/replacement Soylent launched its 1.0 product, and manufacturer Rosa Labs hasn’t been standing still. The company has iterated on the launch formula several times, and the current "version" of Soylent—version 1.5—tastes very different and has a much-modified ingredient makeup from its predecessors.
But this morning, Soylent creator Rob Rhinehart has announced a new development: ready-to-drink Soylent. Called "Soylent 2.0," the pre-mixed product will ship in October to the US and Canada (more international shipping is coming, both for the old powder and the new liquid, but there isn't a solid timeframe). The new pre-mixed liquid will come in 400 calorie bottles, sold in packs of 12, for $29 (if you subscribe to regular Soylent deliveries). That’s about $2.41-ish per 14oz (414ml) HDPE recyclable bottle. Assuming five drinks per day to hit 2,000 calories, that works out to about $12 per day of food. The per-day cost of powdered Soylent runs about $9 per day at its cheapest price.
The 2.0 premixed form again alters the fat/carb/protein ratios of the product, going from 43/40/17 to 47/33/20. The shift results in a glycemic index of 49.2. Soylent 2.0 remains vegan, like the powder, and Rhinehart stressed to Ars that about half of the lipid calories come from algal sources, which he calls a "very efficient, very sustainable way of producing food." The powder has always contained some soy lecithin, but the liquid actually shifts from rice protein to soy for its primary protein source.
The change comes for a variety of reasons, including the water footprint of rice farming and the desire to make as many components of Soylent as sustainable as possible. Rhinehart also says that the switch to soy for protein enhances the product’s texture and taste. There are some public concerns about high consumption of soy, but Rhinehart is quick to dismiss them. "Because we’re not using whole soy, we’re just using the protein isolate…the isoflavone levels are much lower than what they would be in soy flour or tofu. There are some levels, but they’re well below any that have shown to have an effect," he explained. "There was somewhat specious research in the past on what impact soy can have on testosterone levels and those have been widely debunked. We’ve certainly done our research here and we’ll be posting our analysis on the Web as well."
Carb-wise, the drink should mostly resemble the 1.5 product; the drink incorporates isomaltulose (which Rhinehart described as being "very popular in Japan"), which keeps the drink’s glycemic index down. The product still contains "a very tiny amount" of sucralose, which Rhinehart describes as being necessary to mask the bitter taste of some of the vitamins.
Rhinehart says shipments of Soylent 2.0 will begin on October 15, and that date appears to be a firm one. Although Soylent’s launch was plagued with timeliness issues and many customers waited weeks or even months for their orders to arrive, Rhinehart assured Ars that the company’s shipping problems are far behind it. All orders are currently leaving the warehouse within two or three days, and the 2.0 liquid version will stay within that window.
Just because the premixed version carries the number "2.0" doesn’t mean that the powdered variant will be phased out. Rhinehart explained that the powdered form’s lack of water will always be cheaper to ship and will result in a cheaper cost-per-calorie (not to mention that the unmixed variant will be storable for much longer periods of time). "We’re always going to keep our powdered product around," he told us. "It’s also more flexible—a huge number of our users enjoy flavoring the product, and the powder allows for that."
As far as aligning the powder and liquid versions’ nutritional contents and version numbers, Rhinehart says that’s something that will happen eventually, but for now the two will remain a bit different. Rhinehart says he expects to release a new version of the powder later this year, but it won’t be numbered 2.0. "But the philosophies of the nutrition are of course the same: we’re seeking to provide full daily value requirements in a sustainable fashion."
In closing, we asked Rhinehart a bit about the financial performance of Soylent and Rosa Labs; the company has taken venture capital funding previously. Rhinehart said that while he isn’t prepared to talk about any of the company’s finances at this time, he is thankful for the help they’ve received from the VC community. "Today, the company is in a very strong position," he said. "With this product release and the releases we have in the future, we’re going to expand even more… the company is very strong and sustainable and we’re on a very good path."
The pre-mixed Soylent 2.0 won’t be available for sale until October, but Rhinehart has promised us an early sample to try out. As soon as it gets here, we’ll compare it to the powder and see how it shapes up.The late Andrew Breitbart saw in Ted Cruz the future of the conservative movement.
On paper, Cruz seems like someone out of central casting, perfectly put together to represent conservatism’s future. His father fled oppression in Cuba for freedom in America. He grew up immersing himself in the works of Frederick Bastiat, F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman, earning scholarships by giving speeches about their ideas. He went to Princeton and Harvard law without losing the common touch. He racked up legal victories that helped defend the Second Amendment and America’s sovereignty against the World Court.
But while Breitbart admired these things about Cruz, they were not why, after speaking with the conservative GOP Texas senate candidate (Texas’s primary is on Tuesday) at what would be his last Conservative Political Action Conference, Breitbart told close friends and associates that Cruz represented conservatism’s future.
It was because Breitbart saw in Cruz, first and foremost, a fighter who was fierce, principled, uncompromising, and relentless. These were the characteristics Breitbart first looked for and those who were a part of the “Army of Davids” had in spades.
Stephen K. Bannon, the filmmaker who was one of Breitbart’s closest friends and whose movies have captured the fierce and patriotic spirit of Jacksonian Tea Partiers, always remembered how effusively Andrew Breitbart “admired the fact that Ted Cruz was a fighter and came from a family of fighters.” Breitbart also knew, when he learned how Cruz had been “preaching the gospel of constitutional limited government since he was a teenager all across Texas,” that fighting for constitutional conservatism was in Cruz’s bones. He knew Cruz was the real deal and not a poseur.
Cruz told Breitbart News how proud he was “to call Andrew a friend” and recounted the hours they spent at the last CPAC of Breitbart’s life.
“One of my favorite pastimes is scheming to defeat leftists, so understandably I’ll always deeply appreciate the hours I spent with Andrew at CPAC this year engaging in what he did best,” Cruz told Breitbart News. “Andrew was fearless in speaking truth to power. He had the vision and mastery to use cutting-edge tools to share conversations with the world to help advance the cause of liberty.”
Other conservative leaders have also seen what Breitbart saw in Cruz. In fact, three of the fiercest conservatives are among his most enthusiastic supporters.
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, when endorsing Cruz, wrote, “Your conservative principles, passionate defense of our Constitution and our free market system come at a time when these cornerstones of our freedom and prosperity are under attack. Our shared goal isn’t just to change the majority in control of the Senate, but to assure principled conservatives like you are there to fight for us.”
Talk radio host Mark Levin, when he endorsed Cruz in 2011, said he would “fight profligate spending,” “only appoint originalists to the court,” and, most importantly, “do it without prodding.”
And Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who has almost single-handedly willed the Senate to become more conservative, came on board early. His conservative brigade in the Senate — Mike Lee (R-Utah), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — enthusiastically got on board too.
Three particular things stand out in Cruz’s background that make conservatives feel comfortable that he is a conservative before a Republican. Cruz, as Texas’s Solicitor General, “stood up against 90 nations to guarantee the right for Texas and the United States to carry out justice for a brutal murderer and rapist, without being subject to the laws of the World Court” by representing “Texas before the U.S. Supreme Court in Medellin v. Texas, which upheld U.S. sovereignty and held that the World Court cannot bind the U.S. justice system and the President cannot order the state courts to obey the World Court.”
He also, in the landmark Second Amendment case that overturned the unconstitutional ban on gun rights in Washington, D.C., led a coalition of 31 states in filing a brief. He also “sued the federal government, on behalf of Texas and four other States, to strike down portions of the Medicare Prescription Drug program as an unconstitutional intrusion in the sovereign authority of the States.”
These accomplishments are highly touted by his campaign and website — and rightfully so. To conservatives who were dismayed by domestic programs enacted by the Republican Congress — and George W. Bush — during the 2000s, Cruz directly took on Republicans and the Bush |
many years ago when the surface world froze over. Thusly, these gramophones are likely to be highly alluring to any of the underground denizens. Maxigun - Like a minigun, but more so. The long spin-up is more than worth the wait to witness this baby unleash its maelstrom of bullets!
- Like a minigun, but more so. The long spin-up is more than worth the wait to witness this baby unleash its maelstrom of bullets! Dive Bomber - A crossbow that launches paper aeroplanes. Paper aeroplanes packed with explosives that is. These little guys do a full loop before homing in on their targets and detonating to devastating effect.
- A crossbow that launches paper aeroplanes. Paper aeroplanes packed with explosives that is. These little guys do a full loop before homing in on their targets and detonating to devastating effect. Plasma Hose - Sprays out balls of energy that bounce around cause serious bodily harm.
- Sprays out balls of energy that bounce around cause serious bodily harm. Lead Enricher - By defying conventional ballistic physics, this gun allows you to pack many bullets into the chamber at once, before unleashing them in rapid succession.
- By defying conventional ballistic physics, this gun allows you to pack many bullets into the chamber at once, before unleashing them in rapid succession. Acid Squirter - Just a severed bug mandible hooked up to a battery. Oh, did I mention it squirts acid?
- Just a severed bug mandible hooked up to a battery. Oh, did I mention it squirts acid? Gnome Squad - This bizarre technology allows you to launch forth a ball of vicious gnomes; if you ever want to do that for some reason.
- This bizarre technology allows you to launch forth a ball of vicious gnomes; if you ever want to do that for some reason. And lots, lots more...
Tom’s quest will take him to many unique locales, and lead him to explore numerous fantastical environments. Tom himself hails from the fertile homeland of Under Passage, a lush world filled glowing plantlife, chirping insects and rushing waterfalls.
Far above this beautiful garden lies the frozen wastelands of the surface world, the icy cold was thought to have long since erased all life above ground, but as Tom’s quest continues, he will have to discover the truth.
With most of the world’s life forms descending deep underground (and there were plenty down there to begin with!), colonies of strange creatures have claimed the expansive caverns as their homes. There are dry and arid landscapes inhabited by roaming tribal warriors who have survived scratching a living from the red mineral-stained clay and sands.
Deeper still lies the molten world of the Tummo people; and intelligent race who have harnessed the power of the planet’s core to drive their mechanised home. Here the fires of industry and of the earth itself come together to shroud towering structures in a haze of heat and smoke.
Tom’s world is one steeped in culture and rich with life, but as Tom will soon discover, it is also a perilous place. And the looming threat of the Quakes of Ruin will place considerable strain on the peaceful ecosystem thriving amongst the soil of the earth.
The sprawling caverns below ground are home to industrial mining operations, ancient civilisations and colonies of bizarre and wonderful creatures. Many of whom take offense to Tom trespassing in their sacred territory.
Throughout his adventure Tom will encounter many varied enemies each with their own strengths, weaknesses and attacks. If Tom is to survive he will have to outmanoeuvre, outgun and outthink his way into a winning position in every enemy encounter.
We have loads of ideas for interesting enemy types and combat situations; all the way from simple plants and insects to mechanized terrors and fell beasts.
No action game is complete without multi-staged boss fights against huge, terrifying adversaries. We’d rather not spoil them all here, but we’ve got a number of epic bosses planned. Each one will introduce its own new mechanics and force Tom to be creative with his tactics and fight with extra vigour!
We are pleased to announce that the game’s music will be provided by award-winning composer Sean Beeson!
Sean's music can be heard on film, television, and across all game platforms with soundtracks recorded by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. He has scored over 85 (eighty five!) games, including Epic Mickey 2: Power of Illusion, Pocket RPG (Theme), Ravensword: Shadowlands, Aiko Islands, Mecho Wars, Skyward Slots, and the upcoming Aralon RPG, to name a few.
You can listen to the tracks we used in the demo here:
You can listen to more of Sean's music at his web site: http://seanbeeson.com
We chose to Kickstart this project as we feel the game deserves all the love and attention it can get to see it to a proper completion. We have big plans for Tom Sparks and we have already put several months of work into the project. Grab the demo and imagine what else we could do with the funding and development time in place!
What is the money for?
We’ve asked for the minimum amount of money we think we can survive on in order to complete Tom to the level of quality that we expect at Tasty Poison Games. All of the funding raised here will go towards development of the game. Any additional funding will go towards making the game bigger, longer and better. We’d love to be able realise our full vision for Tom and produce as many weapons, enemies and interesting areas as possible.
Tasty Poison Games is a small indie studio based on the southern most tip of Africa. We are just a handful of people from different backgrounds who share the same passion and vision. We love making games!
When we can’t afford to make our own games, we make games for clients and always pride ourselves on delivering a fun experience and high production quality. We really love our work and we're extremely thankful that we can actually (sometimes) make a living doing it. Making games is the best job in the world and Cape Town is the most amazing place to do it!
We are:
We also have the assistance of a great publisher on our side to help us with feedback, testing, and multi-platform releases. Crescent Moon Games has helped us out before with Neon Shadow, Dig!, and Pocket RPG. Josh Presseisen (the head of Crescent Moon) helped make the demo possible and is very excited to be part of this project!NewsAlert
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Russia determines causes of back-to-back launch failures
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: August 30, 2011
Investigators have identified the causes of consecutive launch mishaps with the Proton and Soyuz rockets, clearing a major hurdle in preparing to return the workhorse launch vehicles to flight.
File photo of a Soyuz rocket rolling to the launch pad. Credit: Energia
In an announcement Monday, the Russian space agency said the investigation into the Soyuz launch failure Aug. 24 was focusing on a malfunction in the rocket's third stage gas generator. The launch was carrying an automated Progress cargo ship to the International Space Station, and debris from the mission crashed in the Altai region of southern Russia. "Off-nominal performance of [Soyuz third stage] propulsion system was found by the board to be due to the gas generator whose operating conditions were disrupted," the Russian announcement said. The Soyuz investigation has not formally issued its findings or recommended corrective actions. A launch schedule for the next manned flight to the International Space Station will not be decided until the commission completes its work. The inquiry into the Aug. 17 launch mishap of a Proton rocket and Breeze M upper stage has concluded a programming error doomed that flight, the space agency said in a separate statement released Tuesday. The launch failures left Russia's two largest rockets grounded, but the Russian space agency -- also known as Roscosmos -- said Tuesday it was lifting the suspension on processing for upcoming Proton and Breeze M flights. The commission established to look into the Proton mishap said that during programming of the Breeze M upper stage's guidance system, the "time interval to manipulate the gyro platform into position was made unduly short," according to Roscosmos. "This resulted in an off-nominal orientation of the Breeze M and, as the consequence, in injecting the [spacecraft] into an off-design orbit," Roscosmos said, noting all other Breeze M upper stage systems worked normally.
File photo of a Proton rocket being lifted on top of the launch pad. Credit: Khrunichev
The Proton/Breeze M was launching the Express AM4 communications satellite for the Russian Satellite Communications Co., a state-owned spacecraft operator that serves Russia and neighboring countries. The satellite was deployed in a lower-than-planned orbit and ground controllers have been unable to contact it. "The ban on Proton/Breeze M ground processing has been lifted, and appropriate recommendations have been prepared, to be implemented prior to the upcoming launches," Roscosmos said. Roscosmos and Khrunichev, the prime contractor for the Proton and Breeze M vehicles, will soon set the Proton launch schedule for the rest of the year, the statement said. A Russian military communications satellite, the ViaSat 1 and QuetzSat 1 telecommunications spacecraft, and a trio of Glonass navigation satellites were next on the Proton rocket's launch manifest before tha Aug. 17 anomaly. International Launch Services, a U.S.-based, Russian-owned marketing and sales firm, arranges commercial Proton flights for satellite operators around the world. The ViaSat 1 and QuetzSat 1 missions are managed by International Launch Services.Lawyers for the federation said the name was similar to those of other products, like Coke, Kleenex, Q-Tip and Scrabble, whose makers had fought off others' infringement. But Universal argued that unlike those other names, Pogs had been named not by the maker but instead by children at play.
Alan Rypinski, president of the World Pog Federation, expressed pleasure with the agreement, adding: "I'm ready to move onward and upward. Business is rompin' and stompin'. "
Indeed, marketers say, the game -- and the name -- have taken hold not only in California but also in Texas and Florida and are catching on just about everywhere else.
A packet of caps costs a quarter and up, while collectibles can run as high as several dollars.
World Pog just took an order from Wal-Mart that will put World Pog disks in department stores in even the most remote American markets, Mr. Rypinski said.
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He also said that World Pog would ship nearly $10 million worth of goods to Canada before year's end and that business was approaching $1 million a month in Israel. In addition, he said, the company is doing well in Australia and recently closed a deal in England.
The agreement puts World Pog in a good position going into the Christmas season. That is when the game took a firm hold in California last year, Mr. Rypinski said.
"It's something that has children enjoying each other's company instead of the antisocial games played with computers that kids have played for the past 10 years," he said. "There's interaction in the family and in the neighborhood. We're very excited about that. It is clearly an international phenomenon."
Robert B. Rosenstein, a lawyer for Universal Slammers, agreed. Choosing his terms carefully in light of the agreement, he said: "The milk cap industry is probably a minimum $100-million-a-year industry currently, and it could go up $500 million within the next year. That's mom and pop, everybody out there."
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That kind of popularity is quite a jump for Peter Baldwin, owner of Haleakala Dairy on Maui, where the game is long passe.
"I used to play milk caps when I was a kid in grammar school," he said. "We would save them at lunch and play after school."
That was in the 1940's, he said, "And it was not a new game then."
The dairy and juice maker Orchards Hawaii kept making the caps for children even though the company quit putting milk and juice in bottles years ago, Mr. Baldwin said."LET’S GO TO THE CUP, BABY!"
(Photo by Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Image)
The Vancouver Canucks are going to the Stanley Cup Final! It was amazing when Jim Robson said it 17 years ago, and it was just as amazing when Jim Hughson echoed that at the end of the Canucks’ Game 5 series-clinching victory.
Now, the final battle in this post-season war awaits them.
While the Vancouver Canucks won this series with some stellar performances by the Sedins and Roberto Luongo, the first question that must be asked is "What happened to the Sharks’ forwards?". You can count on one hand, with fingers left over, the number of Sharks forwards who made a noticeable appearance in this series. Joe Thornton was a beast, playing the final game with a separated shoulder and did all he could to drag his under-performing offensive teammates with him. Thornton has proven that he is a playoff performer. Whatever previous labels may have been attached to him can be replaced with "Warrior". Patrick Marleau was very good for the first four games and was the Sharks’ best two-way forward apart from Thornton. Logan Couture and Devin Setoguchi both had fleeting spells of brilliance, but were largely unheard. Ryane Clowe was clearly still hurt and was mostly ineffective. Joe Pavelski must have been hurt as well, because he was nowhere to be found until the final game. Dany Heatley was totally absent from this series until Game 5, and even then he was held off the scoresheet. The same can be said for Kyle Wellwood and Torrey Mitchell, Heatley’s linemates in Game 5. Of the Sharks’ top 9 forwards, I can say that two of them (Thornton and Marleau) played really well for at least 4 games. That’s just not going to win you a series, especially against the #1 team in the league.
As for the Canucks, they got everything they needed and more out of the Sedins. Henrik and Daniel were pure magic against the Sharks. Along with Alex Burrows, the Canucks top line was utterly dominant against a Sharks defense that simply had no answer for them. Henrik racked up 12 points in these 5 games, setting a Canucks franchise record for points in a playoff series. While they were largely held off the board, Ryan Kesler and his linemates, Chris Higgins and Mason Raymond, were decent but not outstanding. The Canucks third line made a huge difference in setting the tone for this series early on, and their dominance in the first two games was one of the biggest factors in Vancouver’s series lead. Lapierre, Torres and Hansen played smart, tough, and fast, generating offensive zone turnovers and gobbling up huge minutes, keeping the puck 200 feet away from their own goaltender. They had problems getting things going in Games 3 and 4, but they can thank the nonsensical officiating for killing any flow in either of those games, and keeping both teams on special teams for half the game. As for the fourth line, they saw very little ice in this series. While Hodgson and Oreskovich were okay in their limited time, Tanner Glass was not. He took penalties, didn’t hit and was completely ineffective. In his one game in the series, Jeff Tambellini was quietly effective, but coach Vigneault made a reactionary move after Game 2, after Ben Eager decided to run around and act like an idiot. However, Eager didn’t play again after that so putting Glass back in the lineup seemed like a mistake. Looking back now on that is probably nitpicking but as the Canucks move on, the conversation will come up again.
The Canucks defense in this series as a whole was fantastic from top to bottom. Not only did they stymie much of the Sharks best players, but they chipped in with timely, important goals. And no one exemplified that more than Kevin Bieksa. Bieksa was an animal throughout the series on both sides of the ice and was rewarded with the most fortuitous bounce of his career to score the series-winning goal. But the Canucks success on the blue line in this series goes well beyond just Bieksa. The Canucks D scored 8 goals in 5 games, at least 1 goal from the defense in each game, including 4 from Bieksa… and one from AARON ROME. Yeah, so when Aaron Rome is scoring a goal, you know things are going well. And things for the defense were going very well, in spite of losing both Rome and Christian Ehrhoff in Game 3 to injuries. Insert much maligned Keith Ballard and rookie Chris Tanev, who played together as the third tandem in games 4 and 5. Both played fantastically in Game 4, jumping into the roster right away. Ballard was playing really well in Game 5 until he had a big brain cramp that led to the Sharks first goal, and seemed a bit shaky for the rest of regulation. He picked his game up again when OT started.
And then there’s Roberto Luongo. Once again underappreciate. Once again needlessly maligned. Once again quietly solid and got better as every game passed. I know folks are going to look at the second San Jose goal in Game 5 and think that Lu made a massive error. No, Alex Edler made a huge mistake and Lu gambled in trying to get the puck. That’s all. If Tim Thomas had made that move, people would simply shrug it off as "Timmy being Timmy". But you know what Lu did? He shrugged it off and turned in a 54 save effort through four-and-a-half periods in Game 5 and was the game’s first star. Oh, and he had a.931 save percentage and a 2.49 GAA in this series. Oh, and in the final, series-clinching game, Luongo put up a 1.34 GAA and.964 Sv%. The game was on the line, and Luongo played one of his best games of these playoffs. He IS a big game goalie. Enough said.
The difference in this series was that the best players for the Canucks were much, much better than the best players for the Sharks. The Canucks top line was amazing. Their top 2 defensive pairing was almost perfect on both sides of the ice. And the Canucks goaltending was far superior to the Sharks goaltending.
The GOOD and the BAD
What was GOOD in this series:
The Sedins and Alex Burrows.
Kevin Fkn Bieksa.
The offense from the Canucks defense.
The Canucks third line.
The Canucks power play.
The Canucks penalty kill after the first period in Game 3.
Roberto Luongo.
What was BAD in this series:
The Sharks defense other than Boyle and Murray.
The officiating.
The Sharks power play after the first period in Game 3.
The Sharks in any third period.
The series-clinching goal (I loved it because the Canucks won, but MAN was that a weird one).
The Canucks will now have 7 full days off before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final begins. That is plenty of time for some bruised and battered bodies to heal. Kesler looked like he had been shot in the leg in Game 5, but returned to play regardless. Bieksa took a knock in Game 5 as well, so he’s probably still smarting. Chris Higgins is likely still fighting a bruised foot. Aaron Rome and Christian Ehrhoff can definitely use this time to get healthy. And most importantly, it gives them fewer games to play and less chances to suffer more injuries. Just look at what it did for the Canucks having 6 days off between Nashville and San Jose. With a healthy Kesler, Bieksa, Ehrhoff and others along with the Sedins, Burrows, Hamhuis and Luongo rolling like they are, Canucks fans should be chomping at the bit to start watching the most important hockey of the last 17 years.Story highlights A GOP lawmaker has said the waivers wrongly "circumvent" Congress
Obama says the waivers "combine greater freedom with greater accountability"
The 10 states will not have to meet 2014 targets set by the law, signed in 2001
The states have agreed to raise standards and undertake reforms
Ten states are being granted waivers to free them from some requirements of the No Child Left Behind education reform law, with President Barack Obama explaining Thursday that the move aims to "combine greater freedom with greater accountability."
Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Tennessee are the first of what could be many more states that will no longer have to meet 2014 targets set by the law.
In exchange for that flexibility, those states "have agreed to raise standards, improve accountability, and undertake essential reforms to improve teacher effectiveness," the White House said in a statement Thursday morning.
Obama elaborated on the rationale for the decision later in the day, speaking at a White House event attended by teachers and school superintendents.
He stressed that his administration remains committed to the overarching goals of raising standards and closing the achievement gap in the nation's public schools. At the same time, "We determined we need a different approach" than what was prescribed by the landmark legislation.
"We've offered every state the same deal: We've said, if you're willing to set higher, more honest standards then we're going to give you the flexibility to meet those standards," Obama said.
Each of those states granted waivers Thursday offered different approaches. Massachusetts, for instance, set a goal to slash its number of underperfoming students by half within six years; Colorado is setting up a comprehensive online database of assessment measures, among other steps; and New Jersey is developing an "early warning" system in an effort to prevent students from dropping out of school.
New Mexico also requested such flexibility from the No Child Left Behind law, and the Obama administration is working closely with that state. Another 28 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia also have indicated plans to seek such flexibility, according to the White House.
"This is good news for our kids, it's good news for our country," the president said of the waivers, adding that one approach may work well in one part of the country while another may better suit another place. "If we're serious about seeing our children reach their full potential, the best ideas aren't just going to come from here in Washington."
John Kline, R-Minnesota, and Duncan Hunter, R-California, sent a joint letter last summer to Education Secretary Arne Duncan calling the then prospect of allowing waivers a "cause for concern."
"Issuing new demands in exchange for relief could result in greater regulations and confusion for schools and less transparency for parents," the two House Education and the Workforce Committee members wrote. "Additionally, the proposal raises questions about the department's legal authority to grant constitutional waivers in exchange for reforms not authorized by Congress."
And last month, Kline again criticized Obama for having "the audacity to circumvent the people's elected representatives by granting No Child Left Behind waivers with special strings attached," according to a press release from his office.
Still, the decision was cheered by leaders from several states -- many of them led by Republican governors -- who successfully obtained waivers, as well as the country's largest teacher's union.
Florida Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson, for instance, said the change was needed, because having federal accountability measures "overlaying" state ones was "confusing."
Georgia State School Superintendent John Barge described the waiver for his state as "wonderful news for Georgia's students, educators and parents. No longer will we be bound by the narrow definitions of success found in No Child Left Behind."
And Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who was President George W. Bush's director of the Office of Management and Budget when the law was passed, described No Child Left Behind as "an important step forward, but it needed additional flexibility that Congress hasn't yet provided."
"The waiver will make for a fairer system and one that focuses on what matters most: getting the whole system to perform better in terms of student learning," he said in a statement.
The president of the National Education Association, which represents 3.2 million teachers and administrators and has endorsed Obama's re-election bid, lauded those states granted waivers who "have committed to working with teachers, parents and other community stakeholders to implement changes designed to better support students."
At the same time, union President Dennis Van Roekel described the waivers as a temporary move as he pushed for passage of more "comprehensive" reform.
Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law in 2001. One of the bipartisan bill's sponsors was the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts. The law included a focus on measuring student outcomes, largely based on standardized test results.
Some supporters say it has helped close an achievement gap between disadvantaged students and others.
But the law is a source of controversy, with opponents arguing it is turning classrooms into test preparation centers, taking time away from subjects that aren't tested, and potentially contributing to cheating scandals.
Secretary Duncan says the law drives down standards, weakens accountability, causes narrowing of the curriculum and labels too many schools as failing, the White House said in its news release. "Moreover, the law mandates unworkable remedies at the federal level instead of allowing local educators to make spending decisions," it said.
The law has been in need of reauthorization since 2007, and the president has been critical of the lack of congressional action on the matter in recent years.
Last September, the Obama administration announced that states could apply for waivers from some provisions of the law if they meet other federal mandates.
To get the waivers, states had to adopt and have a plan to implement "college and career-ready standards," the White House said. "They must also create comprehensive systems of teacher and principal development, evaluation and support that include factors beyond test scores, such as principal observation, peer review, student work, or parent and student feedback."
Based on standards set by the existing law, more schools were listed as failing last year than in any previous year since the law's passage. About 48% of schools did not make what's called "adequate yearly progress" in 2011, up from 39% in 2010, according to the nonprofit Center on Education Policy.
In his remarks Thursday, Obama expressed confidence that the academic performance of the nation's students would improve using a more flexible approach -- though he also emphasized that any change won't be instantaneous.
"This is not a one-year project, this isn't a two-year project," he said. "This is going to take some time, but we can get it done."If I find out someone doesn’t like Randy Moss and Allen Iverson, it’s a pretty clear sign we could never be real friends. The inverse works, too. If I find out someone remembers either one of them the way I do, suddenly we’re speaking the same language. I know I can trust this person.
Moss and Iverson left their mark for a lot of reasons, but for me it was pretty simple. They both hit the mainstream just as I turned 10 and 11 years old. Sports will never be as cool as they are when you are 10 or 11. Whatever athletes are dominating then will stick with you for your entire life. Some people grew up with Bird and Magic and the ’80s Niners, and others grew up with MJ and the ’90s Cowboys, but when I was growing up, Iverson was taking over the NBA one crossover at a time and Moss was gliding through helpless secondaries in the NFL.
I mention all of this because ESPN is airing a 30 for 30 on Randy Moss tonight — Rand University, 8 p.m. ET — and that’s as good an excuse as any to remember an athlete I’ll be rambling about for decades.
So, where to begin?
We could start with Dukes of Hazzard, Jason Williams, and the best Nike commercial ever (non-Jordan division).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqYz-KJS1J4&
Or that play against Army when Moss went supernova on the screen.
Or the only Heisman ceremony that’s ever really mattered.
But let’s start with the 1998 draft. Moss won the Biletnikoff his sophomore year in college, ran a 4.3 40 at 6-foot-4, and was a Heisman Trophy finalist. In a vacuum he would’ve been a top-five pick. Because of arrests that had previously cost him scholarships at Notre Dame and Florida State (he landed at Marshall), there were questions about Moss that made all of this more complicated. Jerry Jones and the Cowboys hinted they would take Moss eighth, if he made it that far, but the Cowboys passed, and most other teams did the same. Moss fell all the way to the Vikings at no. 21.
“My whole goal is to come in and do whatever I can to wreck this whole league,” he said at the time.
That’s pretty much exactly what happened. His rookie year alone deserves its own documentary. That one Monday-night game in Green Bay deserves its own documentary. Just listen to the announcers:
“Randall … Going deep again … ADJUSTING IS MOSS. And then RANDY MOSS squeezes his way in for the touchdown.”
“It is unbelievable. He just throws it up … and these guys catch the football. I … This is like a circus out here with these guys.”
“Randy Moss is the best young receiver that I have seen, maybe ever.”
This was back when Monday Night Football was still the biggest event of any NFL weekend, so in his fifth game ever, destroying Brett Favre and the Packers on national TV made his arrival official. He finished with 190 yards and two touchdowns that night in Green Bay, and I vividly remember watching it all in my dad’s living room.
Randy Moss was the type of player that dads didn’t like rooting for. That made it all the more fun. His reputation made a lot of people angry, or at least concerned. Then he went out and played so well that they couldn’t say a goddamn word.
Later in the 1998 season, he went to Dallas for revenge on the Cowboys. He had three catches for 163 yards and three touchdowns. I was a Cowboys fan, but I couldn’t be mad. Some players are so good that rooting against them is pointless. Moss was in that category immediately.
It continued all season. He finished with 1,300 yards and 17 touchdowns for a 15-1 Vikings team. He added two more touchdowns in Minnesota’s two playoff games, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Vikings from losing in one of the biggest playoff upsets of all time. Instead of a dream Super Bowl with the Vikings and a 14-2 Denver team, the Falcons shocked Minnesota, and we got stuck with a Eugene Robinson sex scandal and a blowout Broncos win.
It still makes me mad, 15 years later. A Super Bowl run for the Vikings would have been the perfect ending to the most amazing season I’ve ever seen from a football player.
In the following seasons, Randall Cunningham turned into Daunte Culpepper, Robert Smith retired, and Cris Carter followed a few years after that. There wasn’t as much winning, but just as much Moss being completely ridiculous. Eventually things went bad in Minnesota, partly because of Moss. He would openly admit to taking plays off, he squirted a ref with a Gatorade bottle, he got involved in an altercation with a traffic cop, he mooned the Lambeau Field crowd and nearly gave Joe Buck a seizure. That’s when he got fined and promised to pay in “straight cash, homey,” pissing off the dads of America a little more.
This was the behavior they had been worried about. They predicted it all along.
Eventually, the controversies got Moss sent to Oakland. Football purgatory. In 2006, he had just 42 catches and three touchdowns. The Raiders were 2-14, and offensive coordinator Tom Walsh said after that season, “Randy Moss is a player whose skills are diminishing, and he’s in denial of those eroding skills. Randy was a great receiver, but he lacked the work ethic and the desire to cultivate any skills that would compensate for what he was losing physically later in his career.”
Then came the Patriots.
Moss caught nine passes for 183 yards and a touchdown in his 2007 Patriots debut, and just like that, the whole world forgot Oakland ever happened.
New England was just as amazing as Minnesota. Moss was older then, and he’d always been skinny, but with the Patriots he looked like a stick figure. He moved like one, too, wobbling out on the field with his giraffe legs. Then the game would start and he would wobble past everyone, catch just about anything thrown from Tom Brady, and help the Patriots look unstoppable.
He had 23 touchdowns in 2007. Watching Brady and Moss together was like watching two athletes who had been waiting their whole careers to play with someone that amazing. Moss brought out a side of Brady nobody knew existed, and Brady brought out a side of Moss everyone assumed was gone. It was all turning into the perfect ending he never got in 1998.
The Patriots went 16-0, Bill Belichick and Brady gushed over what a great teammate Moss was, and anyone who’d ever doubted him was silenced all over again. The Super Bowl was the only thing missing.
Then … the helmet catch. The biggest Super Bowl upset ever. Plaxico Burress’s game-winning touchdown, while Moss and Brady watched.
No perfect ending.
Things got more complicated the next few years. Brady got hurt and missed the entire next season. Moss played well with Matt Cassel, but the Patriots became the second 11-5 team in NFL history to miss the playoffs. After one more solid season with Brady, Moss wanted to get paid. He started complaining openly, and almost immediately, Belichick pulled the plug on the Moss experiment and sent him back to Minnesota.
If it were any other team, it might have been sad. But the Patriots had been screwing with him, and putting him back on the Vikings felt right. He had nothing left to prove after New England. In 2010, the Vikings were fresh off an NFC Championship Game run with Brett Favre, Percy Harvin, and Adrian Peterson. Adding Moss could put it all over the top. They were struggling at the time, and Moss would inject life into their season. This is how Moss was supposed to end his career.
Brad Childress cut him after four games.
Maybe it was because of an incident with a team caterer, or because of an angry postgame press conference, or because Childress was an idiot. Probably a mix of all three.
“Look at the tape. Look at the coverages,” a team source vented after the news. “Look at what he does for everybody else. Percy [Harvin] is running free all over the field right now. The running game is moving along. I don’t even care about the fact that he’s smarter than everybody on the coaching staff. He’s a game-changer. Make it work.”
It didn’t work. Instead of saving the Vikings, Moss wound up signing with the Titans and disappearing for the rest of 2010. He came back to play with the 49ers in 2012, and he made it to a Super Bowl that came down to the final play, but … you know.
Al Pereira/Getty Images
There’s a moment near the beginning of Rand University when a reporter is describing high school Moss. “Now, it’s a kind of terminology,” he says. “A lot of people call an athlete a ‘freak.’ Well, he was the first one.”
He’s also probably the last one. At least for a long time.
Every few years, there’s a new receiver who can do everything. Big, fast, and immediately compared to Randy Moss. Sometimes this looks ridiculous in hindsight (Charles Rogers, Roy Williams, Braylon Edwards), and sometimes it almost works (Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, A.J. Green, Dez Bryant). They all have their moments, but none of them had moments like Moss did. At his best, he could demoralize entire teams.
There may have been better players than Moss, but nobody ever made football look easier. He could run through defenses designed to break him in half, and run 10 yards past coverage designed to keep him from going over the top. He was faster than anyone in the league, but he never looked like he was going full speed. He could catch anything, outjump anyone, and when he was pissed, he played better.
All of that is why my inner 11-year-old wanted the perfect ending for him until I was about 25. A Super Bowl to quiet all the critics, going out as a hero in Minnesota, etc. He deserved all of it.
As I’ve gotten older, the games he lost matter less to me. I’m pretty sure I love Randy Moss as much for who he’s turned into off the field as what he did on it. These days, he’s as obsessed with fishing as he ever was with football, maybe more. Earlier this summer, he filmed a football preview on the water called “Straight Bass Homie.” He coached his son’s high school team over the summer, and he’s on Fox Sports every week. Oh, and there are also his uStream appearances, the remnants of which will hopefully live forever and be played on a loop in Canton.
For guys who spend most of their professional life pissing people off, this is not how it’s supposed to end. You could be talking about Gilbert Arenas, or Terrell Owens, or Lawrence Taylor, or countless other athletes who lived by their own rules. It almost always ends badly.
The best example is Iverson, the guy who used to get lectured right alongside Moss. His talent ran out, and almost overnight, so did the NBA’s patience. Now he’s out of basketball, going broke, battling alcohol issues, and generally making everyone sad. It doesn’t change how I remember Iverson then, but stories like that help me appreciate Moss now.
He’s still funny, he’s got |
those who dare to demonstrate intellect. Clever women remain 'ugly' almost by definition, while attractive women are often stereotyped as'stupid'. As women are still predominantly valued when beautiful – just compare the women on TV and in film to their male counterparts if you doubt this - those who aim to enter the public sphere solely on intellectual grounds face marginalisation.
The treatment of clever women made headlines in 2011 when classicist Mary Beard received misogynist abuse after an appearance on Question Time, with a denigrating webpage about her hosting comments like “ignorant cunt” and “a vile, spiteful excuse for a woman”. In a characteristically badass response she suggested that the page be counter-trolled with floods of Latin poetry. But it wasn't an isolated incident. Bomb threats made this year against prominent women, including the journalists Hadley Freeman and Grace Dent, showed this is a culture that fights against women's right to intellectual territory.
Why should anyone care about public intellectuals? It's not the kind of career you can get an internship for – not even an unpaid one – bound up as it is in class, race and gender privilege. And I'm not a fan of the strand of thought which identifies “feminism” with getting more white women into boardrooms. Despite an abundance of talent, clever people who are not middle-class white men are allowed limited scope to flourish, a few Audre Lordes and Stuart Halls notwithstanding. Social media's democratising tendencies aside, it's still true that if you write for a national paper, for example, many more people will read your work than if you write a personal blog. As research shows, this means mainstream society's most influential voices are still of the maler, paler ilk.
But our public intellectuals should be celebrated despite the elitism associated with them, simply because their ideas are vital. A quick walk around the libraries of British universities will reveal all-too-many academics who only write books for other academics, whose books countering the original books will only be read by the first lot of academics. I'm pretty sure nobody has ever actually understood David Lewis's On the plurality of worlds - god knows I tried - but it's clear that it wasn't written for anybody who isn't a logic lecturer (although maybe in another possible world it becomes a bestseller? No, I still don't get it).
Public intellectuals bring this stuff out of the ivory tower and into mainstream consciousness in an intelligible form. They are one of the many groups of people who think up new ways to live, the people who use theory to challenge the status quo. We need them.
And the unrepentent intellectuals who are also women are additionally important, particularly those who are non-white, non-straight, or disabled. In refusing to cater to stereotypes about what women are allowed to be, in failing to be subdued by the abuse, pressurizing and denigration thrown at women who step outside of acceptable female deference, they mark out a wider territory for woman and girls as a whole.
Young girls need to be able to turn on the telly, or open the newspaper, and see adult women speaking as experts on politics, philosophy, science, art, or any other important topic. What's more, young girls need to see they don't have to downplay their own intelligence: it's OK for them to be clever too.There are rumors floating around of a possible National Football League lockout that could possibly come as soon as the 2011 season. While having a talk with players DeMaurice Smith, NFL Players Association executive director said a lockout is very likely.
“On a scale of 1 to 10, it’s a 14,” Smith said on ESPN.
However NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says otherwise.
“You don’t make money by shutting down your business,” Goodell said on Sirius NFL Radio.
The NFL has a salary cap. This means teams have to pay at least $86.4 million in salaries and could give out as much as $116.2 million to players. Most of the money for player’s salaries comes from national TV contracts. There is no cap on coaching, scouting and other staff.
It was thought that the league would have a new deal by the end of July.
But that didn’t happen.
The length of a contract and money are the two main factors behind the delay in reaching a new agreement. The NFL prefers a short-term agreement of two years, for the 2009 and 2010 seasons.
The NFL’s collective bargaining deal with the players also ends this year and there is no salary cap. Yet a national TV deal has been reportedly made.
The difference between high revenue and low revenue teams is the result of local radio contracts and local sponsorship dollars.
Teams that are more popular and successful tend to charge more for tickets but smaller market teams make less sales but still make revenue sharing on tickets sold.
For example, economically, Detroit may be in for a horrible football season especially due to a very high unemployment rate there and the potential of General Motors going bankrupt.
Goodell has taken a 20 percent pay cut and the league has laid-off 169 employees due to the recent economic recession. The NFL put out a recent statement saying, “It will continue to take collective sacrifice to get through this challenging economic environment, but these and other steps by our office and clubs will enable us to be more efficient and better positioned for future growth.”
Some players are preparing for what’s to come. Many are being urged to save 25 percent of their salaries.
“We’ve told them, ‘don’t go out and buy a new boat. Don’t go out and buy a new car. Pay off whatever debts you have,'” said Indianapolis Colts center and player rep to ESPN.
“These are things we’ve been learning from history,” he said.
Photo: At left, NFL Commissiner Roger Goodell shown at Sun Life Stadium in Miami. At right, DeMaurice Smith, Executive Director of the NFL Players Association, speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. (AP Photo/File)Worst. Sister. Ever.
Okay, before you say anything I did get Steve a birthday gift. It was just really late... also not nearly as awesome as the stuff he gets me.... shut up.
The inspiration for this comic did not actually come from Steve's birthday, but my mom's birthday. As it would happen, my mom's birthday is 3 days before mine so around the 26th of November I say "Oh hey, my birthday is in a week =D.......... OH FUCK, mom's birthday is in four days!!" D: *runs out to buy a gift*
I thought it would be funny if I somehow managed to forget my mothers birthday even though it's so close to mine, but I thought it was even funnier to pretend I forgot Steve's birthday... cuz I'm cruel like that.Labour leader Andrew Little has been cleared of defaming Lani Hagaman, but could yet face another trial over comments about her husband Earl.
The jury, in the Wellington High Court, ruled that Little had made comments defamatory of Earl Hagaman in one case, but could not reach a decision on whether he was covered by qualified privilege.
After more than 13 hours of deliberations across two days, the nine men and three women found by a majority verdict that Little had not defamed Lani Hagaman in any of the six statements he made about a Niue hotel deal.
KEVIN STENT/FAIRFAX NZ Labour leader Andrew Little takes the stand at the High Court in his defamation trial.
It ruled one of Little's six statements had been defamatory of Earl Hagaman. However, because it could not reach a decision on whether the defence of qualified privilege applied to Little – in essence, whether he had abused his public duty to provide comment as leader of the Opposition – they did not get to the point of deciding on any damages.
READ MORE: Jury retires in Andrew Little defamation trial
The jurors ruled one of Little's statements was not defamatory of Earl Hagaman, and could not reach a majority verdict on the four remaining statements.
NZN VIDEO Lani Hagaman speaking outside Wellington High Court after Labour leader Andrew Little was partly cleared of defamation.
The Hagamans were seeking $2.3 million in damages for comments Little made about a $101,000 donation they made to the National Party during the 2014 election, and a contract their Scenic Hotel Group won a month later to manage the Matavai resort in Niue, which receives government funding.
The verdict came after the jury indicated it could not reach a unanimous verdict, and was instructed to reach a majority decision if possible.
After discussions across Friday and Monday, the jury foreperson said the 12 members could not reach agreement on the first question of a four-step process in whether Little defamed Scenic Hotel Group founder Earl Hagaman or his wife Lani.
CAMERON BURNELL/ FAIRFAX NZ Lani Hagaman speaking outside court, after the jury's decision.
However, the foreperson said the jury believed it could reach a majority verdict - where at least nine people agree - for some of the allegedly defamatory statements, as is allowed in civil cases.
Justice Karen Clark instructed the jury to carry deliberating on the instances where they could reach a majority verdict until such a point as they were no longer able to agree by a majority.
Delivering her summing up to the jury at the High Court earlier on Friday, Clark said they should not be swayed by any prejudice against, or sympathy for, Little or the Hagamans, and their political views should not be a factor.
It was important that the jury "not get carried away" in terms of any potential damages, while they should avoid "doubling up" with general damages and exemplary damages.There's new information in the controversy surrounding a pre-game gift exchange between Atascocita High School and Summer Creek High School's Good Sportsmanship Leagues.We've learned that not all of the Atascocita students who were on the field for the exchange Friday night will face discipline.We were first to report that several students faced possible suspension after being accused of racial insensitivity when they gave a watermelon as part of the gift.The entire letter from Humble ISD officials to parents is below:October 21, 2015Dear Atascocita High School Parents,Humble ISD and Atascocita High School have conducted a thorough review of what occurred Friday, Oct. 16, during the gift exchange between Atascocita High School and Summer Creek High School. The purpose of this letter is to provide facts, clear up misperceptions, and inform you of steps being taken to promote good relations among all students.It is a tradition for student representatives of competing schools to exchange gifts on the field at varsity football games. Typically, these gifts contain snacks such as crackers, candy and popcorn that can be readily shared among students and eaten during the game. The gift from AHS students to SCHS students included canned pineapple, a whole coconut, a small watermelon and assorted candy. When it was presented to SCHS, an AHS student announced that the gift was watermelon. The SCHS students left the field confused by the nature of the exchange. A SCHS sponsor raised concerns by notifying an AHS sponsor. At that time, the AHS sponsor notified AHS Administration.The investigation has now determined:Only a portion of AHS students on the field were aware of the gift's contents. Some were on the field simply because they had been asked to stand there. Those students will not face discipline.Before the gift was presented that evening, a few AHS students discussed that the watermelon could be perceived as racially offensive and should not be included in the gift.As a result of the investigation, consequences will be applied based upon students' level of involvement and in compliance with the Student Code of Conduct.Going-forward:All gifts to be presented during Good Sportsmanship League exchanges will be supervised by an adult.Student Council leaders from Atascocita High School and Summer Creek High School will be brought together within the next few weeks to discuss what we have learned from this situation and how to move forward to positively impact the culture and climate on their campuses and among schools.As teachers and parents, we work to teach young people that their words and actions can make a positive difference. Working together, we build a stronger, united community.Sincerely,Trey KraemerAssistant Superintendent - High SchoolsAmherst College, which is in the midst of one of the most egregious sexual assault lawsuits I've ever seen, is now defending itself against a lawsuit by claiming it can't be expected to find key evidence.
I've written about this case previously, and though it seems like an article from The Onion, it's real. A male student was blacked out (as in, a blackout state, not passed out) and received oral sex from a female student, who happened to be his girlfriend's roommate. The ordeal cost the female student her friends, and 18 months later (and after befriending some victims' advocates) she accused the male student of sexual assault.
So, to briefly recap: A male student is blacked out, receives a sex act, and is then accused of sexual assault.
The male student was expelled by a campus process where he lacked basic due process rights. After being expelled, he got a lawyer, who discovered text messages from the accuser immediately following the alleged attack. Needless to say, the texts do not support her story.
Her first text was to a boy she had a crush on and with whom she had been flirting earlier in the night. She invited him over for sex, right after she had allegedly just been sexually assaulted. She also texted a female friend, writing: "Ohmygod I jus did something so f--kig stupid" [sic throughout]. She then fretted over upsetting her roommate, because "it's pretty obvi I wasn't an innocent bystander."
The woman then complained to her friend about the second man she invited over waiting until 5 a.m. to have sex with her. This male friend would supply an affidavit for the accused student's lawsuit stating that when he went to the accuser's dorm, she was "friendly, flirtatious and spirited" and was in no way "anxious, stressed, depressed or otherwise in distress," as she would later claim during the campus hearing.
Armed with these revelations, the accused went back to the university to try to get his expulsion overturned, and the university declined, saying that he had missed his opportunity (during the appeal process, when he did not have a lawyer or any ability to discover the text messages) and therefore the school didn't need to consider the evidence.
In Amherst's response to the lawsuit, they went so far as to claim that the messages above and others didn't prove the accused student was innocent. The mental gymnastics the school had to perform to come up with that conclusion are Olympic-worthy.
But the story doesn't end there. Amherst, still trying to defend itself after mediation with the accused failed, provided a memorandum to the court, in which it explains that the school's investigator had "discretion in identifying relevant witnesses and documents" and that the school's policy did not "promise perfection."
That discretion allowed the school's investigator to ignore the existence of the text messages, even though they were mentioned during the hearing. In another court document, the case investigator, Allyson Kurker, acknowledges that she was only looking for evidence that corroborated the accuser's story. That's far from the " thorough, impartial and fair" investigation Amherst promises.
Kurker was asked if things an accuser says that indicate the encounter was consensual would be considered irrelevant if the accuser eventually changed her mind to claim the encounter was sexual assault. Kurker answered "yes," over the objections of attorneys. So, to Kurker, it's not relevant what an accuser initially believes about an encounter; all that matters is what they say once they claim it was sexual assault.
Kurker is also asked if she considered "it important to find out about any such communications or writings that mention the incident." She responded: "To the extent that the incident is being described as nonconsensual, yes."
So, the only evidence Kurker was interested in finding was evidence that supported the accuser's claim – and not the truth.
In a follow-up question, Kurker is asked if she was interested only in emails which claimed the sex was nonconsensual, to which Kurker replied: "Those are the only emails that I would have found material."
It's pretty clear that Amherst's "investigation" of the case was designed to ignore evidence that the sex was consensual. If this accused student doesn't find justice, there's little hope for any other falsely accused student.
(Thanks to K.C. Johnson for the documents.)
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
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To hear some people tell it, there is no greater threat to the Republic at the moment than political correctness. It forces dissenters to cower before views they would ordinarily reject, out of fear that they will be labeled as bigots. It thwarts attempts at finding common-sense solutions to the country’s problems. It stifles open debate and free inquiry. So negative has the term become that no one is ever heard saying, “I’m proud to be politically correct.” Admitting to political correctness is tantamount to admitting that there are limits on one’s speech and, by implication, on one’s thoughts. Conversely, refusing to bow to standards of respect demanded by various groups is supposed to convey a deep commitment to unadorned truths. Ad Policy
What truths are so sorely missing from our national conversation? Undocumented Mexican immigrants are, according to Donald Trump, potential drug dealers, criminals, and rapists. The businesses that severed ties with him over these incendiary statements have taken “the weak and very sad position of being politically correct,” Trump declared. Banning foreign Muslims from entering the United States is “probably not politically correct,” he said, “but I don’t care.” In February, Trump lamented that ISIS terrorists are “cutting off the heads of Christians,” but we’re “too politically correct to respond in kind.” While Trump demands the right to insult others, he appears curiously sensitive to criticism about himself.
But political correctness isn’t a bête noire for Trump alone. At a presidential town hall in February, Texas Senator Ted Cruz insisted that having women serve in the front lines of combat “makes no sense at all” and that “the military should [not] be governed by political correctness.” Ohio Governor John Kasich, the supposed moderate in the race, claimed that the March terrorist attacks in Brussels could have been foiled if not for—you guessed it—political correctness. And last month, North Carolina passed a law that bars transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms that don’t match their gender identity at birth. When confronted about the discriminatory aspect of the legislation, Governor Pat McCrory complained that “political correctness has gone amok.”
These responses work like wild cards, played at convenient moments in a political game. And like wild cards, they have no inherent merit. For example, when Trump suggests that the United States “respond in kind” to ISIS terrorists, he is not only proposing that we bring back torture—an immoral practice, not to mention an illegal and ineffective one—he is also legitimizing other punitive measures favored by ISIS like beheading, crucifixion, and sexual slavery. How many voters would be willing to take political incorrectness and “responding in kind” to that level? Similarly, when Cruz says that women should not register for the Selective Service, he is clearly implying that the ability to fire a weapon or pilot a fighter jet is limited by gender. And when McCrory says that North Carolina’s new law doesn’t take away existing rights, he means that it doesn’t take away the rights of men and women who unambiguously present as such.
The resurgence of the war over political correctness has coincided with the rise of Trump. (Google Trends shows an uptick in the usage of the term in July 2015, right after he announced his candidacy.) In the last few years, the country has undergone changes that have created a well of anxiety about the future among people who once enjoyed, if not economic or educational advantages, at least racial and gender privileges. Trump has managed to tap into that anxiety and to recast the loss of privilege as a form of oppression. As a result, his blunt and offensive statements are greeted with good humor, while his authoritarian proposals are mistaken for some kind of painful yet necessary truths.
But while Trump demands the right to openly insult others, he appears to be curiously sensitive to criticism about himself. At a rally in Fort Worth in February, he promised that, if he were elected president, he would expand libel laws. “When The New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when The Washington Post…writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.” In Trump’s view, therefore, the First Amendment protects him when he refers to undocumented immigrants as rapists, but it must be curtailed when the media writes critically about him. LIKE THIS? GET MORE OF OUR BEST REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
The other Republican contenders have struggled to keep up with Trump’s outlandish statements, but their records are just as checkered. Kasich, for instance, once demanded that Blockbuster remove the Oscar-winning film Fargo from its shelves because he deemed it “graphic and brutal.” (I tend to think that the Iraq War, which Kasich supported, was far more graphic and brutal than any movie by the Coen brothers, but maybe that’s just me.)
On his campaign website, Cruz says that liberal campuses are kowtowing to political correctness and asks voters to join him in ending liberal “safe spaces.” This is a familiar complaint in conservative publications, where college campuses are frequently portrayed as places where young people are coddled, given trigger warnings about emotionally upsetting material, and generally prevented from hearing difficult or dissenting views. So one might expect Cruz to be a staunch defender of open debate at universities. But in a speech to AIPAC last month, Cruz said he would cut off federal funding for any schools that financially support the BDS movement. Not only is Cruz suggesting that nonviolent opposition to Israeli policies isn’t an acceptable form of free speech, but he has also promised to prosecute those who dare to support such views.
If political correctness has “gone amok,” it is because Republicans like Trump and Cruz have relentlessly invoked it as a straw man to justify bigoted comments about immigrants, Muslims, women, and others. But doing so cannot hide the fact that they cannot abide by the very free-speech values they claim to cherish.Omer Asik, D.J. Augustin, Jimmy Butler
Houston Rockets center Omer Asik (3) joins a solid core of young veterans in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
(Nam Y. Huh)
Happy Monday. My weekly recap of the weekend, sports and otherwise...
1. The best thing about the three-team trade the Pelicans agreed to this weekend with Houston and Washington is that the Pelicans did not have to relinquish any of their core players to do the deal. The Pelicans went into the offseason with few resources at their disposal and have managed to add starting center Omer Asik and potentially three key reserves, combo forward Omri Casspi; rookie point guard Russ Smith and power forward Patric Young to the five-man core of Anthony Davis, Jrue Holiday, Ryan Anderson, Tyreke Evans and Eric Gordon. Impressive work, Dell Demps. Casspi, however, is expected to be waived after the deal is finalized. The Pelicans also reportedly are set to sign free agent swingman John Salmons.
2. The stars of the Manning Passing Academy were UCLA's Brett Hundley, Baylor's Bryce Petty and Oregon State's Sean Mannion but Southeastern Louisiana quarterback Bryan Bennett opened eyes with his leadership skills and arm strength. He's poised to have a big senior season for the nationally-ranked Lions.
3. The roster for the U.S. men's national basketball team demonstrates the balance of power -- lack thereof -- in the NBA. Twelve of the 19 players selected for the team, including New Orleans power forward Anthony Davis, hail from the league's Western Conference.
Western Conference: Stephen Curry (Golden State); DeMarcus Cousins (Sacramento); Davis (New Orleans); Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City); Kenneth Faried (Denver); Blake Griffin (L.A. Clippers); James Harden (Houston); Gordon Hayward (Utah); Damian Lillard (Portland); Kevin Love (Minnesota); Chandler Parsons (Dallas); and Klay Thompson (Golden State).
Eastern Conference: Bradley Beal (Washington); DeMar DeRozan of Toronto; Andre Drummond (Detroit); Paul George (Indiana); Kyrie Irving (Cleveland); Kyle Korver (Atlanta); and Derrick Rose (Chicago).
4. The key "reveal" in the Green Bay Packers' annual report was the $187.7 million cut the club received from the NFL. Each league team receives the same amount, which is mostly derived from network TV contracts. This is the money used to pay for player payroll, etc. So the next time you hear someone say an owner is opening up his wallet to sign a big free agent, roll your eyes. The Packers reported a $25.5 million profit despite unusually high player costs and construction costs on the Lambeau Field renovation project. Yet more evidence how good it is to be an NFL owner.
5. Speaking of NFL owners, Tom Benson turned 87 on Saturday. At 87, he's the third oldest owner in the NFL. Only Chicago's Virginia McCaskey, 91, and San Diego's Alex Spanos, 90, are his senior.
Germany's Mario Goetze, second right, celebrates after scoring the opening goal during the World Cup final soccer match between Germany and Argentina at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, July 13, 2014. Germany won 1-0 to win the World Cup. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano) ORG XMIT: WCFO182
6. Mario Goetze's game-winning goal for Germany in the World Cup final was a thing of beauty but the crossing pass from Andre Schurrle should not be overlooked. Schurrle set up Geotze by threading his pass between two Argentine defenders and just over the head of central defender Martin Demichelis. It was like a perfectly placed alley-oop pass in basketball. All too often the finisher receives all the credit but the passer's work is just as difficult and often more so.
7. Former Saints running back Reggie Bush married longtime girlfriend Lilit Avagyan in Bush's hometown of San Diego this weekend. Bush and Avagyan have dated since 2011 and have a 14-month old daughter, Briseis. Former Saints teammates Pierre Thomas and Lance Moore were among the attendees.
8. Saw one of my favorite bands, the Lost Bayou Ramblers, on Saturday night at Tipitina's. The Ramblers rocked the joint with their usual take-no-prisoners live performance. Their high-energy, rock-infused Cajun-Zydeco tunes are intoxicating. Their next three tour stops are in Vancouver, London and Edmonton, Alberta.
9. Hit Maurepas Foods in the Bywater on Friday night. One of my standbys is the chicken leg quarter, which is served on a bed of steaming grits and greens and topped with a poached egg. Awesome-o. If you like stinky cheese, the Brie Fermier Tremblay on the cheese plate was so good I bought a half-pound of it at St. James Cheese Company the next day.
10. My read of the weekend was this witty, whimsical feature by Franz Lidz for Smithsonian Magazine on another edible delicacy: the sea urchin. Sea urchin, or uni, has become a trendy seafood dish across the globe, from Hokkaido, Japan on the Shakotan Peninsula to Santa Barbara, Calif., to Oslo, Norway. I've heard that Domenica has an uni dish on the menu. Does anyone know of any other local spots where you can dine on the delectable sea urchin? I'm all ears.DRIVERS on the M5 near Worcester were shocked to see a man staggering around on the hard shoulder and lying down on the carriageway, a court has heard.
Andrew Mead, who was found to be three times over the drink-drive limit, wandered on and off the motorway between Junctions 5 and 6 and threw something at the windscreen of a lorry.
"Horns were blaring as motorists saw him," Paul Whitfield, prosecuting, told Worcester Crown Court. "He was wandering off the hard shoulder and from time to time he would lie down on the carriageway."
Shortly before, he had been visiting his family and had taken his father's £18,000 Audi A6 from their house in Wychbold after spending the night there drinking whisky, Mr Whitfield said.
On the morning of March 28 this year, he drove south on the M5 to go back to the house he had been sharing with his partner in Wyld's Lane, Worcester. He was in a crash with another car and carried on driving, weaving across the motorway, before pulling onto the hard shoulder further on and leaving the car. He was near a CCTV camera on a bridge and was seen to threw something at an Argos lorry, shattering the windscreen and forcing the driver to pull over.
Police were called and when they searched the car, they found a black holdall containing 773 grams of cannabis. Mead was breath tested and found to be three times over the limit.
The 29-year-old, now of Stoke Lane, Wychbold, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking, obstructing the highway, damaging a vehicle and possession of cannabis. Mr Whitfield said police accepted Mead's explanation that he had found the bag with the drugs behind a hedge near Wyld's Lane while he was searching for a pet animal.
Judge Patrick Thomas said it was a "serious set of offences" but he believed it was a one-off and wanted to avoid sending Mead to prison. He asked Mead's father, retired engineer John Mead, to tell the court about his son and then to discuss a suitable plan for the future with defending counsel Paul Stanley.
Mr Mead said his son was intelligent but had not made as much of his potential as his three brothers, who had all been to university. He said his family would fully support him.
Mr Stanley later told the court Mead had been offered a job two days a week in a timber firm connected to the family, was considering further education courses and would continue to attend Pathways over alcohol and drugs misuse.
The judge deferred sentence until April 30 next year when he will be sitting at Birmingham Crown Court to see if the plan of action has worked.
He said he would take into account all that has happened in the meantime and would ask for another probation report.
Mead also admitted summary offences of drink-driving, driving while disqualified and without insurance and was banned from the road.Too often many approach mental health issues as personal problems, rather than reflective of greater social and political injustices -- or perhaps even caused by. I think it's one of the reasons mental health problems are not taken seriously enough.
Yet "the personal is political." For centuries, sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination have crushed spirits.
Right now, Islamophobia is hurting all of us South Asians, Muslim or not. On a very basic level, South Asians -- from Hindus and Sikhs to atheists -- are being dehumanized based upon how we look. This is a burden we all share, not just Muslims.
Studies confirm the damage:
1. This 2012 study reveals how Islamophobia negatively affects the mental health of Muslims worldwide, ranging from increased feelings of anxiety to depression. What's more, the study shows one does not even need to actually face discrimination; just the knowledge society fears and shuns those who look like you affects psychological health. That means it's not just Muslims who can suffer from this, but Sikhs, Hindus and even atheist South Asians.
I worry that people will fear me; that they'll disregard my navy blue United States passport and my Western values and see me only for my skin color, hijab, and last name. I worry that they will unjustly equate me with the Muslim people who have taken innocent lives and have tarnished the reputations of millions of American Muslims. - Amara Majeed via Bustle
2. The discrimination is taking its toll on children, leaving effects that last into adulthood. For example, a 2014 study /Sikh Coalition study reveals two-third of Sikh children donning turbans are bullied, while 50 percent of all Sikh children experienced bullying. Bullying can cause severe mental health damage. Indeed, the effects can even be worse than abuse.
Gunita Kaur said that this began taking its toll on her at just age 9:
I was nine years old when I became painfully aware of the fact that Sikhs living in the United States are at heightened risk of experiencing brutality. Living in New Jersey at the time, my family visited Ground Zero shortly after 9/11 to see the site and pay our respects to those who lost their lives. I vividly remember the smell of the ashes, the omnipresent dust and debris, the solemn, grim, looks on everyone's faces -- but most vividly I remember dirty looks directed at my dad. My hero. My friend. A person who adds enormous value to the world and who did not deserve the targeted stares of negativity and suspicion aimed at his turban. I remember feeling several different emotions: I was confused - confused as to why people felt entitled to judge someone they didn't know. I was angry - angry because something as seemingly harmless as a dirty look in fact stood for disgust, discrimination, and unfounded hatred. I was sad - sad because even at such a young age I understood that intolerance and ignorance are difficult problems to overcome.
What's worse, many don't feel they have a right to talk about what they're going through:
What I've seen in the Muslim community psychologically is feeling a denial of emotion, feeling very disconnected that we can't display this emotion because no one will believe it. No one will tolerate it, no one cares that we're upset... -- Mental health professional Kameelah Rashad said in an interview.
This is dangerous. Numerous studies illustrate excessive emotional repression can lead to all sorts of disorders.
So what can we as South Asians do to help?
Well, for one thing, now more than ever South Asians need to start talking about mental health problems. Many young people feel scared to talk to others outside of our community out of genuine fear. They should feel comfortable to look to their own for support and advice without fearing stigma.
For another, South Asians who are not Muslims need to stand up for those who are more than ever. I write as a current agnostic, but somebody who was brought up Hindu Gujarati. Besides the fact we are all experiencing discrimination, we are all equally human beings. If you choose to let old resentments get in the way, you're engaging in the same hatred fueling racism against us all.
While I've listed a few resources below to help tackle young people currently dealing with Islamophobia, I'd love to hear from others to feature your voices, resources, and suggestions for The Desi Wellbeing Project.
I am always trying to collect stories to normalize mental health issues in the South Asian community for the project. I aim to encourage and celebrate those South Asians who cultivate wellbeing.
But I also want to start to stress the link between the greater social issues - past and present - that are contributing to high rates of emotional distress in our community.
Most importantly, I want to also help open up a conversation about how to deal.
Tell me about your experiences. I'd love to know how Islamophobia affected you growing up and how you're healing. If you're young, open up about what you're going through. Tell me how you're coping. If you're an organization or a therapist, give me your tips. Let me know how you help.
You can email me at thedesiwellbeingproject@gmail.com.
___________________Sale of 'Magnum P.I.' home may be tied to President Obama Copyright by KHON - All rights reserved Video
**Editor's note: This story has been updated with a direct response from Marty Nesbitt, and full documents of Waimanalo Paradise LLC's deed and its mortgage with Hoaloha Holdings.**
One of Hawaii's best-known homes was sold this week.
The stunning three-acre oceanfront parcel along Waimanalo Beach was made famous in the "Magnum P.I." television series, but who might spend time there next may give it even more notoriety.
The sale at 41-505 Kalanianaole Highway is shrouded in a bit of mystery, but it could involve a very famous future visitor when he's not at the White House.
The property traded hands in a sale that recorded Monday.
Click here to view Waimanalo Paradise LLC's deed.
to view Waimanalo Paradise LLC's deed. Click here to view Waimanalo Paradise LLC's mortgage note.
The talk of the neighborhood so far is that the purchase is affiliated with President Barack Obama, so we looked into it.
"People on the beach here think it's Obama, and some people like me are thrilled at the prospect," said Lee Siegel, who owns a neighboring home. "It's wonderful. My dog there can't wait to play with Bo."
"I think the people who are kind of negatively concerned are worried that security is going to somehow impede or interfere with their life here in Waimanalo. It's going to put Waimanalo on the map, that's for sure," Siegel added.
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the law is not nearly as popular. If California is seriously considering splitting off to become their own nation they may be in for a civil war before the dust has settled from the original secession.
So what will the White House do about it in response? We’ve seen a few hints already, with Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions talking about cutting federal grant money for law enforcement to sanctuary cities. The San Diego Union Tribune recently calculated that the Justice Department doles out about $4.1B in law enforcement grants every year and a big chunk of that goes to California. Hey, guys? Never mind about that appropriations bill and the border construction money. We just found enough to cover the first ninety miles. And the wall just got twenty feet higher. Thanks, California!11 Shares Pin Reddit 3
I looked over the Grammy Award nominations list this year, and I can honestly say that the Recording Academy is more woke than mainstream America. Now, I say that because I recently heard a white kid say “all Rap sounds the same,” as if it’s still 1999 and his first experience with Rap is thanks to Eminem.
But, let’s be real: you can say that about anything. All Reggaeton sounds the same. All Country music sounds the same. Really struck a nerve, huh? Don’t let your lack of eclectic taste be an excuse for hating Rap music.
Any true Country fan will be quick to showcase the drastic difference between Conway Twitty and the much less stellar Brad Paisley; and any exceptional Country lover will also mention Ray Charles’ incredible string of hits and influence. Likewise, Reggaeton aficionados will give biggups to El General, one of the granddaddies of the style, and Nicky Jam, and somewhere in there, I’m sure Daddy Yankee would pop up, also.
I’d rather not go into a lengthy overview of the history of Hip Hop. It’s vast and should be learned by the individual, heard, experienced, watched in music videos and audio samplings. I can never do the genre justice, because “life is a better teacher than I’ll ever be,” in the words of my wonderful, beautiful mother.
Now, what I will say is that it wasn’t until 1999, when Lauryn Hill won 5 Grammys, including Album of the Year, the first time a Hip Hop artist won that award, that Hip Hop really began to be taken seriously. Or so it seemed. A true masterpiece in any genre, I always felt Miseducation was the perfect template for what people should have come to expect, what they would have started looking for in Rap music. I was just so certain that album would usher in more acts and nominations for talents within the Hip Hop community. Then, after Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, there was just a halt to even being considered for the Grammys’ highest honors as a Hip Hop artist. Kinda sucked, really.
Recently, I saw something by trash rapper, I mean… walking Dumpster, I mean…
Post Malone. I’d never heard of the kid, and I feel a bit dumber for having learned of him and seeing his face on my computer screen. Look at this. What is that? Okay, okay. I’m trying not to be petty. Lots of super talented artists over the years have opted for very questionable fashions, like Andre 3000. I don’t think I’m alone here when I say that what Malone said about the art of Hip Hop is out of bounds and only something a true novice would say, especially someone not capable of mastering the craft. Malone said that there is no real Hip Hop anymore, and set off a firestorm. I’m not surprised, really. This guy, Lil Uzi Vert, 21 Savage, Yachty—these dumdum heads are what I call Lego Rappers: If you twisted the head off of one of them and screwed it onto the body of another one, he’s essentially the same person, so what does it matter? They’re as kitsch as motel art, and I’m as angry at A&Rs for drafting this breed of “artists” as I am at the media spreading the infection, as I am at people who call this style Rap and have determined that it should be stacked up next to Talib Kweli or Mos Def, because “it all sounds the same” anyway. Words without substance mean very little, except to an ant, maybe. Words, no matter what they were, would probably mean a great deal to ants, since they can’t speak. Can you imagine a trail of ants that just gained the gift of speech?
Unlike Malone and crew, actual Hip Hop artists were nominated for Grammys this year. Hip Hop is alive and doing just fine, no thanks to him.
We know that the general public has had a long and difficult relationship with Hip Hop as an art form. Because: Sex, drugs, and hoes. Right? Well, nice try but Country references drugs more than any other genre. And if you’re worried about mentions of sex and prostitutes, you should know that except for 2012, there hasn’t been at least one number 1 single on the Billboard 100 without explicit content. In 2017 alone, two-thirds of the top 100 songs have a parental advisory label. So, what the hell’s going on?
As Toure´ beautifully put it in 2011, when he spoke on possible reasons why Adele’s 21 was the biggest winner of the evening, over Kanye’s Magnum Opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy:“For them, perhaps, hip hop is a lesser sound and rhyming a less important and less valuable skill than singing.” Not to knock Adele, in anyway, because the woman is brilliant and a powerhouse all on her own, but I’mma pull a Kanye and let you finish after I say: ‘Ye should have won Album of the Year. The risks the album took, combined with the lyrical skill of the artists on each track, the range of subject matter, and the cultural impact make this entry in Mr. West’s catalogue a juggernaut to say the very least. To say the very most, it was a damn crime and everyone who passed on giving him the award should be locked up, because he got robbed of that Grammy. I thought about it a lot, and I’ve noticed that Hip Hop is quite disrespected in so many arenas. Sure, Eminem won an Oscar for his Monsterpiece “Lose Yourself,” but they also gave Three-Six Mafia an Academy Award for “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp,” so you gotta realize those outside the community might have iffy judgement when it comes to Hip Hop.
One of, if not the most, problematic of issues, the one that really tends to turn up the noses of the most squeamish of casual observer—is violence. People will always speak about Biggie and 2Pac, quintessential icons for whom no narrative about the genre can move forward. Controversial as it will be for me to say this, I must admit: I hated these two as a kid. Hated the violence and the gunplay that they so fetishized in their songs. I was in the Hood of South Side Chicago. Ain’t nobody tryna hear that when their friends are dropping into graves like fleas dive-bombing Plague victims. I didn’t, at least. I was a nine year old waiting to get it next, because kids, strangers, family members my age and younger were constantly getting murdered, repping the wrong gang, too far to the border of where their clique ended and another began. Or they just happened to be shot, just because. No meaningful reason. Mistaken identity or stray bullet.
It took a lot of time to look beyond the glamorization of blood and gore, and actually appreciate the lyricism and message amidst the pain and agony within the bars.
The argument has been made that Hardcore Rap’s growth in popularity (early-90s to 2005) is directly linked to a decrease in violent crime, which you can check out here.
I’ve had to almost force non-listeners of Hip Hop to listen to it. And that’s a real fuckin’ problem to me. You would never have to make someone listen to The Beatles, Elvis, Michael Jackson, or Prince. Right? How influential has every genre been to Hip Hop and how much has the genre itself given back in return? Something’s amiss.
I would implore everyone to take a chance on the art of Hip Hop. Don’t turn on the radio and expect brilliance, ‘cuz chances are, Post Malone will find you and violate your eardrums. I would suggest that you search to find out what Hip Hop is, whether or not you’ve been a fan your entire life or I just whetted your appetite with this brief offering alone. Google and YouTube are not your only options. Netflix has an exceptional and easy to digest series called “Hip Hop Evolution.” The only problem is that the incredible women of Hip Hop are excluded. For that, I suggest checking out this doc that I’m currently watching on YouTube. At any rate, I’m looking forward to the Grammys, because most years I’d already expect a rapper to win Best Rap Album. Kinda hard not to win it. Fingers crossed for what this can mean for the future. I’m hoping it’ll give masses a greater appreciation and knowledge on the subject, and get people excited about what Hip Hop is and what it means to us as a society, because it’s way more than said society is giving it credit for. Happy searching!by Erik Altieri, NORML Executive Director
The US Conference of Mayors unanimously approved a resolution this morning that calls on the federal government to respect local marijuana laws. Resolution No. 32 “reaffirms the USCM’s support of fair and effective criminal justice and drug policies, states that federal laws, including the Controlled Substance Act, should be amended to explicitly allow states to set their own marijuana policies without federal interference; and that until such time as federal law is changed, The United States Conference of Mayors urges the President of the United States to reexamine the priorities of federal agencies to prevent the expenditure of resources on actions that undermine the duly enacted marijuana laws of states.”
The resolution was introduced with 18 co-sponsors, including Bob Filner of San Diego, Mike McGinn of (Seattle), Carolyn Goodman (Las Vegas), Jean Quan (Oakland), Steve Hogan (Aurora), Marilyn Strickland of (Tacoma), Kitty Piercy of (Eugene), and William Euille of (Alexandria). You can read the full text of the resolution here.
“In November, voters in my city and state strongly approved a ballot measure to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana,” said co-sponsor Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan. “The bipartisan resolution we passed today simply asks the federal government to give us time to implement these new policies properly and without interference. Cities and states across the country are enacting forward-thinking reforms to failed marijuana prohibition policies, and for the federal government to stand in the way is wasteful and contrary to the wishes of the American people.”
We would like to thank all of you who took action on this effort and joined NORML and our allies at the Marijuana Majority (who coordinated this action). Speaking on the success of the resolution, Tom Angell of the Marijuana Majority stated, “It’s time for President Obama to enact the changes he promised during the 2008 campaign. A strong and growing majority of Americans want states to be able to set their own marijuana laws without federal harassment. Local officials are enacting policies that serve to protect the health and safety of their communities better than the failed policy of prohibition has, and they deserve the respect they are asking for from the Obama administration.”
“NORML applauds the US Conference of Mayors for unanimously approving this measure that calls for a federal policy on marijuana that is in line with the desires of the majority of American citizens. Over 50% of Americans support legalizing and regulating marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol and even more believe the federal government should leave decisions related to marijuana to states and their municipalities. This resolution calls for a rational policy that would empower local and state governments to set marijuana laws that work for them, without fear of federal incursion,” stated NORML Communications Director Erik Altieri, “It is encouraging to see that these mayors, many of whom are on the ascendancy of their political careers, engage this important issue directly. Even while many of our elected officials working in Washington, DC continue to drag their feet on the topic of reform, the unanimous passing of this resolution shows that many others working their way up from the local level are no longer willing to sit idle and that they will take action to put our country on the right side of history when it comes to marijuana.”Guide to Python introspection
How to spy on your Python objects
What is introspection?
In everyday life, introspection is the act of self-examination. Introspection refers to the examination of one's own thoughts, feelings, motivations, and actions. The great philosopher Socrates spent much of his life in self-examination, encouraging his fellow Athenians to do the same. He even claimed that, for him, "the unexamined life is not worth living." (See Related topics for links to more about Socrates.)
In computer programming, introspection refers to the ability to examine something to determine what it is, what it knows, and what it is capable of doing. Introspection gives programmers a great deal of flexibility and control. Once you've worked with a programming language that supports introspection, you may similarly feel that "the unexamined object is not worth instantiating."
This article introduces the introspection capabilities of the Python programming language. Python's support for introspection runs deep and wide throughout the language. In fact, it would be hard to imagine Python without its introspection features. By the end of this article you should be very comfortable poking inside the hearts and souls of your own Python objects.
We'll begin our exploration of Python introspection in the most general way possible, before diving into more advanced techniques. Some might even argue that the features we begin with don't deserve to be called "introspective." We'll have to agree that whether they fall under the umbrella of introspection or not is open to debate. For the purposes of this article, our only concern is finding the answers to interesting questions.
So let's begin our inquiry, using Python interactively. When we start Python from the command line, we enter the Python shell, where we can enter Python code and get an immediate response from the Python interpreter. (The commands listed in this article will execute properly using Python 2.2.2. You may get different results or errors if using an earlier version. You can download the latest version from the Python Web site [see Related topics].)
Listing 1. Starting the Python interpreter in interactive mode
$ python Python 2.2.2 (#1, Oct 28 2002, 17:22:19) [GCC 3.2 (Mandrake Linux 9.0 3.2-1mdk)] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>>
Once you have Python running and are looking at the Python prompt ( >>> ), you may be wondering what words will be recognized by Python. Most programming languages have reserved words, or keywords, that have special meaning in that language, and Python is no exception. You may also have noticed that Python suggested we type help to get more information. Perhaps we can ask Python for some help about keywords.
Python's online help utility
Let's start by typing help, as suggested, and see if it gives us any clues about keywords:
Listing 2. Asking Python for help
>>> help Type help() for interactive help, or help(object) for help about object.
Since we don't know what object might contain keywords, let's try help() without specifying any particular object:
Listing 3. Starting the help utility
>>> help() Welcome to Python 2.2! This is the online help utility. If this is your first time using Python, you should definitely check out the tutorial on the Internet at http://www.python.org/doc/tut/. Enter the name of any module, keyword, or topic to get help on writing Python programs and using Python modules. To quit this help utility and return to the interpreter, just type "quit". To get a list of available modules, keywords, or topics, type "modules", "keywords", or "topics". Each module also comes with a one-line summary of what it does; to list the modules whose summaries contain a given word such as "spam", type "modules spam". help>
We seem to be getting closer, now. Let's enter keywords at the help prompt:
Listing 4. Asking for help with keywords
help> keywords Here is a list of the Python keywords. Enter any keyword to get more help. and elif global or assert else if pass break except import print class exec in raise continue finally is return def for lambda try del from not while help> quit You are now leaving help and returning to the Python interpreter. If you want to ask for help on a particular object directly from the interpreter, you can type "help(object)". Executing "help('string')" has the same effect as typing a particular string at the help> prompt. >>>
When we typed help(), we were greeted with a message and some instructions, followed by the help prompt. At the prompt, we entered keywords and were shown a list of Python keywords. Having gotten the answer to our question, we then quit the help utility, saw a brief farewell message, and were returned to the Python prompt.
As you can see from this example, Python's online help utility displays information on a variety of topics, or for a particular object. The help utility is quite useful, and does make use of Python's introspection capabilities. But simply using help doesn't reveal how help gets its information. And since the purpose of this article is to reveal all of Python's introspection secrets, we need to quickly go beyond the help utility.
Before we leave help, let's use it to get a list of available modules. Modules are simply text files containing Python code whose names end in.py. If we type help('modules') at the Python prompt, or enter modules at the help prompt, we'll see a long list of available modules, similar to the partial list shown below. Try it yourself to see what modules are available on your system, and to see why Python is considered to come with "batteries included."
Listing 5. Partial listing of available modules
>>> help('modules') Please wait a moment while I gather a list of all available modules... BaseHTTPServer cgitb marshal sndhdr Bastion chunk math socket CDROM cmath md5 sre CGIHTTPServer cmd mhlib sre_compile Canvas code mimetools sre_constants <...> bisect macpath signal xreadlines cPickle macurl2path site xxsubtype cStringIO mailbox slgc (package) zipfile calendar mailcap smtpd cgi markupbase smtplib Enter any module name to get more help. Or, type "modules spam" to search for modules whose descriptions contain the word "spam". >>>
The sys module
One module that provides insightful information about Python itself is the sys module. You make use of a module by importing the module and referencing its contents (such as variables, functions, and classes) using dot (.) notation. The sys module contains a variety of variables and functions that reveal interesting details about the current Python interpreter. Let's take a look at some of them. Again, we're going to run Python interactively and enter commands at the Python command prompt. The first thing we'll do is import the sys module. Then we'll enter the sys.executable variable, which contains the path to the Python interpreter:
Listing 6. Importing the sys module
$ python Python 2.2.2 (#1, Oct 28 2002, 17:22:19) [GCC 3.2 (Mandrake Linux 9.0 3.2-1mdk)] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import sys >>> sys.executable '/usr/local/bin/python'
When we enter a line of code that consists of nothing more than the name of an object, Python responds by displaying a representation of the object, which, for simple objects, tends to be the value of the object. In this case, since the displayed value is enclosed in quotes, we get a clue that sys.executable is probably a string object. We'll look at other, more precise, ways to determine an object's type later, but simply typing the name of an object at the Python prompt is a quick and easy form of introspection.
Let's look at some other useful attributes of the sys module.
The platform variable tells us which operating system we are on:
The sys.platform attribute
>>> sys.platform 'linux2'
The current Python version is available as a string, and as a tuple (a tuple contains a sequence of objects):
Listing 8. The sys.version and sys.version_info attributes
>>> sys.version '2.2.2 (#1, Oct 28 2002, 17:22:19)
[GCC 3.2 (Mandrake Linux 9.0 3.2-1mdk)]' >>> sys.version_info (2, 2, 2, 'final', 0)
The maxint variable reflects the highest available integer value:
The sys.maxint attribute
>>> sys.maxint 2147483647
The argv variable is a list containing command line arguments, if any were specified. The first item, argv[0], is the path of the script that was run. When we run Python interactively this value is an empty string:
Listing 10. The sys.argv attribute
>>> sys.argv ['']
When we run another Python shell, such as PyCrust (see Related topics for a link to more information on PyCrust), we see something like this:
Listing 11. The sys.argv attribute using PyCrust
>>> sys.argv[0] '/home/pobrien/Code/PyCrust/PyCrustApp.py'
The path variable is the module search path, the list of directories in which Python will look for modules during imports. The empty string, '', in the first position refers to the current directory:
Listing 12. The sys.path attribute
>>> sys.path ['', '/home/pobrien/Code', '/usr/local/lib/python2.2', '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/plat-linux2', '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/lib-tk', '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/lib-dynload', '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages']
The modules variable is a dictionary that maps module names to module objects for all the currently loaded modules. As you can see, Python loads certain modules by default:
Listing 13. The sys.modules attribute
>>> sys.modules {'stat': <module'stat' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/stat.pyc'>, '__future__': <module '__future__' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/__future__.pyc'>, 'copy_reg': <module 'copy_reg' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/copy_reg.pyc'>, 'posixpath': <module 'posixpath' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/posixpath.pyc'>, 'UserDict': <module 'UserDict' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/UserDict.pyc'>,'signal': <module'signal' (built-in)>,'site': <module'site' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site.pyc'>, '__builtin__': <module '__builtin__' (built-in)>,'sys': <module'sys' (built-in)>, 'posix': <module 'posix' (built-in)>, 'types': <module 'types' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/types.pyc'>, '__main__': <module '__main__' (built-in)>, 'exceptions': <module 'exceptions' (built-in)>, 'os': <module 'os' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/os.pyc'>, 'os.path': <module 'posixpath' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/posixpath.pyc'>}
The keyword module
Let's return to our question about Python keywords. Even though help showed us a list of keywords, it turns out that some of help's information is hardcoded. The list of keywords happens to be hardcoded, which isn't very introspective after all. Let's see if we can get this information directly from one of the modules in Python's standard library. If we type help('modules keywords') at the Python prompt we see the following:
Listing 14. Asking for help on modules with keywords
>>> help('modules keywords') Here is a list of matching modules. Enter any module name to get more help. keyword - Keywords (from "graminit.c")
So it appears as though the keyword module might contain keywords. By opening the keyword.py file in a text editor we can see that Python does make its list of keywords explicitly available as the kwlist attribute of the keyword module. We also see in the keyword module comments that this module is automatically generated based on the source code of Python itself, guaranteeing that its list of keywords is accurate and complete:
Listing 15. The keyword module's keyword list
>>> import keyword >>> keyword.kwlist ['and', 'assert', 'break', 'class', 'continue', 'def', 'del', 'elif', 'else', 'except', 'exec', 'finally', 'for', 'from', 'global', 'if', 'import', 'in', 'is', 'lambda', 'not', 'or', 'pass', 'print', 'raise','return', 'try', 'while', 'yield']
The dir() function
While it's relatively easy to find and import a module, it isn't as easy to remember what each module contains. And you don't always want to have to look at the source code to find out. Fortunately, Python provides a way to examine the contents of modules (and other objects) using the built-in dir() function.
The dir() function is probably the most well-known of all of Python's introspection mechanisms. It returns a sorted list of attribute names for any object passed to it. If no object is specified, dir() returns the names in the current scope. Let's apply dir() to our keyword module and see what it reveals:
Listing 16. The keyword module's attributes
>>> dir(keyword) ['__all__', '__builtins__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__name__', 'iskeyword', 'keyword', 'kwdict', 'kwlist','main']
And how about the sys module we looked at earlier?
Listing 17. The sys module's attributes
>>> dir(sys) ['__displayhook__', '__doc__', '__excepthook__', '__name__', '__stderr__', '__stdin__', '__stdout__', '_getframe', 'argv', 'builtin_module_names', 'byteorder', 'copyright', 'displayhook', 'exc_info', 'exc_type', 'excepthook', 'exec_prefix', 'executable', 'exit', 'getdefaultencoding', 'getdlopenflags', 'getrecursionlimit', 'getrefcount', 'hexversion', 'last_traceback', 'last_type', 'last_value','maxint','maxunicode','modules', 'path', 'platform', 'prefix', 'ps1', 'ps2','setcheckinterval','setdlopenflags','setprofile','setrecursionlimit','settrace','stderr','stdin','stdout','version','version_info', 'warnoptions']
Without any argument, dir() returns names in the current scope. Notice how keyword and sys appear in the list, since we imported them earlier. Importing a module adds the module's name to the current scope:
Listing 18. Names in the current scope
>>> dir() ['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__', 'keyword','sys']
We mentioned that the dir() function was a built-in function, which means that we don't have to import a module in order to use the function. Python recognizes built-in functions without our having to do anything. And now we see this name, __builtins__, returned by a call to dir(). Perhaps there is a connection here. Let's enter the name __builtins__ at the Python prompt and see if Python tells us anything interesting about it:
Listing 19. What is __builtins__?
>>> __builtins__ <module '__builtin__' (built-in)>
So __builtins__ appears to be a name in the current scope that's bound to the module object named __builtin__. (Since modules are not simple objects with single values, Python displays information about the module inside angle brackets instead.) Note that if you look for a __builtin__.py file on disk you'll come up empty-handed. This particular module object is created out of thin air by the Python interpreter, because it contains items that are always available to the interpreter. And while there is no physical file to look at, we can still apply our dir() function to this object to see all the built-in functions, error objects, and a few miscellaneous attributes that it contains:
Listing 20. The __builtins__ module's attributes
>>> dir(__builtins__) ['ArithmeticError', 'AssertionError', 'AttributeError', 'DeprecationWarning', 'EOFError', 'Ellipsis', 'EnvironmentError', 'Exception', 'False', 'FloatingPointError', 'IOError', 'ImportError', 'IndentationError', 'IndexError', 'KeyError', 'KeyboardInterrupt', 'LookupError', 'MemoryError', 'NameError', 'None', 'NotImplemented', 'NotImplementedError', 'OSError', 'OverflowError', 'OverflowWarning', 'ReferenceError', 'RuntimeError', 'RuntimeWarning', 'StandardError', 'StopIteration', 'SyntaxError', 'SyntaxWarning', 'SystemError', 'SystemExit', 'TabError', 'True', 'TypeError', 'UnboundLocalError', 'UnicodeError', 'UserWarning', 'ValueError', 'Warning', 'ZeroDivisionError', '_', '__debug__', '__doc__', '__import__', '__name__', 'abs', 'apply', 'bool', 'buffer', 'callable', 'chr', 'classmethod', 'cmp', 'coerce', 'compile', 'complex', 'copyright', 'credits', 'delattr', 'dict', 'dir', 'divmod', 'eval', 'execfile', 'exit', 'file', 'filter', 'float', 'getattr', 'globals', 'hasattr', 'hash', 'help', 'hex', 'id', 'input', 'int', 'intern', 'isinstance', 'issubclass', 'iter', 'len', 'license', 'list', 'locals', 'long','map','max','min', 'object', 'oct', 'open', 'ord', 'pow', 'property', 'quit', 'range', 'raw_input','reduce','reload','repr', 'round','setattr','slice','staticmethod','str','super', 'tuple', 'type', 'unichr', 'unicode', 'vars', 'xrange', 'zip']
The dir() function works on all object types, including strings, integers, lists, tuples, dictionaries, functions, custom classes, class instances, and class methods. Let's apply dir() to a string object and see what Python returns. As you can see, even a simple Python string has a number of attributes:
Listing 21. String attributes
>>> dir('this is a string') ['__add__', '__class__', '__contains__', '__delattr__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__ge__', '__getattribute__', '__getitem__', '__getslice__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__le__', '__len__', '__lt__', '__mul__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__repr__', '__rmul__', '__setattr__', '__str__', 'capitalize', 'center', 'count', 'decode', 'encode', 'endswith', 'expandtabs', 'find', 'index', 'isalnum', 'isalpha', 'isdigit', 'islower', 'isspace', 'istitle', 'isupper', 'join', 'ljust', 'lower', 'lstrip','replace', 'rfind', 'rindex', 'rjust', 'rstrip','split','splitlines','startswith','strip','swapcase', 'title', 'translate', 'upper', 'zfill']
Try the following examples yourself to see what they return. Note that the # character marks the start of a comment. Everything from the start of the comment to the end of the line is ignored by Python:
Listing 22. Using dir() on other objects
dir(42) # Integer (and the meaning of life) dir([]) # List (an empty list, actually) dir(()) # Tuple (also empty) dir({}) # Dictionary (ditto) dir(dir) # Function (functions are also objects)
To illustrate the dynamic nature of Python's introspection capabilities, let's look at some examples using dir() on a custom class and some class instances. We're going to define our own class interactively, create some instances of the class, add a unique attribute to only one of the instances, and see if Python can keep all of this straight. Here are the results:
Listing 23. Using dir() on custom classes, class instances, and attributes
>>> class Person(object):... """Person class."""... def __init__(self, name, age):... self.name = name... self.age = age... def intro(self):... """Return an introduction."""... return "Hello, my name is %s and I'm %s." % (self.name, self.age)... >>> bob = Person("Robert", 35) # Create a Person instance >>> joe = Person("Joseph", 17) # Create another >>> joe.sport = "football" # Assign a new attribute to one instance >>> dir(Person) # Attributes of the Person class ['__class__', '__delattr__', '__dict__', '__doc__', '__getattribute__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__module__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__repr__', '__setattr__', '__str__', '__weakref__', 'intro'] >>> dir(bob) # Attributes of bob ['__class__', '__delattr__', '__dict__', '__doc__', '__getattribute__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__module__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__repr__', '__setattr__', '__str__', '__weakref__', 'age', 'intro', 'name'] >>> dir(joe) # Note that joe has an additional attribute ['__class__', '__delattr__', '__dict__', '__doc__', '__getattribute__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__module__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__repr__', '__setattr__', '__str__', '__weakref__', 'age', 'intro', 'name','sport'] >>> bob.intro() # Calling bob's intro method "Hello, my name is Robert and I'm 35." >>> dir(bob.intro) # Attributes of the intro method ['__call__', '__class__', '__cmp__', '__delattr__', '__doc__', '__get__', '__getattribute__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__repr__', '__setattr__', '__str__', 'im_class', 'im_func', 'im_self']
Documentation strings
One attribute you may have noticed in a lot of our dir() examples is the __doc__ attribute. This attribute is a string containing the comments that describe an object. Python calls this a documentation string, or docstring, and here is how it works. If the first statement of a module, class, method, or function definition is a string, then that string gets associated with the object as its __doc__ attribute. For example, take a look at the docstring for the __builtins__ object. We'll use Python's print statement to make the output easier to read, since docstrings often contain embedded newlines (
):
Listing 24. Module docstring
>>> print __builtins__.__doc__ # Module docstring Built-in functions, exceptions, and other objects. Noteworthy: None is the `nil' object; Ellipsis represents `...' in slices.
Once again, Python even maintains docstrings on classes and methods that are defined interactively in the Python shell. Let's look at the docstrings for our Person class and its intro method:
Listing 25. Class and method docstrings
>>> Person.__doc__ # Class docstring 'Person class.' >>> Person.intro.__doc__ # Class method docstring 'Return an introduction.'
Because docstrings provide such valuable information, many Python development environments have ways of automatically displaying the docstrings for objects. Let's look at one more docstring, for the dir() function:
Listing 26. Function docstring
>>> print dir.__doc__ # Function docstring dir([object]) -> list of strings Return an alphabetized list of names comprising (some of) the attributes of the given object, and of attributes reachable from it: No argument: the names in the current scope. Module object: the module attributes. Type or class object: its attributes, and recursively the attributes of its bases. Otherwise: its attributes, its class's attributes, and recursively the attributes of its class's base classes.
Interrogating Python objects
We've mentioned the word "object" several times, but haven't really defined it. An object in a programming environment is much like an object in the real world. A real object has a certain shape, size, weight, and other characteristics. And a real object is able to respond to its environment, interact with other objects, or perform a task. Computer objects attempt to model the objects that surround us in the real world, including abstract objects like documents and schedules and business processes.
Like real-world objects, several computer objects may share common characteristics while maintaining their own minor variations. Think of the books you see in a bookstore. Each physical copy of a book might have a smudge, or a few torn pages, or a unique identification number. And while each book is a unique object, every book with the same title is merely an instance of an original template, and retains most of the characteristics of the original.
The same is true about object-oriented classes and class instances. For example, every Python string is endowed with the attributes we saw revealed by the dir() function. And in a previous example, we defined our own Person class, which acted as a template for creating individual Person instances, each having its own name and age values, while sharing the ability to introduce itself. That's object-orientation.
In computer terms, then, objects are things that have an identity and a value, are of a certain type, possess certain characteristics, and behave in a certain way. And objects inherit many of their attributes from one or more parent classes. Other than keywords and special symbols (like operators, such as +, -, *, **, /, |
point and doesn’t play with a bunch of leads?” teammate Chris Long told FoxSports.com
Earl Thomas (Seattle Seahawks): This roving safety has career highs with 103 tackles, five interceptions, two forced fumbles and Richard Sherman’s endorsement for the DPOY award. Thomas intercepted a Colin Kaepernick pass at the Seahawks 1 to spark their Sept. 15 rout.
Richard Sherman (Seattle Seahawks): The gregarious Stanford product has a league-leading eight interceptions, including two in each of the past two games and one against Kaepernick on Sept. 15.
Robert Mathis (Indianapolis Colts): Of his 17 ½ sacks (at age 32), none was bigger than a fumble-forcing hit on Peyton Manning in an Oct. 20 upset of the Denver Broncos. Mathis had 1 ½ sacks in the AFC South-champion Colts’ win over the 49ers on Sept. 22.
J.J. Watt (Houston Texans): Last season’s near-unanimous selection for Defensive Player of the Year, his statistics have been sliced in half this year: 9 ½ sacks and six passes defensed. Last season: 20 ½ sacks, 16 passes defensed.
Karlos Dansby (Arizona Cardinals): With the 49ers coming to town, he’s got 6 ½ sacks, four interceptions and 18 passes defensed. “Nobody’s outplayed me. I got stats in every category,” Dansby told the Arizona Republic. He had a team-high 11 tackles, a sack, three passes defensed and a forced fumble in a 32-20 loss to the 49ers on Oct. 13.Paul attacks Cruz over the Fed and Goldman Sachs
By David WeigelJanuary 18 at 2:00 PMIn the wake of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.)'s attack on Donald Trump for "New York values," two of his underdog rivals are now attacking him for ties to Wall Street. In an interview with Time magazine's Zeke Miller, Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) called Cruz hypocritical for bashing the financial capital of the world while building a war chest with hedge fund money."Those people have great values, I’m sure, when they are writing him seven- and eight-figure checks," Christie said. "If he really has a problem with New York values, then he should return that money."And Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who endorsed Cruz when the Texan ran for his Senate seat, has unveiled one of the campaign's strangest web ads, in which two cartoon figures learn that "the Ted Cruz" is indebted to Wall Street. The video anchors a new micro-site, Audit The Ted, which ostensibly criticizes Cruz for missing a pre-State of the Union vote on Paul's legislation to scrutinize the Federal Reserve.In animation that resembles the defunct text-to-cartoon site Xtranormal, the new Paul spot begins with a male figure asking "Where does the Ted Cruz get his money?", pronouncing the senator's name with a long "u" sound, as if it rhymes with "fuzz."...Excursion to the Center of the Earth
Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.
I really need to start keeping a list of my favorite ludicrous plans, if for no other reason than so I can say, "This is my absolute favorite ludicrous plan," and not have it be just hyperbole. That said, I've been working for mental_floss in some capacity since I graduated college in 2004. In that time, I have read about a lot of grandiose, impractical ideas. But this is one I go back to when I'm having a bad day and need cheering up.
In 2003, CalTech planetary scientist David J. Stevenson proposed a way to send a probe down into the depths of the Earth. Published in Nature, "Modest Proposal: Mission to the Earth's Core" laid out a detailed plan for inter-Earth investigation--it was brilliant, theoretically possible (or so I'm told) and only briefly mistaken for an April Fool's joke. For your convenience, I have taken the liberty of breaking Stevenson's proposal down into four steps.
Step 1: Get $10 billion. Surprisingly, this is not the hardest part.
Step 2: Find a nation willing to take one for the team, by letting you blast a 984-foot-deep hole in their country with a nuclear bomb.
Step 3: Pour in enough molten iron to fill your new crevasse. Hopefully, gravity should now kick in, pulling the heavy metal toward the center of the Earth and lengthening your original hole at a rate of about 10 miles per hour. At that speed, your iron river should reach the Earth's core in a week or so. And, naysayers, never fear. According to Dr. Stevenson's calculations, high pressures below ground would reseal the earth after the iron passed by--preventing any awkward uncloseable chasms.
Step 4: Before the flow of iron gets moving too fast, toss in a probe. For maximum effectiveness, said probe should be able to withstand temperatures surpassing 3000° Fahrenheit and pressures 1000 times greater than the bottom of the deepest ocean. It also has to have a strong enough signal that it can reach the center of the Earth and still transmit some data back to you. As you go through the bidding process, do remember that you get what you pay for. And, in case American manufacturing has lost its edge, let's go with an unmanned probe. Better safe than sorry.
Image is courtesy Michael Rogalski.TangSC Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 1852 Posts Last Edited: 2012-07-18 14:31:06 #1 [G] Seizing Every Edge: Zerg Economy Management
Hello Ladies and Gentlemen of Team Liquid!
I sincerely appreciate that you've taken the time to view my newest guide on Zerg Economics. Everyone knows that solid economy management makes a considerable difference in SC2, but it is still a subject that is only briefly touched in guides and tutorials. It's probably because drone saturation isn't always as interesting as innovative new build orders and play styles, but that doesn't diminish its importance.
Now obviously I'm not saying that it's more important to check your third base's mineral saturation than manage a game-deciding battle. What I'm saying is that economy management is an improvable skill: I strongly believe that if you take the time to understand and practice it, you become faster and more effective. Furthermore, it will improve other areas of your game play: mouse precision, boxing, hand speed, multitasking. Whether you play a 1-base all-in style or refuse to leave the creep until you're maxed with broodlords, you will benefit from reaching and maintaining optimal mineral saturation. That's why I'm so excited to present an economy-focused guide with three goals:
1) Add structure to players' economy by introducing the concept of optimal mineral saturation: 16 Drones per base, 2 Drones per patch.
2) Suggest methods of reaching optimal mineral saturation as early as possible, and maintaining it throughout the game.
3) Offer tips and drills to help players quickly point out their own mistakes and fix them.
An Introduction: Calculations
+ Show Spoiler + "Double-mining drones harvest at peak efficiency (42-42.5 minerals/minute)"
Stream Video:
Stream Video:
Calculations:
16 Drones mining 2 per patch return ~670 minerals/minute, roughly 42 minerals/minute per drone.
20 Drones mining 2 per patch on closer patches and 3 per patch on further patches return ~750 minerals/minute, roughly 37.5 minerals/minute per drone.
20 Drones mining 2 per patch on 2 bases (16 Drones at main, 4 drones at natural) return ~850 minerals/minute, roughly 42 minerals per drone.
You lose nearly 5 minerals per minute per drone when you go over 2-drones per patch, meaning you lose approximately 80-100 minerals per minute if you have 20 drones mining with four triple-mining patches when they could be mining more efficiently at an expansion. This is why it's so important to make sure you're double mining at all your patches, because if you're sitting with 16 drones but some of your closer patches are single mining while your far-back patches triple mine, you're losing mining efficiency. In other words, you can more than double the effectiveness of a drone/probe/scv by transferring it to a new expansion instead of leaving it at a base with 16+ miners. Stream Video: An Introduction to Zerg Economy Management Stream Video: An Economic Walkthrough of ZvT, ZvP, ZvZ Calculations:16 Drones mining 2 per patch return ~670 minerals/minute, roughly 42 minerals/minute per drone.20 Drones mining 2 per patch on closer patches and 3 per patch on further patches return ~750 minerals/minute, roughly 37.5 minerals/minute per drone.20 Drones mining 2 per patch on 2 bases (16 Drones at main, 4 drones at natural) return ~850 minerals/minute, roughly 42 minerals per drone.You lose nearly 5 minerals per minute per drone when you go over 2-drones per patch, meaning you lose approximately 80-100 minerals per minute if you have 20 drones mining with four triple-mining patches when they could be mining more efficiently at an expansion. This is why it's so important to make sure you're double mining at all your patches, because if you're sitting with 16 drones but some of your closer patches are single mining while your far-back patches triple mine, you're losing mining efficiency. In other words, you can more than double the effectiveness of a drone/probe/scv by transferring it to a new expansion instead of leaving it at a base with 16+ miners.
Zerg Economics Part 1: Counting Drones
+ Show Spoiler + "Over/undersaturating bases is a cardinal sin for Zerg players."
Since we generally aim to stay one base ahead, Zerg players must pay closer attention to saturation. Protoss or Terran players may oversaturate their natural expansion so that they can transfer workers to their third base, but since Zergs tend to take their third much earlier, there is usually no reason to oversaturate a mineral field. The picture below depicts optimal mineral saturation:
8 Mineral Patches x 2 Drones per Patch = 16 Drones
In other words, to optimally saturate a mineral field you need 16 Drones (2 full rows). It is also absolutely essential that the drones double-mine each patch, a topic explored in more detail in the stream videos and drills.
To keep track of the number of drones mining at each base, I personally recommend using the "BOX TECHNIQUE" to count only the drones harvesting minerals. To use the "BOX TECHNIQUE", simply make a rectangular box between your main hatchery and your minerals, then count all the drones. While you could double-click or control-click to count drones, I prefer the box style to avoid factoring in the drones mining gas. Also, it improves the speed and precision of your boxing, which is a helpful skill in micro engagements. That being said, there's nothing wrong with double-clicking the drones and factoring out the drones that mine gas (minus 2 drones per geyser).
Stream Video:
Example A) - Current Drones: 7. We need 9 more drones to optimally saturate this base.
Example B) - Current Drones: 10. We need 6 more drones to optimally saturate this base.
Example C) - Current Drones: 14. We need 2 more drones to optimally saturate this base. Fortunately, we have two building and rallied already
Example D) - Current Drones: 16. Bliss!
Since we generally aim to stay one base ahead, Zerg players must pay closer attention to saturation. Protoss or Terran players may oversaturate their natural expansion so that they can transfer workers to their third base, but since Zergs tend to take their third much earlier, there is usually no reason to oversaturate a mineral field. The picture below depicts8 Mineral Patches x 2 Drones per Patch = 16 DronesIn other words, to optimally saturate a mineral field you need 16 Drones (2 full rows). It is also absolutely essential that the drones double-mine each patch, a topic explored in more detail in the stream videos and drills.To keep track of the number of drones mining at each base, I personally recommend using the "BOX TECHNIQUE" to count only the drones harvesting minerals. To use the "BOX TECHNIQUE", simply make a rectangular box between your main hatchery and your minerals, then count all the drones. While you could double-click or control-click to count drones, I prefer the box style to avoid factoring in the drones mining gas. Also, it improves the speed and precision of your boxing, which is a helpful skill in micro engagements. That being said, there's nothing wrong with double-clicking the drones and factoring out the drones that mine gas (minus 2 drones per geyser).Stream Video: Quick Tip - the "BOX TECHNIQUE" - Current Drones: 7. We need 9 more drones to optimally saturate this base.- Current Drones: 10. We need 6 more drones to optimally saturate this base.- Current Drones: 14. We need 2 more drones to optimally saturate this base. Fortunately, we have two building and rallied already- Current Drones: 16. Bliss!
Zerg Economics Part 2: Maintaining Optimal Saturation
+ Show Spoiler + "There is no sense devoting all this effort and time perfecting our mineral saturation if it's disrupted every time we create a structure or fill a gas geyser."
We just discussed the importance of reaching optimal mineral saturation (16 drones/mineral field), and now we need to figure out how to keep it. Here are some general guidelines.
If you must take drones off mining to fill gas or build a structure, choose drones that are...
1) just dropping off minerals.
2) nearer to the gas geyser/where you're placing the building.
3) mining from those mineral patches that are furthest from your hatchery.
To avoid taking drones off of a base with optimal saturation...
1) construct new drones and rally the eggs into the geyser.
2) take three drones off mining, but rally three new drone eggs to the patches you took from.
3) take drones from a base that doesn't have full saturation.
Stream Tutorial:
We just discussed the importance of reaching optimal mineral saturation (16 drones/mineral field), and now we need to figure out how to keep it. Here are some general guidelines.If you must take drones off mining to fill gas or build a structure, choose drones that are...1) just dropping off minerals.2) nearer to the gas geyser/where you're placing the building.3) mining from those mineral patches that are furthest from your hatchery.To avoid taking drones off of a base with optimal saturation...1) construct new drones and rally the eggs into the geyser.2) take three drones off mining, but rally three new drone eggs to the patches you took from.3) take drones from a base that doesn't have full saturation.Stream Tutorial: Maintaining Optimal Mineral Saturation
Zerg Economics Part 3: Tips and Drills
+ Show Spoiler +
Frequently use the BOX technique to count drones.
Reach 16 drone saturation as early as possible at each base.
Check for single-mining and triple-mining patches.
Be conscious of which drones you use to build structures and fill gas.
Drills:
1)
2)
3)
4)
Tips:Frequently use the BOX technique to count drones.Reach 16 drone saturation as early as possible at each base.Check for single-mining and triple-mining patches.Be conscious of which drones you use to build structures and fill gas.Drills:1) Single-Double-Triple 2) Removing/Adding to Gas 3) Drone Egg-Rally 4) 4-Base Peak Economy Maxout
Feedback Poll:
+ Show Spoiler +
Poll: Do you find this guide helpful?
5 - Excellent guide, relevant and concise information, interesting style. (139)
50%
4 - Solid guide, good analysis, pretty helpful. (60)
22%
3 - Average guide, could be improved but probably will help some people. (37)
13%
1 - There is nothing to be learned from you, Tang. You're ruining eSports. (32)
11%
2 - Some helpful material, overall not very informative. (11)
4%
279 total votes (139)50%(60)22%(37)13%(32)11%(11)4%279 total votes Your vote: Do you find this guide helpful? (Vote): 5 - Excellent guide, relevant and concise information, interesting style.
(Vote): 4 - Solid guide, good analysis, pretty helpful.
(Vote): 3 - Average guide, could be improved but probably will help some people.
(Vote): 2 - Some helpful material, overall not very informative.
(Vote): 1 - There is nothing to be learned from you, Tang. You're ruining eSports.
As always, I welcome and appreciate positive feedback as well as criticism. Please comment and let me know the things I'm doing right so I can continue doing them, as well as some things I did wrong so I can fix them in the future.
- Tang
Courtesy of Hello Ladies and Gentlemen of Team Liquid!I sincerely appreciate that you've taken the time to view my newest guide on Zerg Economics. Everyone knows that solid economy management makes a considerable difference in SC2, but it is still a subject that is only briefly touched in guides and tutorials. It's probably because drone saturation isn't always as interesting as innovative new build orders and play styles, but that doesn't diminish its importance.Now obviously I'm not saying that it's more important to check your third base's mineral saturation than manage a game-deciding battle. What I'm saying is that economy management is an: I strongly believe that if you take the time to understand and practice it, you become faster and more effective. Furthermore, it will improve other areas of your game play: mouse precision, boxing, hand speed, multitasking. Whether you play a 1-base all-in style or refuse to leave the creep until you're maxed with broodlords, you will benefit from reaching and maintaining. That's why I'm so excited to present an economy-focused guide with three goals:1) Add structure to players' economy by introducing the concept of optimal mineral saturation: 16 Drones per base, 2 Drones per patch.2) Suggest methods of reaching optimal mineral saturation as early as possible, and maintaining it throughout the game.3) Offer tips and drills to help players quickly point out their own mistakes and fix them.Courtesy of www.TangStarcraft.com Coaching www.allin-academy.com | Team www.All-Inspiration.com
TangSC Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 1852 Posts #2
Reddit Link
Thanks! It would really mean a lot to me if you all would upvote this post on reddit:Thanks! Coaching www.allin-academy.com | Team www.All-Inspiration.com
ValeHavoc Profile Joined November 2011 United States 1 Post #3 Example 1 of zerg econ pt. 1: 7+11=18
TangSC Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 1852 Posts #4 On July 13 2012 05:52 ValeHavoc wrote:
Example 1 of zerg econ pt. 1: 7+11=18
Oops! Thanks very much, updated. Oops! Thanks very much, updated. Coaching www.allin-academy.com | Team www.All-Inspiration.com
syriuszonito Profile Joined June 2011 Poland 332 Posts #5 Useful guide but I have to disagree about ALWAYS using box instead of double click. Imho when there are no drones transfering on the screen faster method is to ctrl click (or double click) drones, you want to see 16 +2 for each gas that you mine at the base (so you wanna see 20 drones if you have 2 gas mining). The one || My stream http://www.teamliquid.net/video/streams/syriuszonito
TangSC Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 1852 Posts #6 On July 13 2012 06:11 syriuszonito wrote:
Useful guide but I have to disagree about ALWAYS using box instead of double click. Imho when there are no drones transfering on the screen faster method is to ctrl click (or double click) drones, you want to see 16 +2 for each gas that you mine at the base (so you wanna see 20 drones if you have 2 gas mining).
Thanks for the feedback, I see where you're coming from. If you prefer to double click your workers, you can. However, I think boxing is one of the most important skills in SC2 (not just being able to make a box, but making a box the size/shape you need quickly). I always recommend using the box technique in the early stages, because even if it's not 100% necessary, it trains a skill that applies in micro engagements. Thanks for the feedback, I see where you're coming from. If you prefer to double click your workers, you can. However, I think boxing is one of the most important skills in SC2 (not just being able to make a box, but making a box the size/shape you need quickly). I always recommend using the box technique in the early stages, because even if it's not 100% necessary, it trains a skill that applies in micro engagements. Coaching www.allin-academy.com | Team www.All-Inspiration.com
EnE Profile Blog Joined June 2012 417 Posts Last Edited: 2012-07-12 21:25:55 #7 One issue with the guide in my opinion, is that double clicking to check saturation can be fine, you just add two more drones to the total needed to account for the two drones with gas on the way back to your hatchery. I'm embarrased by my past actions and even more ashamed of my present thoughts and future endeavors to clear my name.
TangSC Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 1852 Posts #8 On July 13 2012 06:25 EnE wrote:
One issue with the guide in my opinion, is that double clicking to check saturation can be fine, you just add two more drones to the total needed to account for the two drones with gas on the way back to your hatchery.
I think you guys are right, and I've updated the paragraph on boxing vs double-clicking. While I still prefer the box technique, there's nothing wrong at all with double-clicking or control-clicking - in some ways, it is actually faster/easier because you can avoid accidently boxing your gas-drones, your queen, or any units that spawn. I think you guys are right, and I've updated the paragraph on boxing vs double-clicking. While I still prefer the box technique, there's nothing wrong at all with double-clicking or control-clicking - in some ways, it is actually faster/easier because you can avoid accidently boxing your gas-drones, your queen, or any units that spawn. Coaching www.allin-academy.com | Team www.All-Inspiration.com
rezzan Profile Joined November 2010 Sweden 320 Posts #9 Ive been talking a bit t with tang and he has very good points and give good feedback and hes a nice guy. He have taught me alot about sc2, and its really showing in my gameplay after his help.
another great guide,!
Sponsored by Play3r.net and eurodomination.net www.twitch.tv/tacowtf
BoggieMan Profile Blog Joined August 2011 511 Posts #10 the title is kinda missleading since alot of this can be used by all races, great advice for the players that don't know all this already, i however think you should write that people in the lower leagues should not focus on this at all, cause its kinda silly wasting time practicing stuff like this when its your general gameplay that has huge flaws.
Danglars Profile Blog Joined August 2010 United States 10082 Posts Last Edited: 2012-07-12 21:43:07 #11
Consider revising your terms for (particularly) the screenshots. You're talking about mining efficiency, but somebody else might talk about per-base mining efficiency. You are literally decreasing your mining rate per base when you stop droning at 16 drones per base because you are below base saturation. The argument becomes why this is desirable (200 supply cap, map-based ease of taking third), but not the confusion with terms you're introducing here.
So please, separate drone mining efficiency from base mining saturation.
EDIT: Optimal drone saturation versus "fully saturate this base," I think is the clearer point to consider. You define the optimal drone saturation because that is the topic you are discussing, then switch pace to assert that 16 drones fully saturate a base.
+ Show Spoiler + Example A) - Current Drones: 7. We need 9 more drones to fully saturate this base.
Example B) - Current Drones: 10. We need 6 more drones to fully saturate this base.
Example C) - Current Drones: 14. We need 2 more drones to fully saturate this base. Fortunately, we have two building and rallied already
- Current Drones: 7. We need 9 more drones tosaturate this base.- Current Drones: 10. We need 6 more drones tosaturate this base.- Current Drones: 14. We need 2 more drones tosaturate this base. Fortunately, we have two building and rallied already
Really, it is merely to optimally saturate the base, having previously defined optimally as mining efficiency per drone and not mining efficiency per base Really, it is merely to optimally saturate the base, having previously defined optimally as mining efficiency per drone and not mining efficiency per base I don't think your example of "fully saturate" with 16 drones is conveying your point. A FULLY saturated base is 30 drones on minerals. I don't care if your mining rate with the third drone is 5 minerals per minute less than the first two. You are still mining faster and you haven't reached saturation until further drones do not add to your mining rate (I gotta assume equilibrium here, not drones still hunting for 2-drone patch). Similar to the sciences, where the saturation point means absolutely nothing more can be absorbed or added, as in the case with adding salt to water, where further salt past saturation point starts a pile of salt at the bottom.Consider revising your terms for (particularly) the screenshots. You're talking about mining efficiency, but somebody else might talk about per-base mining efficiency. You are literally decreasing your mining rate per base when you stop droning at 16 drones per base because you are below base saturation. The argument becomes why this is desirable (200 supply cap, map-based ease of taking third), but not the confusion with terms you're introducing here.So please, separate drone mining efficiency from base mining saturation.EDIT: Optimal drone saturation versus "fully saturate this base," I think is the clearer point to consider. You define the optimal drone saturation because that is the topic you are discussing, then switch pace to assert that 16 dronessaturate a base. Great armies come from happy zealots, and happy zealots come from California!
TangSC Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 1852 Posts #12 On July 13 2012 06:33 BoggieMan wrote:
the title is kinda missleading since alot of this can be used by all races, great advice for the players that don't know all this already, i however think you should write that people in the lower leagues should not focus on this at all, cause its kinda silly wasting time practicing stuff like this when its your general gameplay that has huge flaws.
Yeah, I was focused primarily on Zerg but you're definitely correct that Protoss/Terran players can use some of the information. While I completely understand your point of view, I'm going to respectfully disagree that it's silly to practice this at lower levels. It doesn't need to be the chief concern of a bronze level player, but it doesn't mean it hurts to be aware of it. I actually think that the drills might be very helpful for a newer player who still needs to improve those important fundamentals/mechanics: mouse precision, handspeed/apm, boxing. You're right that it's not even close to being as important as things like expanding, keeping larva/resources low, etc. Yeah, I was focused primarily on Zerg but you're definitely correct that Protoss/Terran players can use some of the information. While I completely understand your point of view, I'm going to respectfully disagree that it's silly to practice this at lower levels. It doesn't need to be the chief concern of a bronze level player, but it doesn't mean it hurts to be aware of it. I actually think that the drills might be very helpful for a newer player who still needs to improve those important fundamentals/mechanics: mouse precision, handspeed/apm, boxing. You're right that it's not even close to being as important as things like expanding, keeping larva/resources low, etc. Coaching www.allin-academy.com | Team www.All-Inspiration.com
TangSC Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 1852 Posts #13 On July 13 2012 06:39 Danglars wrote:
I don't think your example of "fully saturate" with 16 drones is conveying your point. A FULLY saturated base is 30 drones on minerals. I don't care if your mining rate with the third drone is 5 minerals per minute less than the first two. You are still mining faster and you haven't reached saturation until further drones do not add to your mining rate (I gotta assume equilibrium here, not drones still hunting for 2-drone patch). Similar to the sciences, where the saturation point means absolutely nothing more can be absorbed or added, as in the case with adding salt to water, where further salt past saturation point starts a pile of salt at the bottom.
Consider revising your terms for (particularly) the screenshots. You're talking about mining efficiency, but somebody else might talk about per-base mining efficiency. You are literally decreasing your mining rate per base when you stop droning at 16 drones per base because you are below base saturation. The argument becomes why this is desirable (200 supply cap, map-based ease of taking third), but not the confusion with terms you're introducing here.
So please, separate drone mining efficiency from base mining saturation.
EDIT: Optimal drone saturation versus "fully saturate this base," I think is the clearer point to consider. You define the optimal drone saturation because that is the topic you are discussing, then switch pace to assert that 16 drones fully saturate a base.
+ Show Spoiler + Example A) - Current Drones: 7. We need 9 more drones to fully saturate this base.
Example B) - Current Drones: 10. We need 6 more drones to fully saturate this base.
Example C) - Current Drones: 14. We need 2 more drones to fully saturate this base. Fortunately, we have two building and rallied already
- Current Drones: 7. We need 9 more drones tosaturate this base.- Current Drones: 10. We need 6 more drones tosaturate this base.- Current Drones: 14. We need 2 more drones tosaturate this base. Fortunately, we have two building and rallied already
Really, it is merely to optimally saturate the base, having previously defined optimally as mining efficiency per drone and not mining efficiency per base Really, it is merely to optimally saturate the base, having previously defined optimally as mining efficiency per drone and not mining efficiency per base I don't think your example of "fully saturate" with 16 drones is conveying your point. A FULLY saturated base is 30 drones on minerals. I don't care if your mining rate with the third drone is 5 minerals per minute less than the first two. You are still mining faster and you haven't reached saturation until further drones do not add to your mining rate (I gotta assume equilibrium here, not drones still hunting for 2-drone patch). Similar to the sciences, where the saturation point means absolutely nothing more can be absorbed or added, as in the case with adding salt to water, where further salt past saturation point starts a pile of salt at the bottom.Consider revising your terms for (particularly) the screenshots. You're talking about mining efficiency, but somebody else might talk about per-base mining efficiency. You are literally decreasing your mining rate per base when you stop droning at 16 drones per base because you are below base saturation. The argument becomes why this is desirable (200 supply cap, map-based ease of taking third), but not the confusion with terms you're introducing here.So please, separate drone mining efficiency from base mining saturation.EDIT: Optimal drone saturation versus "fully saturate this base," I think is the clearer point to consider. You define the optimal drone saturation because that is the topic you are discussing, then switch pace to assert that 16 dronessaturate a base.
I agree about the term "fully saturated base", updated to "optimally saturated base". Thanks! I agree about the term "fully saturated base", updated to "optimally saturated base". Thanks! Coaching www.allin-academy.com | Team www.All-Inspiration.com
TheGreenMachine Profile Joined March 2010 United States 704 Posts Last Edited: 2012-07-12 21:51:17 #14 I LOVE this type of stuff. I've been obsessed with avoiding triple mining+single mining drones with 16 per base. I also learned new things like the ideal drones to put on gas and some fancy drills to get even better where I feel I can improve. Great guide, 10/10 for what I look for ^^
Edit: another thing I do when Im not under pressure (ZvP vs forge) is always build overlords at the hatch with full saturation since drone transfer is about 5-10 minerals and overlords tend to not matter where they come out at.
Also I like to stagger when I make multiple gases since I know I cant perfectly add 9 drones to 3 gases efficiently I wait ~4 seconds between each planning ahead to be able to place them in gas more efficiently. Don't forget to get everyone you know to play HOTS so this game we love called Starcraft will live on. Every little bit helps. ^^
Drankme Profile Joined August 2011 Denmark 23 Posts #15 Great guide. Thanks!
TangSC Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 1852 Posts #16 On July 13 2012 06:47 TheGreenMachine wrote:
I LOVE this type of stuff. I've been obsessed with avoiding triple mining+single mining drones with 16 per base. I also learned new things like the ideal drones to put on gas and some fancy drills to get even better where I feel I can improve. Great guide, 10/10 for what I look for ^^
Haha me too!! Glad I'm not the only economy-nerd out there Haha me too!! Glad I'm not the only economy-nerd out there Coaching www.allin-academy.com | Team www.All-Inspiration.com
zoohairZ Profile Joined September 2010 Canada 254 Posts #17 This is a good post, thanks Tang.
TangSC Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 1852 Posts #18 On July 13 2012 07:05 zoohairZ wrote:
This is a good post, thanks Tang. This is a good post, thanks Tang.
Thanks zoohairZ hopefully see you at NASL? Thanks zoohairZhopefully see you at NASL? Coaching www.allin-academy.com | Team www.All-Inspiration.com
zoohairZ Profile Joined September 2010 Canada 254 Posts #19 On July 13 2012 07:09 TangSC wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 13 2012 07:05 zoohairZ wrote:
This is a good post, thanks Tang. This is a good post, thanks Tang.
Thanks zoohairZ hopefully see you at NASL? Thanks zoohairZhopefully see you at NASL?
Yup i'll be there :D Yup i'll be there :D
Monsyphon Profile Blog Joined August 2011 Canada 185 Posts #20 Neat little guide
It would be nice to have the gas income rate in the calculations section as well, makes it more complete
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next AllPort Moresby Several small island states could walk out on the Pacific Islands Forum if Australia and New Zealand force them to compromise on a declaration demanding an ambitious target to combat climate change.
The president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, issued the ultimatum on the eve of the summit of 16 Pacific Island leaders on Tuesday, declaring: "We cannot negotiate this, no matter how much aid. We cannot be bought on this one because it's about the future."
The president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, issued an ultimatum on the eve of the summit of 16 Pacific Island leaders on Tuesday. Credit:Mike Bowers
Mr Tong raised the prospect of either states walking out or Australia being asked to leave the forum if its two more powerful members forced a compromise on the commitment of island states to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"We expect them as bigger brothers, not bad brothers, to support us on this one because our future depends on it."When supporters of Andrew Anglin, editor of neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, wanted to raise funds to help him in a legal battle against the Southern Poverty Law Center, they turned to the only site that would allow them to host this type of campaign: WeSearchr.
In less than two months, the Daily Stormer vs. SPLC Legal Defense Fund campaign raised more than $155,000. The money will allow Anglin to fight a lawsuit brought against him by Tanya Gersh and |
or waitress by tilting your phone as you pass it around the restaurant table. But if you dig a little deeper (like bushing did) you’ll find it uses a library by Pinch Media that is specifically designed to track your geographical location through time, then upload that data to Pinch Media. (Oh and it also show you an ad, as an extra bonus).
Being an approved app, it must first ask you for permission to use your location. If you tap “Don’t Allow”, it will ask you again in about a minute, the next time its ad changes. So you either stop using this app (because it pesters you so much about the location question), or you finally submit and tap “OK”. From that point on, your location and path info (your actual physical path through your area each time you launch the app) belongs to Pinch Media, Inc. We think that’s a Pinch too much.
Update: A commenter named fusen pointed out this post by 0th3lo. who details Pinch Media’s SQL info (it includes your gender and birthday, when possible) and goes so far as to say “no doubt, ANY pinchmedia iPhone application is spyware”. Maybe it’s time to pressure Apple to boot Pinch Media apps from the AppStore?
Update: Pinch Media have blogged about the data collected by their analytics library here.
Update: Jailbroken users are now at a distinct advantage when it comes to data tracking. saurik has worked with Pinch Media and some other data trackers to develop an “opt-out” feature for data collection! It’s called PrivaCy and is now available via Cydia!Hour 1 -- Paul Snow (Chair of the Texas Bitcoin Conference) comes on the show to talk about Factom, a system for securing millions of realtime records in the blockchain
Hour 2 -- Freedom's Phoenix Headline News
Hour 3 -- Rob Lazzarotto (aka Tonopah Rob) gives an update on the 'farm', and his plea for help in raising funds to keep the farm in operation
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Hour 1
2014-12-30 Hour 1 Paul Snow (Video Archive):
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Paul Snow
Paul Snow has been writing compilers, interpreters, and Rules Engines for use in graphics, embedded systems, and web applications for over 30 years. He organized and executed the Passing Bitcoin Around the World Demonstration, and Chairs the annual Texas Bitcoin Conference, held in March. The next Texas Bitcoin Conference is to be held on March 27-29, 2015.
In May of 2014 he began a project, Factom. Factom will provide a general purpose data layer over Bitcoin, unleashing pure Blockchain Technology onto the world. Honesty is Subversive.
Webpages:
TexasBitcoinConference.Com
2015 Austin Conference
Join us on March 28-29, 2015
Texas and Austin are a powerhouse of technology development in the US. As global enterprises learn about the power of the block chain the need for expertise in development will grow exponentially. The time to educate is now. We are working this year in conjunction with the College Crypto Network, Bitcoincollege.info and BitcoinU to help draw in students and seasoned developers alike to inform and educate about this next big technology.
We are also thrilled to be right downtown at ACL Live at the Moody Theater and able to show off what a great town Austin is.
We are excited:
To host the 2nd Bitcoin 2.0 Million Dollar Hackathon. (4 out of 5 of last years winners went on to launch companies)
The conference has put out the first call for papers and the proceedings will be published.
To have George Gilder, author of WEALTH and POVERTY as one of our key speakers.
To once again be putting together a diverse and encompassing list of speakers and panelists.
To be supporting great charities proving Bitcoin as a Force For Good. (BitGive, Sean's Outpost, Capitol area Food Bank of Austin and Without Regrets)
We've even invited the entire Texas Legislature so they can see what being the Bitcoin Friendly state builds for Texas and the world.
Factom.Org
Factom is way to decentralize the worlds information using the Bitcoin Blockchain.
Factom is a system for securing millions of realtime records in the blockchain with a single hash.
This gives you the tools to build applications with all of the security of the blockchain without the speed, cost, or size limitations.
Read The Whitepaper
Factom gives you the tools to build applications on the blockchain. Learn more about the project by reading the whitepaper.
Proof of Existence
Proof of Process
Proof of Audit
What is Factom?
Factom is a next generation platform for creating enterprise tools and applications using Blockchain technology. Factom allows you to build applications on top of the Bitcoin Blockchain. Factom uses a simple API that lets you build projects that were not possible before while still harnessing the trust and security of the Blockchain.
Factom is a solution to:
- Blockchain bloat
- Off chain transactions
- Use cases and project ideas for hashing data into the blockchain
We welcome you to come check out our GitHub at https://github.com/FactomProjectWASHINGTON (AP) - About 3,000 U.S. soldiers from the Georgia-based 3rd Infantry Division will deploy to Eastern Europe beginning next week, to conduct training exercises with forces from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the Pentagon said Monday.
The deployment is part of an ongoing U.S. military troop rotation aimed at bolstering support for NATO allies who are worried about escalating aggression by Russia.
Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters that about 750 U.S. military tanks, helicopters, and other vehicles and equipment arrived in Riga, Latvia, on Monday, as part of the deployment. Much of the heavy equipment is expected to stay in the region, as the U.S. continues to rotate troops in and out of the Baltics.
The Defense Department has announced plans to reduce its overall permanent basing in Europe. But at the same time, it is ramping up its program to send military units on short-term deployments across Europe for training and exercises. Over the past year, the U.S. has sent a variety of troops, including special operations forces, to exercises and training program in Eastern Europe, including Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
Those nations are particularly concerned about potential threats from Russia in the wake of Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and the ongoing fighting between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country.
The 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division soldiers, based at Fort Stewart, will take over as the 2nd Cavalry Regiment leaves this month. The brigade is expected to be in the region for military exercises for about three months.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC.B’nai Brith Canada reports about Igor Sadikov, an Israel hater with an apparent penchant for violence.
Igor Sadikov, a member of the Legislative Council and Board of Directors of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), is facing calls for his resignation after advising followers to “punch a Zionist today” on Twitter.
Sadikov, a prominent supporter of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement at McGill, is also a former news editor of The McGill Daily, the campus newspaper that “maintains an editorial line of not publishing pieces which promote a Zionist worldview.”
“This is clear incitement to violence, which should not be tolerated on the part of any student, let alone a student politician,” said Amanda Hohmann, National Director of B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights. “We expect that this tweet will be taken for the serious example of incitement that it is, and Sadikov will be censured appropriately.
“Further, Sadikov’s tweet only strengthens the case of those who have claimed an overwhelmingly anti-Israel atmosphere at The McGill Daily. B’nai Brith will do everything in our power to ensure that publication’s discriminatory ban on Zionist content does not stand.”
In May of 2016, SSMU’s Judicial Board declared BDS to be unconstitutional because it engages in a prohibited form of discrimination. Sadikov is now pushing a set of changes that would dramatically reduce the authority of the Judicial Board.
UPDATE: Sadikov has since removed the tweet following publication of this story.Editor’s note: What follows is the full text of a written Q&A discussion I had with Henrik Palmgren and Lana Lokteff, the dynamic and talented couple behind Red Ice Creations. Henrik is the host of Red Ice Radio while Lana hosts Radio 3Fourteen. They also produce high quality video productions as well.
Our discussion revolved around the recent conference held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. organized by The National Policy Institute entitled Become Who We Are. The details of the conference, including the full lineup of speakers and official schedule, are posted at the Become Who We Are website.
I highly encourage all readers to support Henrik and Lana by subscribing to Red Ice Creations. They are producing some of the best content in the Alt Right today.
John Friend: Before we get started, I’d like to quickly say what an honor it was to meet both of you this weekend. I am a huge fan of your work so it was really nice to meet face to face and get to know each other. I don’t think the conference could have gone any better – Richard Spencer really did a great job organizing and promoting it, and the turn out was tremendous.
With that having been said, in your opinion, how significant of an event was the Become Who We Are conference?
Henrik Palmgren: I think this event marks the beginning of something big. A change in the right direction. You could sense this from the speakers, organizers and attendees alike. These meetings keep growing larger every year and more and more people are understanding what concerns, warnings and also call-to-action that the Alternative Right brings. New concerned and dedicated people are coming into the kinds of topics addressed during the conference basically every day now. Young people – many below 30 – but also some families, older couples and many women found their way to the event. That is a huge step in the right direction, to be worthy of being called a “movement.” It’s about pouring the metaphorical concrete into a foundation that we eventually can build something strong and solid on. Plus, getting away from the Twitter handles and Facebook profiles, to meet people face to face, is always a good idea for solidifying bonds and building a strong network.
In the future many might look back at this year, when a lot of people from vastly different political and ideological starting points converged to start forming a true opposition and a truly rebellious movement, that offer something authentic and realistic to break apart the status quo. The NPI event is not the only significant step in this direction of course, but it is most certainly a large part of it.
Lana Lokteff: In my view it was highly significant because it was the first Alt Right conference where about half the attendees were under 30. They were not only young but also intelligent, funny, edgy, well dressed and handsome, shattering the Hollywood created stereotype of what it means to be a proud White man in 2015. Looking around at the conference of about 200, I could see a truly fierce opposition to liberalist decay forming, with the energy and creativity that will attract many in the coming years.
Contrary to what the lamestream news reported, women were also in attendance. Women who I hit it off with immediately. Since I spoke about the men, I should also say that intelligent, well rounded and beautiful women are also being attracted to the Alt Right. These women are very confusing for feminists and leftists because they don’t fit the mold of the typical religious or conservative opposition. Alt Right women are much more intriguing and a much fiercer force to be reckoned with.
John Friend: Why is a national conference in Washington, D.C. focusing on White identity, White political interests, and ultimately the future of the White race particularly relevant and important in 2015?
Henrik Palmgren: Because in “the current year” White interests have been pushed to the margins of society and the fringes of public discourse. Europeans are the one group that you indiscriminately can discriminate against, without facing any repercussions for it. We have the proof of this by statements, admissions and quotes in the mainstream media.
We are the only people being told that we don’t have a culture or that we can’t have an identity, especially an identity to be proud of. In a time of supposed “tolerance” and “understanding,” the people spouting those values are certainly not holding true to them, since the few “protestors” outside the National Press Club and the mainstream media covering the event are trying their very best to make us feel guilty for being concerned with the displacement of our own people. This is no longer working however. So instead, they should spend some time trying to understand the ideas they fear, don’t understand and don’t tolerate. We are the dispossession global minority, yet we are not treated on the same equal basis as other groups, especially minorities. Why is that?
Washington D.C. is the belly of the beast in many respects and it’s significant to take the fight to them, as opposed to hiding away somewhere, fearing repercussions for our views or who we are. Taking a step towards those who hate us as opposed to backing down is important and relevant, especially to set the tone for the future events and also the overall progress of the Alternative Right or whatever you want to call it.
To a growing number of people, the questions and topics the conference dealt with this past weekend are of the highest moral value. These are concerns that are not recognized by the political establishment or the mainstream media, who have simply become the cheerleaders for the agenda to replace the European population in their own countries. We are not the ones who should feel guilt for who we are or that we simply have decided to take our own side. We are not the ones responsible for wars or for creating turmoil and chaos in the world.
As of right now, we have practically zero influence over how our foreign policy is being run or how our countries are being demographically altered. This is being done by a hostile elite that is forcing incompatible cultures, religions and vastly different people and races together. This is what is exacerbating the increased violence, crime and rape in the Western world and many countries, like Sweden, that was one of the safest countries in the world just 20-30 years ago. So it’s not our opinions that are morally reprehensible. Those openly advocating for our demise, replacement and ultimate extinction are the genocidal monsters, not us!
I sincerely believe that if the ongoing population replacement in the West isn’t stopped, the entire world will eventually descend into utter chaos. What many don’t understand is that the nations that have been the most successful in helping other failed nations around the world are now getting destabilized at such a rate that they will be unable, economically, to help even themselves, much less any other countries in the future. In short: if we go, the whole damn thing goes. That’s why this question is not only important to ourselves, but should be to others, even to those that hate us so much.
Lana Lokteff: This conference was critical because in 2015 the mainstream establishment openly tells White people that Whites cannot have an identity or interests of any kind because they are “inherently racist” and it will only lead to the oppression of non-Whites. If Whites are successfully programmed with anti-White lies, then they will succumb to the propaganda that tells them they’re doing a good thing by surrendering their nations and by not having children, effectively genociding themselves. Anti-White rhetoric is rapidly being taught everywhere from government institutions to schools and churches. If we do not teach our children the truth about their ancestors now, it will become too late, leading to a future with no White children.
John Friend: You both participated in a live podcast at the conference – what are your general thoughts on the discussion? Do you view live podcasting as a productive and worthwhile thing to do at future conferences?
Lana Lokteff: I think a group podcast was an excellent idea. The audience especially liked the interaction – anyone was able to pose questions to some of their favorite radio hosts, people they listen to regularly. I was extremely tired and can’t remember what I rambled about but I thought Mike Enoch, Henrik and Richard had an engaging dynamic since they’re so different personality wise but so unified ideologically, so that made the interaction fun to watch and hear. Of course it was amusing for me because I listen to Richard, Mike Enoch and of course Henrik’s shows so it’s even better seeing them speak live. [Editor’s note: Lana performed brilliantly throughout the entire group podcast session.]
Henrik Palmgren: I agree, this was a very refreshing addition to the speeches and a lot of fun. Perhaps I’m biased because I had the “Huwyte privilege” of participating in the live podcast/panel discussion. I still think that having speeches and presentations by authors and thinkers is still is a vital component of a conference, to “get the ball rolling” and get ideas bubbling for newcomers and seasoned folks alike. Once we got started with the live podcast however, we quickly realized that we could have gone a lot longer, since participation from the audience is such a great way to make the entire event more open and engaging, less rigid and closed off. I guess it’s good leaving people wanting more as opposed to have them walk away, tired of it and I think I can speak for almost everyone when I say that people definitely wanted more. Not only of the panel discussion but also of the socializing and the speakers. This is definitely the way to go for future events.Sister's Painful Reality
Elsa had tried to prepare herself within the single second that she had before turning to face the source of that honeysuckle voice which made her heart flip itself over. She consciously composed herself, taking an extra moment to close her eyes, notice some dirt and a single ant crawling across the walkway, and then lift her face, her eyes finding Anna and everything she had convinced herself of minutes prior crumbling within the queen's mind.
Anna skipped toward Kristoff, Sven, and Elsa, her off-white dress flowing about her legs as she did so. It was so odd that both girls had chosen such pale colours, but Elsa loved the differences Anna had included to truly separate herself from the older sister. She had an adorable thick belt clasped just below her breasts, and the skirt was only short enough to reveal from her mid-shin down, a pair of rather shiny, yellow shoes flashing here and there. Anna's hair was tied back into a messy ponytail, and it swayed along with the rest of her, her bangs a little out of place and her sideburns curling already.
She was the sun. She was proving herself the absolute light in Elsa's dark, damp life. Elsa was holding her breath, her eyes wide and a smile pushing her lips apart. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. She could think whatever she wanted when Anna wasn't around, but the moment the girl revealed herself in person to the queen, she could do nothing to combat the unfiltered love and desire to never leave her side again.
'Now that's pure joy.' Kristoff muttered to Sven, the comment being heard by Elsa, but leaving through her other ear instantly.
'Elsa! Oh, Elsa! It's been forever! Forever and ever! Have you gotten taller? I think she got taller, Anna.' Olaf moseyed about, his little snow cloud leaving snowflakes in its path should they fail to make contact with the unique being.
'Hmm. Hard to say. Maybe.' Anna crossed her arms and evaluated Elsa closely. This, of course, caused Elsa's face to burn slightly, and she lifted her hand nervously to cover her mouth.
'She looks the same to me.' Bulda shrugged, licking a particularly large lollipop with rainbow swirls making up the majority of it.
'Oh! Here, Kristoff! Here, Sven!' Anna handed the man and reindeer their share of treats. Sven, naturally, consumed his candy carrot whole, while Kristoff unwrapped his own lollipop, biting off a corner of it instantly.
'Thanks, Anna! Sven is pumped too!'
'That's not how you eat it, Kristoff. You have to lick it first!' Anna laughed, extracting two more of the same treat from her little goodie bag.
'Nah. Takes too long.'
Anna sighed, rolling her eyes but not looking upset whatsoever. When she finally addressed Elsa directly, her eyes fidgeted a bit, but then she handed her sister the lollipop, its chocolate flavour obvious.
'I hope this one's okay, Elsa. I got vanilla in case you want to share or something. I know you like chocolate though.'
'I do.' Elsa took the gift, her fingers trembling. She wanted to be with Anna so terribly suddenly. Her knees were weak. Her breaths came harshly. Her chest was vibrating. This was her truth. This was her reality. A day without Anna had given her a chance to formulate plans that held no ground in the presence of the girl she loved. She needed this to end tonight. She needed to clear the air with Anna and then take a solid break from her for at least a week. She had to kill her feelings. She had to strangle them dead.
'I have every flavour in mine! Thank-you soooooo much, Anna!' Olaf's tongue stretched across the entirety of his candy, the sight both hilarious and terrifying.
'Ah! No biggie. I know the guy pretty well, so he offered them all at a good price. I paid the normal amount and then some though, telling him to use my discount on some kids lurking nearby. Hahah! I mean, I'm one of the last people that needs a break, right?'
'That's true. That was a nice thing to do.' Kristoff chomped into another piece of his lollipop, making both Elsa and Anna cringe.
'Ugh. Brutal, Kristoff!' Anna bumped into the guy, the two of them laughing a bit.
'So, I guess you and I need to visit Gerda again, okay, Bulda?' Kristoff proceeded. Elsa's eyes flapped, her admiration for Anna's boyfriend renewed.
'What's that?' Bulda sounded less than pleased despite her apparent softening to the idea.
'Elsa thinks something's off about Gerda and Devil and all that.'
'Devil!?' Olaf screamed, Anna going to him and covering his mouth desperately, flakes of snow landing on her bare arm and melting into her partially darker skin.
'Shhh! Don't say that so loud!' Anna hissed through clenched teeth.
'Do you even know who we're talking about?' Kristoff chuckled, chewing the last pieces of his ill-treated candy.
'Um. No?' Olaf shrugged and then beamed.
'Boy, oh boy. You really want me to put the poor girl through that again?' The troll continued to whine.
'If you don't mind.' Kristoff grinned, kneeling down a bit and melting the female creature's soul instantaneously.
'Oh…Fine. I can do that for you, Kristoff, my lad.'
Kristoff clapped his hands together, a smug look coming over his usually somewhat stoic features.
'Guess we know what we're doing while you ladies catch up on some sister time, huh?'
'I wish I could clap my hands without breaking my arms.' Olaf mumbled distantly as Kristoff patted Sven on his long neck.
'You're doing that now?' Anna asked, taking a lick finally of her light-yellow treat. Elsa tried not to stare, but there was something inherently alluring about the motion, and she waited for the next time Anna decided to taste the perfectly made lollipop.
'Eh. Why not? Elsa seems a little stressed about it all, and I want to help where I can since we couldn't really figure anything out today. Did you want to come by my place after so I can give you the update?'
'That sounds fine…' Elsa relented. Yes. She would return Anna to Kristoff once the date was finished. That would be it. That's where it ended. How fitting. How sadly fitting. Elsa would say goodbye to the emotions that swirled in her body feverishly even now.
'Thanks, Kristoff. You're right; Elsa is a little anxious, huh? You okay to come out with me for a sec?' Anna looked almost sorry for intruding upon her older sister's time. Truth be told, Elsa did feel strange for accepting Anna's invitation so quickly after her heart had been shattered, but her hidden masochism apparently reared its ugly head once more, for here she was, exposing her neck one final time for Anna to sever.
'Please. I think it's necessary.'
Anna's brow lifted, and she laughed nervously, glancing to the side and nodding after a second.
'You're right. Heh. Yep.'
A beat, which certainly wasn't okay with Olaf who slithered in between the two sisters and looked from one to the other comically.
'Um…Everything good here, friends? Does anyone need a warm hug?'
Elsa sniffed and laughed, her voice shaky until she went to her knees and took Olaf up on his offer. The snowman couldn't really move his stick-limbs overly well, but Elsa found uncanny solace in feeling contact with something she had created all on her own. She had power. She had strength. She didn't need true love. It wasn't for her, clearly. Love mocked her at every turn, and she was growing tired of the charade. Solitude served her best, but Arendelle couldn't suffer because of her social inadequacies.
'We are fine, Olaf. Thank-you. Could you join Kristoff as well? I'm sure Gerda would love to see you. She seems to like things that remind her of winter.'
Olaf's eyes lit right up, his mouth morphing into a buck-toothed smile like no other.
'Now that's something I can do! Onward, Kristoff! We have a little lady to see!'
Kristoff laughed, touching Anna's back and haphazardly leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. Anna closed her eyes, as if enjoying the exchange, but didn't move otherwise.
'I'll see you after, probably. You know where to go?' He spoke in a low tone, suddenly rather masculine.
'Yep. Stay on the path around the east side and cut in near the perimeter of the castle. Keep going straight until the fork and hang a right there to the end.'
'Be careful.'
'I will, I will.'
'You too, Elsa. Some hunters have been saying that there's weird movements in the forest these days. Unnatural stuff. Just take it slow and stay on the path.'
'We will.' Elsa swallowed, wondering if more golems remained. It wasn't a pleasant thought. Her magic was feeling better than ever, but the throbbing in her mind at the idea of utilizing it still made her uncomfortable.
'Come on! Come on! Gerda is a waiting! Gerda, Gerda, Gerda! Gerrrrrda! Daggerrrrr!' Olaf was bouncing away, Sven skipping after him and Kristoff giving Anna one last wave.
'You know where to go if there's trouble, got it?' Bulda poked Anna's leg, and the girl nodded.
'Uh-huh. No worries.'
'Thatta girl.'
And they were soon gone. Elsa finally decided to try a bit of her lollipop at that point, and was surprised by how much her taste buds reacted to the flavourful substance.
'Good, huh?' Anna snickered.
'Very! I can't remember the last time I had something like this.'
'I kinda remember way back, but even I'm having trouble. It gets a little sticky unless you keep at it, so you better work hard there, Elsa.'
'Hm. I suppose I can do that.' Elsa took another lick, the sugary goodness building on her tongue as she drew it in and let the taste swirl about her mouth. It was a much more pleasant endeavour than dealing with Anna and her feelings at the moment. Elsa knew where she was in Anna's mind, but Gerda's words had rekindled an annoying sense of wonder and possibility. Anna looked so very radiant, and it was proving impossible not to stare. How could someone whom Elsa had seen so often in her life appear so distant and foreign to the queen suddenly? Elsa was scared to touch Anna. She was almost too scared to look at her. How was she supposed to survive this date?
'So, are you ready to skedaddle?'
'Yes. Do you have a plan?'
'I might.' Anna teased, giving her treat another stroke which, oddly enough, provided Elsa goosebumps.
'Lead the way, then.'
Moving through Arendelle, especially considering Elsa was with Anna, which didn't happen terribly often as of late, proved difficult as always. Elsa's patience held out well enough, with Anna always allowing the two girls to get distracted with humouring an excited citizen or five, but by the time the sisters reached the outer gates of the city, Elsa was nearly done with her lollipop, self-consciously licking through it as Anna did most of the talking with near-strangers.
'Oop! You mind if I have a taste of that before it's gone? I've been eyeing it since you opened it, but I didn't think you'd finish so fast.'
Elsa blushed. Her saliva was practically covering the candy in totality by this point. Anna surely knew that, did she not? Her blood boiled in excitement. She thought of that wonderful night where she had obtained a kiss from her sister that went beyond simply "practicing". They both knew it, but Anna had an easier time passing it off as perfectly friendly antics between inexperienced siblings. Elsa also hated recalling the precious moment, however, for it was a hint at what she couldn't have. She wanted to kiss Anna again. She wanted to try everything Gerda had shown her. Everything.
'Only if I can taste yours.' Elsa sneered.
'Pfft. No problem.'
The royal sisters exchanged lollipops, and Elsa had little issue with tasting vanilla. She almost expected to notice something hinting at Anna's presence, but was disappointed to find that not to be the case.
'Mmmm…! Definitely should've gone with chocolate!' Anna smiled enormously.
Elsa drew away from the vanilla-flavoured treat, a small strand of drool stretching from her bottom lip to the base of the circular candy. She frantically broke the embarrassment off, but Anna was laughing hysterically a moment later, patting Elsa on the shoulder.
'Nice! I bet your suitors would love to see that, huh? Hahah! Enjoying my lollipop that much? Heheh!'
Elsa couldn't admit the effects she truly was experiencing. Too many thoughts encircled her mind with the act of sharing such an intimate delicacy with her sister. Too many parallels that the queen wanted so very much.
'It would seem so…' Elsa mumbled, turning away and handing back the candy.
'Adorable. This shy side of you is crazy cute, you know?'
Elsa flinched. Had Anna always said such things? Was she aware of how they made Elsa feel upon hearing such compliments? They shouldn't hurt, but they did. Elsa couldn't not misinterpret such flattery.
'I don't see how my humiliation is attractive, but I guess that's fine.'
'Heheh! It's because you seem kinda stern and cold, so when you get past that strong girl thing and see the shy, innocent princess beneath it all, it's hard not to swoon a little.'
Elsa wanted to ask Anna if she was actually swooning at all, but was too scared of the answer and of the inevitable quiet that would follow. Anna was trying to be normal. Anna wanted her sister to be her sister again. It wasn't too much to ask, but it might've been too soon. With every interaction, Elsa felt her heart murmuring in pain. Anna was so beautiful and charming. Elsa could be herself. She hid nothing. This is what she wanted so much but would never have. Elsa was tempted to leave, but more of her needed to stay.
'Shall we?' Anna flicked her head, obtaining her treat back anew and licking it immediately. Elsa bit hard on her lip, her pulse crackling.
'Lead the way. Might I ask where we're going?'
'Nope. Secret.'
'Be careful. The golems…'
'I know. I know. We'll be fine. They like to hang around the valley with Kristoff's family since there's lotsa magic around there. No worries. Besides, I got you, don't I? Is your magic all better?'
'Not completely.'
'Really? That's weird…'
'I know. It's well enough though.'
'Ah! Great!'
Anna led the way into the forest, following a path that didn't dip too deeply yet gave the illusion of being enshrouded in nature. Elsa certainly didn't mind, although she feared the fading sunlight could prove problematic on the way back. Anna must've assumed Elsa could produce light with her magic aura, and normally that wasn't an issue, but the queen had apprehensions in that regard.
Nonetheless, Elsa watched as Anna's dress swayed, her slender, shaped figure teasing the young woman with every move it made. She tried to divert her eyes at times, but savoured the finality of it all at others.
'How were the suitors? You know who you're going with?' Anna started, small, forced intonations coming into her voice as she pushed off elevated parts of the land, checking behind herself constantly to make sure Elsa was keeping up.
'It has been narrowed down to Sir Daryun and King Arthur.' Elsa purposely excluded the scenario with Maxwell so she wouldn't put Anna on the spot yet again.
'Oh, yeah? Not Leon, huh? He was good looking; didn't you think?'
'I did, but he wasn't as he seemed.' Elsa nearly shivered. She didn't want to contemplate that situation again.
'They never are, are they?'
'We both know that now.' Elsa said it cruelly, but she didn't like that Anna never talked about Hans. She wanted to know that side of her sister; the side she guarded so carefully. She wore her emotions on her sleeve seemingly, but when it came to true intimacy and true love, she had an incredible poker face hidden behind laughter and jokes. Did Kristoff know this part of Anna? Elsa hated to think so. Elsa had caught but a glimpse of it during her confession/rejection, but it was over too quickly. Thinking about it briefly now, Elsa had never thought Anna looked so beautiful, as twisted as it seemed to her, as when she was breaking before the older sister's eyes.
Elsa shook her head. What was wrong with her?
'Hahah! Yep. That's the truth.'
There it was. That laugh. The flippancy. The waving it off. Anna always did this. Elsa wanted to push for some reason. Was she angry? Was she jealous? Was she frustrated? All the above, it seemed.
'Do you think about Hans ever?' Elsa almost bit her tongue, and when Anna stopped moving altogether, the queen thought for sure that she had made a terrible blunder.
Anna turned, her eyes almost glaring, but not quite. Her voice, however, was just a little deeper.
'Hans was a mistake. He tried to kill you. I don't want to hate anybody, but he comes pretty darn close. That's it.'
'I'm sorry…' Elsa breathed.
Anna cocked her head, returning to normal.
'Why? You didn't do anything. You saved me. You saved me because of your love for me. Easy peasy.' Anna skipped away, but Elsa knew she was hiding once more. What she had just said…she knew what it meant. At the time, both girls were convinced it was familial love that had cured Anna's curse, but now, it was fairly clear they were perhaps wrong about the innocence of it all.
'So…Daryun or Arthur, huh? Tough choice.'
'I suppose.'
'Or none. I guess that's an option too.'
'Possibly.'
Anna and Elsa were entering the actual forest now, the darkness of the day and the trees sudden consumption of the two girls making for a somewhat hazardous trip suddenly. The comfort of the sun and their sugary treats were long gone, it felt.
'Hmm…' Anna stopped once more. 'Um…Well. Guess I'm an idiot, because I was definitely thinking your magic was an option.'
'You're not an idiot!' Elsa yelled much more harshly than she meant to. Leon's arrogant and snivelling face came to mind, and she had to calm herself actively. 'T-that is, I'm fine.'
'You don't have to force yourself. We should just wait for our eyes to adjust or something, right?'
Elsa didn't answer Anna. She focussed her efforts on condensing just a bit of her powers into her right hand, extending it out so that a small blue-hued globe circulated in a floating fashion. Anna kneeled down so that the light illuminated her face, the girl's features always pleasing to Elsa's eye. The queen wouldn't admit that she now felt a constant buzzing on the right side of her brain because of the act. She loved and hated this date too much to complain.
'Oooo! Pretty as always. I never get tired of seeing your magic, Elsa.'
'Heh. Gerda likes it too.' Elsa mentioned without thinking.
'Yeah? That's good.'
A beat, and Elsa realized what needed to be done in order to ensure both girls stayed together. She didn't want to intrude, but it simply made sense, all things considered.
'Can I take your arm, Elsa?' Anna asked, hiding her face now from the light. Elsa could only just make out her mouth, and it was pursed a little bit, as if she were holding it tight.
'Of course.'
Another pause, and then one of Anna's hands curled about Elsa's left elbow. Anna's touch was enough to make Elsa's knees weak. Her hands were so soft. She was so gentle. It felt right. Elsa wanted to guide Anna. Elsa wanted to be the girl's knight. She wanted to protect her. She wanted to do so many things with and for her… |
has complied with all laws and regulations regarding rebates.
Also on Tuesday, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said he was investigating the rebates and the possibility that Mylan violated the state’s antitrust law when it sued and settled with a would-be generic competitor. Mylan spokeswoman Nina Devlin said the company was cooperating with the investigation.
EpiPen has also posed a cost burden to the federal Medicare health program for the elderly, according to an analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy research group. Before rebates, EpiPen costs for Medicare Part D shot up more than 1,000 percent between 2007 and 2014, from $7 million to $87.9 million, the report said.
Devlin, in an emailed statement, said that from 2010 to 2015, rebates to Medicare Part D plans were up 440 percent, which would reduce the increase stated by the Kaiser Family report. She said that any analysis that does not take those specific rebates into account is fundamentally flawed.
While rebates to Medicare, which are not disclosed by the program, would have offset the cost to a degree, it was still far higher than a 164 percent increase in EpiPen prescriptions to Medicare patients, the Kaiser Family report said.Samsung Galaxy S4 is currently available in two variants internationally - with Snapdragon 600 and Exynos 5 Octa internals. There's another version, the Galaxy S4 LTE-A, which launched in South Korea with a Snapdragon 800 chipset and LTE-Advanced connectivity.
Leaked AnTuTu benchmarks point to the LTE-A Galaxy S4 getting an international release with the model number is I9506 (the S4 with Snapdragon 600 is I9505).
The benchmark reveals the presence of the quad-core processor clocked at 2.3 GHz. The phone runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and the device has managed to pile up 31,123 points in the benchmark, which is about as much as other tested Snapdragon 800 smartphones score. This also suggests a considerable performance advantage over the Galaxy I9500 and I9505 versions.
AnTuTu
Higher is better
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S800)
31123
Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A
29976
Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
26275
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
24716
HTC One
22678
Sony Xperia Z
20794
LG Optimus G Pro
20056
HTC Butterfly
19513
Samsung Galaxy S III
15547
Oppo Find 5
15167
This is actually better than what the South Korean version of the phone managed. The Adreno 330 GPU easily outperforms the Adreno 320 in the Snapdragon 600, too.
Unfortunately, there is no official word from Samsung on the upcoming variant of the Galaxy S4 smartphone. And until an official announcement comes, you will do well not to get your hopes too high.
Source (in Japanese)Image copyright AFP Image caption The Lighthouse Winmore filled up with oil to take to Taiwan but never went there, it is alleged
South Korea has revealed it seized a Hong Kong-registered ship last month suspected of supplying oil to the North in breach of international sanctions.
Officials said the Lighthouse Winmore had secretly transferred 600 tonnes of refined oil to a North Korean ship.
A UN Security Council resolution bans ship-to-ship transfers of any goods destined for Pyongyang.
The revelations came as China denied claims by President Donald Trump it had allowed oil shipments to the North.
What happened with the Lighthouse Winmore?
The ship entered Yeosu port in South Korea on 11 October to load up with refined oil and left for Taiwan four days later, Yonhap news agency reported.
But instead of going to Taiwan it transferred the oil to a North Korean ship and three other vessels in international waters on 19 October, South Korean officials were quoted as saying.
This defies a UN Security Council resolution imposed on 11 September.
The New York Times said the transfer was captured in US satellite photos, released by the US Treasury in November, although the Lighthouse Winmore was not named by the Treasury.
The Lighthouse Winmore was seized when it returned to Yeosu in November and remains in South Korea, South Korean officials said.
Was China involved?
There is no evidence for this, as although the Lighthouse Winmore is Hong Kong-flagged, it was leased by a Taiwanese company, Billions Bunker Group Corp.
Taiwan's Presidential Office said the company that chartered the ship was not incorporated in Taiwan, but did not say whether the firm's owner or officials are Taiwanese.
The Chinese government said the accusations against it were "not consistent with the facts".
Image copyright AFP Image caption North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has refused to bow to international pressure
"China has never allowed Chinese enterprises nor individuals to violate UN Security Council resolutions imposed on the DPRK," foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.
China handles about 90% of the North's foreign trade.
Why was Trump riled?
There has been increasing suspicion in Washington that Chinese ships have been secretly transferring petroleum to North Korean vessels at sea.
China has continued to deny this, saying it fully enforces UN resolutions against Pyongyang.
On Thursday, Mr Trump tweeted he was "very disappointed" with China, which he said had been "caught red-handed".
The tweet followed a report on the issue in South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.
Quoting South Korean government officials, the report said the illegal ship-to-ship transfers had been filmed by US spy satellites about 30 times since October.
President Trump told the New York Times he had "been soft" on trade issues with China because he wanted its help on North Korea but was now threatening to end that.
He said: "Oil is going into North Korea. That wasn't my deal. If they don't help us with North Korea, then I do what I've always said I want to do."
Is oil part of the sanctions against the North?
Yes. Last week Beijing supported a US-drafted UN resolution that included measures to slash the North's petrol imports by up to 90%.
The 22 December sanctions also refer specifically to attempts by the North to procure prohibited goods.
The measures address the "illicit imports of petroleum through deceptive maritime practices by requiring Member States to seize, inspect and freeze any vessel in their ports and territorial waters for involvement in prohibited activities".
On Thursday, the UN Security Council also denied international port access to four more North Korean ships suspected of carrying banned goods, AFP reported. It would bring the total number of ships blocked by the UN to eight.
North Korea is already subject to a raft of sanctions from the US, the UN and the EU.
The latest round was sparked by the 29 November launch of a ballistic missile, which flew higher than any other the North has tested.
In a typically bellicose response, North Korea described the new sanctions as an "act of war".
Mr Trump has previously threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea if it launches a nuclear attack. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has described the US president as "mentally deranged".
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption North Korea said in November its latest missile was capable of reaching Washington DC
Have previous sanctions worked?
They have been imposed for more than a decade with little success.
In fact, North Korea has said fresh sanctions will only make it accelerate its nuclear programme. It has continued to test nuclear and ballistic missiles despite these recent examples of UN pressure:A group of coastal waterways in southwest British Columbia and northwest Washington State
The Salish Sea ( SAY-lish) is the intricate network of coastal waterways that includes the southwestern portion of the Canadian province of British Columbia and the northwestern portion of the U.S. state of Washington. Its major bodies of water are the Strait of Georgia, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Puget Sound. It reaches from Desolation Sound at the north end of the Strait of Georgia to Oakland Bay at the head of Hammersley Inlet at the south end of Puget Sound. The inland waterways of the Salish Sea are partially separated from the open Pacific Ocean by Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula, and are thus partially shielded from Pacific Ocean storms. Major port cities on the Salish Sea include Vancouver, Seattle, Tacoma, Bellingham, Port Angeles and Victoria. Much of the coast is part of a megalopolis stretching from West Vancouver, British Columbia, to Olympia, Washington.
Definition [ edit ]
The Salish Sea includes the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound, and all their connecting channels and adjoining waters, such as Haro Strait, Rosario Strait, Bellingham Bay, Hood Canal, and the waters around and between the San Juan Islands in the U.S. state of Washington and the Gulf Islands in British Columbia, Canada.[1] The western boundary is the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, defined as a line between Cape Flattery and Carmanah Point. The southern boundary is the southern end of Puget Sound. The northern boundary reaches just beyond the northern end of the Strait of Georgia to include waters that experience the floodstream or tidal surge from the south: Discovery Passage south of Seymour Narrows, Sutil Channel south of Penn Islands, Lewis Channel (between Cortes and West Redonda Island), Waddington Channel (between West Redonda and East Redonda Island), and Pendrell Sound, Desolation Sound, and the southern portion of Homfray Channel (between East Redonda Island and the mainland). These boundaries were based on the 2002 "Georgia Basin–Puget Sound Ecosystem Indicators Report".[2] The total extent of the Salish Sea is about 18,000 square kilometres (6,900 sq mi).[1]
Name [ edit ]
Origin of the term [ edit ]
The first known use of the term Salish Sea was in 1988, when marine biologist Bert Webber from Bellingham, Washington, created the name for the combined waters in the region with the intention to complement the names Georgia Strait, Puget Sound, and Strait of Juan de Fuca, not replace them.[3] The adoption of the term, he said, would raise consciousness about taking care of the region's waters and ecosystems. Webber's efforts are credited with the official recognition of the term in Canada and the U.S.
Coast Salish peoples [ edit ]
The Coast Salish are the indigenous peoples who live in southwest British Columbia and northwest Washington along the Salish Sea and share a common linguistic and cultural origin. The Coast Salish are seen as one of the main cultural and linguistic branches of a larger group known as Salishan or Salish. Five divisions of the Salish language family are recognized, with Coast Salish and Interior Salish being the primary two. The Salish family consists of 23 separate languages.[4] European and American explorers first encountered Salishan people along the Pacific Northwest coast in the late 18th century. The first detailed information was obtained by the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806.[5] The term "Salish" was originally applied only to the Interior Salish Flathead tribe living in the region of Flathead Lake, Montana.[5][6] By the mid-20th century, it had been extended to cover all people speaking a similar language.[7] The Flathead Nation continues to refer to their language and culture as Salish.[8][9] A variant name for Flathead Lake is "Selish Lake".[10] The name Salish Sea was coined only in the late 20th century. No overarching title exists for this area or even a commonly shared name for any of the waterbodies in any of the Coast Salish languages.
The waterways of the Salish Sea were important trade routes for the Coast Salish, and they remain a source of food and other resources for the indigenous peoples. The basin includes territory of not only Coast Salish peoples, but also the Northern Wakashan Kwakwaka'wakw and Southern Wakashan peoples (the Nuu-chah-nulth, Makah, and Ditidaht) and, formerly, that of the Chimakum (a Chimakuan people related to the Quileute who no longer exist as a recognizable group, having been wiped out by the Suquamish and others in the 19th century).[11]
Official recognition [ edit ]
In March 2008, the Chemainus First Nation proposed renaming the Georgia Strait the "Salish Sea," an idea that reportedly met with approval by B.C.'s Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong, who pledged to put it before the B.C. cabinet for discussion. Making the name "Salish Sea" official required a formal application to the Geographical Names Board of Canada.[12] A parallel American movement promoting the name had a different definition, combining of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound as well as the Strait of Georgia and related waters under the name Salish Sea.
In August 2009, the British Columbia Geographical Names Office approved a resolution recommending that the Geographical Names Board of Canada adopt the name Salish Sea contingent on approval by the United States Board on Geographic Names.[13][14] The name was endorsed by the Washington State Board on Geographic Names in late October, 2009.[15] It was approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names on November 12, 2009,[16] and by the British Columbia Geographical Names Office in February 2010. The French name Mer des Salish is also official in Canada.[1]
Opposition [ edit ]
Opponents[who?] to the Salish Sea designation assert that it is really a series of interconnected straits, sounds and inlets[citation needed]. Others oppose it for historical reasons and question the validity of the term "Salish".[17] Overcoming these objections, the geographic boards of both Canada and the United States have officially recognized the name since the year 2010.
Other names [ edit ]
The region encompassing these waterways is or was also known variously as the Georgia–Puget or Puget–Georgia Basin, or in the singular as the Georgia Depression, the Georgia Basin or Puget Sound et al. The Canadian half of the region was originally named in 1792 by George Vancouver, and often remains referred to as the Gulf of Georgia,[18] a term which encompasses the Strait of Georgia and all other waters peripheral to it, as well as to the communities lining its shores or on its islands. Like the term "Puget Sound," the terms "Georgia Strait" and "Gulf of Georgia" refer to the general region as well as the body of water.
Fauna [ edit ]
Fish [ edit ]
Scientists have identified 253 fish species observed in marine or brackish waters of the Salish Sea ecosystem. These 253 species, encompassing one myxinid, two petromyzontids, 18 chondrichthyans, two chondrosteans, and 230 teleosts, are contained within 78 families and 31 orders.[19]
Marine Mammals [ edit ]
The plight of southern resident orca (Orcinus orca) in the Salish Sea has attracted global attention, as these fish-eating whales are starving due to low salmon populations. Video footage showed an orca named Tahlequah, who carried her dead calf on her head for more than 1,000 miles over 17 days before parting with it. Known as southern resident killer whales, this orca population is at a 35-year low after three adult deaths this past year and no surviving calves over three years, leaving only 74 orca.[20][21] Healthy seal-eating northern resident orca pods also visit the Salish Sea and their population is increasing.
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
General references [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Coordinates:If you're looking for a progressive elected official who clearly has no fear of calling for more funding for America's social programs, look no further than Vermont senator and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. With the unveiling of a blunt and powerful proposal this week, Sanders showed that no amount of Trump drama will distract him from his goals. In a bill he presented alongside Oregon representative Peter DeFazio, Sanders is proposing a Social Security expansion for millennials, taking the debate on protecting America's biggest social safety net program out of the strict realm of senior citizens and the middle-aged.
The way the bill operates, in simple terms, is by lifting an income cap that currently prevents the country's well-off citizens from having to pay higher taxes into the program. As it stands now, a worker must only pay into Social Security, via payroll taxes, on the first $127,200 worth of income they earn. In other words, if you earn less than that threshold, your full income is subject to Social Security taxation. If you make more than that threshold, however ― which would mean you're pretty successful, raking in a six-figure annual income ― your taxes would only take the hit on that first $127,200. In other words, it's effectively a regressive tax.
The capped figure is tied to the wage index, meaning it's slowly risen over the course of the last several decades. Up until 1950, it stood at just $3,000. It crossed into the six-figure range for the first time in 2008.
The reason this is hugely relevant to millennials is that Sanders' bill would extend the solvency of the Social Security program well beyond the timeframe that's commonly discussed in the halls of power. Typically, the go-to talking point on Social Security for the Republicans is that it'll have to change for future generations, obviously, with the specter of privatization always looming. But people currently over a certain age, who're already fast approaching retirement, should continue to have their benefits ensured.
It's an understandable political tact, considering that radically changing the system so close to someone's retirement would undeniably be pulling the rug out from under them, in a destabilizing and potentially vote-determining way. And, of course, seniors and the middle-aged are a much more reliable voting bloc than the young have historically been.
Compared to those sorts of promises, however, Sanders' bill is reaching for the stars. If it were passed and signed into law ― which looks virtually impossible given the current Republican domination of the legislature and the executive branch, sadly ― the Social Security Administration projects that the program's solvency would be extended out to 2078, ensuring benefits for today's millennials, too.
This is the kind of social welfare-oriented progressive idea that helped Sanders mount a ferocious challenge to former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton last year, as well as one that prizes and considers the value of younger generations. And with the Democratic Party desperately seeking a new (or at the very least renewed) identity since Trump's upset victory, this is an example of a hallmark issue, benefiting everyday people, that could help turn the tide.
And whether or not it actually passes ― which again, is virtually impossible ― Sanders' pitch in the here and now should help set up the stakes for when the 2018 midterm elections roll around.If farmers don’t want big cats to kill their livestock, they should make sure that the kitties have enough wild prey to eat. Lions, tigers and other big cats tend to hunt cattle, goats and sheep only after their regular prey has fallen below certain thresholds, a new study finds.
The seven species that make up the big cats — lions, tigers, jaguars, cougars, leopards, snow leopards and cheetahs — are favorites for those of us who only encounter them in zoos or on safari. But people who have to live with these animals aren’t often fans. It’s not good for farmers when the cats kill animals in their herds, and it’s not good for the kitties, since people sometimes kill the big cats in retaliation or to prevent more attacks.
But studies have suggested that the cats aren’t killing livestock willy-nilly and that the animals would prefer their natural, wild diet. So Igor Khorozyan and colleagues at the Georg-August University of Göttingen in Germany wondered if what the balance was between a wild diet and the easy prey of a livestock herd. They gathered data on the seven big cats from more than 100 studies and applied some statistical analyses. They report their findings in the December issue of Biological Conservation.
“The probability of livestock killing by big cats significantly increased when prey biomass fell below minimum thresholds,” the team writes. When that “prey biomass” fell below 812 kilograms per square kilometer, the cats started killing cattle in higher numbers. And when the level fell below 545 kilograms per square kilometer, cats went for the smaller goats and sheep. (The numbers aren’t easily translated into numbers of animals per area because prey come in a variety of sizes. But they will be useful for people who manage animals and lands.)
When the kitties’ prey starts becoming scarce, the cats start hunting the easiest and most-profitable animal alternatives — cattle. When even the cattle can’t compensate for the cats’ missing prey, then the cats go after the smaller goats and sheep. In other words, it appears that big cats don’t really want to kill livestock as a first choice for dinner, but they will if they have few other alternatives.
The researchers found a few exceptions to this trend, such as when big cats were able to supplement the lack of their regular prey with other, non-livestock species, like giant anteaters or domestic dogs. But the livestock trend held for all seven of the cats, and it showed why in some protected areas in India, Nepal and South Africa, big cats tend not to kill livestock: They have plenty of wild animals to eat.DECEMBER 06, 2010
Human milk, a natural prebiotic, is preferred for infants through six months of age. There is some evidence in otherwise healthy infants and young children to support the use of probiotics early in the course of diarrhea from acute viral gastroenteritis and that use of probiotics reduces its duration by one day. However, the available evidence does not support the routine use of probiotics to prevent infectious diarrhea unless there are special circumstances. Although the results of some studies support the prophylactic use of probiotics during pregnancy and lactation and during the first six months of life in infants who are at risk of atopic disorders, further confirmatory evidence is necessary before a recommendation for routine use can be made. There is some evidence to support the use of probiotics to prevent necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants with a birth weight of 1000g or higher. However, the amount and specificity of which probiotic or mixture of probiotics to use is problematic. Furthermore, many of the probiotics used and cited in the literature for treatment in preterm infants are not readily available. At the present time, the sustained or long-term benefit of using probiotics for treating disorders such as Crohn disease, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, and extraintestinal infections requires further clinical trials and cannot be recommended in children. Long-term health benefits of probiotics in the prevention of cancer, allergy, or other diseases or providing sustained beneficial results on the developing immune system beyond early infancy remain to be proven. Addition of probiotics to powdered infant formulas has not been demonstrated to be harmful to healthy term infants. On the other hand, evidence of clinical efficacy for their addition is insufficient to recommend the routine use of these formulas. No trials have directly compared the health benefits of feeding human milk versus infant formula supplemented with probiotics. Probiotics should not be given to children who are seriously or chronically ill until the safety of administration has been established. Prebiotics may prove to be beneficial in reducing common infections and atopy in otherwise healthy children. However, confirmatory studies, especially in children fed formula that is not partially hydrolyzed, are needed before any recommendations can be made. Addition of oligosaccharides as prebiotics to infant formula is not unreasonable but lacks evidence demonstrating clinical efficacy at this time. Cost/benefit studies are also necessary to support their addition to infant formulas. Important questions remain in establishing the clinical applications for probiotics, including the optimal duration of administration as well as preferred microbial dose and species. The long-term impact on the gut microflora in children is unknown. It also remains to be established whether there is significant biological benefit in the administration of probiotics during pregnancy and lactation. Similar questions exist for the use of prebiotics.
There is some evidence that administering probiotics early in the course of diarrhea from acute viral gastroenteritis can reduce its duration by one day in otherwise healthy children and infants, according to findings from a report published in Pediatrics.In the report, Dan W. Thomas, MD, and Frank R. Greer, MD, of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition review the health benefits of probiotic and prebiotic products, including those added to commercially available infant formula and other food products for use in children.Probiotics—which are supplements or foods that contain viable microorganisms that cause alterations of the microflora of the host—have been found to be modestly effective in preventing antibiotic-associated diarrhea in healthy children, though there is no evidence probiotics are effective at treating this type of diarrhea.Key findings from the study are as follows:To read the report—Probiotics and Prebiotics in Pediatrics—click hereFinally, a mosquito you won’t want to swat.
A biotech startup got the OK from the feds last Friday to release lab-grown skeeters in 20 states — including New York — an army of weaponized insects whose mission is to target wild, disease-carrying mosquito populations, the journal Nature reported.
Kentucky-based MosquitoMate will infect the males, which don’t bite people, with Wolbachia pipientis bacteria — which affects mosquitoes but not animals or humans. The hope is the males mate with female Asian tiger mosquitoes, which do bite humans, and are carriers of dangerous viral diseases, such as yellow fever and Zika.
Eggs fertilized by the dud studs don’t hatch, because the bacteria frazzles the dad’s genetic contribution. And the bacteria-infected females don’t contract viruses as easily, so their rate of transmission drops.
The company could start selling its infected mosquitoes this summer via government contracts, or direct to consumers, Gizmodo reported.
The plan is creating a lot of buzz as an alternative to pesticides, University of Maryland entomologist David O’Brochta told Nature.
“It’s a non-chemical way of dealing with mosquitoes, so from that perspective, you’d think it would have a lot of appeal,” he told Nature. “I’m glad to see it pushed forward, as I think it could be potentially really important.”
The biggest hurdles are breeding the millions of bugs needed to make a dent in native populations, as well as separating the harmless-to-humans males from the blood-sucking females inside the lab, which workers currently do mainly by hand.I’m a fan of static code analyzing. With the use of fancy scanner tools we can get detailed reports about source code mishaps and quite decently pinpoint what source code that is suspicious and may contain bugs. In the old days we used different lint versions but they were all annoying and very often just puked out far too many warnings and errors to be really useful.
Out of coincidence I ended up getting analyses done (by helpful volunteers) on the curl 7.26.0 source base with three different tools. An excellent opportunity for me to compare them all and to share the outcome and my insights of this with you, my friends. Perhaps I should add that the analyzed code base is 100% pure C89 compatible C code.
Some general observations
First out, each of the three tools detected several issues the other two didn’t spot. I would say this indicates that these tools still have a lot to improve and also that it actually is worth it to run multiple tools against the same source code for extra precaution.
Secondly, the libcurl source code has some known peculiarities that admittedly is hard for static analyzers to figure out and not alert with false positives. For example we have several macros that look like functions and on several platforms and build combinations they evaluate as nothing, which causes dead code to be generated. Another example is that we have several cases of vararg-style functions and these functions are documented to work in ways that the analyzers don’t always figure out (both clang-analyzer and Coverity show problems with these).
Thirdly, the same lesson we knew from the lint days is still true. Tools that generate too many false positives are really hard to work with since going through hundreds of issues that after analyses turn out to be nothing makes your eyes sore and your head hurt.
Fortify
The first report I got was done with Fortify. I had heard about this commercial tool before but I had never seen any results from a run but now I did. The report I got was a PDF containing 629 pages listing 1924 possible issues among the 130,000 lines of code in the project.
Fortify claimed 843 possible buffer overflows. I quickly got bored trying to find even one that could lead to a problem. It turns out Fortify has a very short attention span and warns very easily on lots of places where a very quick glance by a human tells us there’s nothing to be worried about. Having hundreds and hundreds of these is really tedious and hard to work with.
If we’re kind we call them all false positives. But sometimes it is more than so, some of the alerts are plain bugs like when it warns on a buffer overflow on this line, warning that it may write beyond the buffer. All variables are ‘int’ and as we know sscanf() writes an integer to the passed in variable for each %d instance.
sscanf(ptr, "%d.%d.%d.%d", &int1, &int2, &int3, &int4);
I ended up finding and correcting two flaws detected with Fortify, both were cases where memory allocation failures weren’t handled properly.
LLVM, clang-analyzer
Given the exact same code base, clang-analyzer reported 62 potential issues. clang is an awesome and free tool. It really stands out in the way it clearly and very descriptive explains exactly how the code is executed and which code paths that are selected when it reaches the passage is thinks might be problematic.
The reports from clang-analyzer are in HTML and there’s a single file for each issue and it generates a nice looking source code with embedded comments about which flow that was followed all the way down to the problem. A little snippet from a genuine issue in the curl code is shown in the screenshot I include above.
Coverity
Given the exact same code base, Coverity detected and reported 118 issues. In this case I got the report from a friend as a text file, which I’m sure is just one output version. Similar to Fortify, this is a proprietary tool.
As you can see in the example screenshot, it does provide a rather fancy and descriptive analysis of the exact the code flow that leads to the problem it suggests exist in the code. The function referenced in this shot is a very large function with a state-machine featuring many states.
Out of the 118 issues, many of them were actually the same error but with different code paths leading to them. The report made me fix at least 4 accurate problems but they will probably silence over 20 warnings.
Coverity runs scans on open source code regularly, as I’ve mentioned before, including curl so I’ve appreciated their tool before as well.
Conclusion
From this test of a single source base, I rank them in this order:While there are plenty of features dubbed “seas” on the Moon, none of them ever contained watery depths. For decades, scientists believed this was also true of our satellite’s interior — based on our theories of the Moon’s formation, its mantle should contain little water. However, a new study indicates that the Moon’s mantle may be more water-rich than we thought.The study, published today in Nature Geoscience, was carried out by Ralph Milliken, an associate professor in Brown's Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, and Shuai Li, a recent Brown graduate now working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii. They began seeking a way to more accurately measure the water content of the Moon after studies performed in 2008 and 2011 found traces of water in lunar samples returned to Earth on the Apollo 15 and 17 missions. Based on the amount of water in the samples, which was comparable to the water content of basalts on Earth, planetary scientists calculated that parts of the Moon’s mantle could contain similar amounts of water — much more than previously thought.But because we have such limited samples of lunar rock from only a few landing sites, it was unknown whether the Apollo mission samples were unique. “The key question is whether those Apollo samples represent the bulk conditions of the lunar interior or instead represent unusual or perhaps anomalous water-rich regions within an otherwise ‘dry’ mantle,” said Milliken in a press release Thus, the team turned to orbital data taken with the Moon Minerology Mapper, an instrument on the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, to deconstruct reflected sunlight from the Moon’s surface. Specifically, they looked at large-scale volcanic deposits called pyroclastic deposits, which brought material from deeper within the Moon to its surface. These deposits were not sampled by the Apollo astronauts. By studying the reflected light from these areas, the team aimed to determine the makeup of the material and look for water.But there was a snag — the wavelengths at which water can be detected are also the wavelengths affected by heating as sunlight strikes the Moon. “So in order to say with any confidence that water is present, we first need to account for and remove the thermally emitted component,” Milliken explained.That required the pair to understand and model this heating. To accomplish this task, Milliken and Li used the existing Apollo samples in combination with additional data on the heating experienced by the Moon’s surface to remove this component from the Chandrayaan-1 readings.Once the heating was removed, the team found evidence for water in almost every volcanic deposit they studied, including sites located near where Apollo 15 and 17 touched down. “The distribution of these water-rich deposits is the key thing,” Milliken said of their finding. “They're spread across the surface, which tells us that the water found in the Apollo samples isn't a one-off. Lunar pyroclastics seem to be universally water-rich, which suggests the same may be true of the mantle.”If that is true, it might require us to tweak our theory of the Moon’s formation. Previously, the Moon was not thought to contain a significant amount of water because the collision that created it should have been hot enough to destroy the hydrogen required to form water as the debris condensed into our satellite.However, the new finding does not discredit this theory. “The growing evidence for water inside the Moon suggest that water did somehow survive, or that it was brought in shortly after the impact by asteroids or comets before the Moon had completely solidified,” said Li. “The exact origin of water in the lunar interior is still a big question.”Point in southwest Ireland
Mizen Head (Irish: Carn Uí Néid), is located at the extremity of the Mizen Peninsula in the district of Carbery in County Cork, southwest Ireland.
Geography [ edit ]
Mizen Head is one of the extreme points of the island of Ireland and is a major tourist attraction, noted for its dramatic cliff scenery. One of the main transatlantic shipping routes passes close by to the south, and Mizen Head was, for many seafarers, the first (or last) sight of Europe. The tip of the peninsula is almost an island, cut off by a deep chasm, now spanned by a bridge; this gives access to an old signal station, a weather station, and a lighthouse. The signal station, once permanently manned, is now a museum housing displays relating to the site's strategic significance for transatlantic shipping and communications, including the pioneering efforts of Guglielmo Marconi. The "99 steps" which formed part of the original access route have been supplemented by a series of paths and viewing platforms, and a full range of visitor facilities is available at the entrance to the site. The villages of Ballydehob, Crookhaven, Goleen, and Schull are located on the peninsula to the east.
Mizen Head is not the most southerly point on the mainland of Ireland; nearby Brow Head holds that title, being several metres further south. Nevertheless, geography books have long measured the length of Ireland, diagonally northeast-to-southwest, as "from Fair Head to Mizen Head"[2] or north-to-south "from Malin Head to Mizen Head".[3]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]In short: check out my entry to JS1k 2018.
JS1k is a contest where developers must build something impressive using only one kilobyte of JavaScript. I like coding with constraints so I always enjoy entering.
My final submission to 2018's JS1k contest was my third idea. I originally made a coin-collecting game (source here) that was inspired by Kirby Air Ride, an old GameCube game I love. I couldn't quite get it to fit in the 1 kilobyte limit, but more importantly, I couldn't make it fun! I also abandoned a simple spreadsheet program (source here)—I found it hard to make an impressive spreadsheet at any file size!
I settled on an interactive page where you could control lightning bolts by moving the mouse. Check it out here!
The "game loop"
I start a lot of my code doodles with a skeleton that looks something like this:
// Create an array of entities (populated elsewhere). const entities = [] // This function will be called on every frame. let lastTime function tick ( t ) { // Calculate ∆t, the number of milliseconds since the last frame. const dt = lastTime? lastTime - t : 0 lastTime = t // `tick` each entity with ∆t. entities. forEach (( entity ) => { entity. tick ( dt ) }) // Request the next tick. requestAnimationFrame ( tick ) } // Request the first tick. requestAnimationFrame ( tick )
This is effectively a game loop, whether you're making a game or a visualization.
I modified some of the specifics of this design (shortening names and things) to keep my code under 1K, but it's conceptually the same in my submission.
A key component of this design is the dt variable. Every bit of movement is relative to this variable in some way. For example, when a ball moves across the screen, you should write something like this:
this. x += this. velocityX * dt / 1000 this. y += this. velocityY * dt / 1000 // Instead of something like this: // this.x += this.velocityX
This means that the velocity isn't bound to the framerate—it works on a fast computer and a slow computer. This idea prevents slowdown on slower machines, but it has another interesting property: you can play with the pace of time much more easily.
For example |
later became mayor of Chicago, said in an interview in 2001. “They’re all living large.”
As Mrs. Clinton began her 2016 campaign for the presidency, Hugh Rodham and Roger Clinton had faded from public view, but Tony Rodham emerged as a controversial figure. A government investigation in March found that GreenTech, which sought green cards for its Chinese investors through an American government program, had received special treatment in the handling of its visa applications. The report described instances when Mr. McAuliffe and Mr. Rodham contacted an official from the Department of Homeland Security to complain about the pace of the visa process.What many people do not know is that the erection is a passive action. In fact, when men do not have erection, the penis makes an effort: the smooth muscles of the arteries at the base of the penis must stay contracted, in order to impede the blood filling the penis. (In fact, most aphrodisiacs, including Viagra, contain a chemical(s) that relax these muscles).
No wonder dead people can have erections. A death erection (also named "angel lust") is a postmortem erection happening when the man dies vertically or face-down and the corpse remains so.
When the body is dead, the smooth muscles of the arteries relax (in fact, die) but this is not enough: the blood cannot enter the penis as the heart no longer pumps it, creating pressure for entering the penis' vessels. In the dead body, only gravitation acts on the blood. This means that the blood accumulates at the lowest point of the body, provoking a swelling of the dead tissue; the upper located part of the body discolors, leaving the dead body's lividity. In the mentioned cases, the blood enters by gravitation into the dead penis, causing an erection.
When a person is hanged, the blood will accumulate in its lower part: legs and feet. If the legs are filled with blood, the blood in the waist can causes an erection, entering the penis's erectile tissue. As long as the blood is not clotted, the body must stay in that position to maintain the death erection.
Death erection can also be provoked by a traumatic death, especially asphyxiation (like in strangulation or hanging), being induced by an arousal which, of course, have very little to do with sex, accompanying the final spasms of the nervous system, and in this case ejaculation may take place. Some link this to brain or spinal cord injuries caused by the noose, as priapism in living men has been associated with such conditions.
On war time, death erection made an excellent war trophy, a method of humiliating the enemy by displaying their posthumous copulating organ.
Hanged women too can present a corespondent to this, translated trough engorged labia and vaginal discharges.
Other rapid or violent deaths too can cause angel lust: bullet wounds to the brain or large blood vessels or poisoning.Nelson Agholor was born in Nigeria before moving to the United States at the age of 5. While at Berkeley Prep (Tampa, FL), he was rated a five-star recruit playing running back, wide receiver and defensive back. Agholor committed to the University of Southern California in 2012 and earned All-Pac 12 honors in his sophomore and junior years while leading the team in receiving. He enters the 2015 NFL Draft as a wide receiver that’s rising up draft boards and should hear his named called before the 2nd day concludes.
College Career Overview
Having played primarily at running back in high school, Agholor played in all 13 games as a backup receiver his true freshman year in 2012. As a sophomore, he started all 14 games and led the team in receiving with 56 receptions, 918 yards, and 6 TDs. He also displayed dangerous abilities as a punt returner and was even named to the 2013 All-Pac 12 2nd Team as a return specialist. In 2014, Agholor returned as a starter and began to dominate towards the end of the season by catching 62 of his 104 receptions, 908 of his 1313 yards, and 8 of his 12 TDs in the final 7 games. Playing in USC’s pro-style offense, Agholor has a variety of routes in his repertoire while also being able to run them from the outside and slot positions.
Measurables
DOB May 24, 1993 Bench (225 lbs.) 12 Height 6’0-1/8″ Vertical Jump 36-1/2” Weight 198 lbs. Broad Jump 10’5” Arms 32-1/4″ 20 Yard Shuttle Hands 9-1/4″ 3 Cone Drill 40 Yard Dash (10 yd split) 4.42 sec (1.53 sec) 60 Yard Shuttle
Stats and Awards
University of Southern California (2014) 104 Rec, 1313 Yards, 12.6 YPC, 12 TDs 2014 AP Third Team All-American University of Southern California (2013) 56 Rec, 918 Yards, 16.4 YPC, 6 TDs 2014 First Team All-Pac 12 University of Southern California (2012) 19 Rec, 340 Yards, 17.9 YPC, 2 TDs 2013 Second Team All-Pac 12
Scouting Report
Experienced route runner displaying good footwork when running double moves and complex routes
Adept at finding holes in underneath coverage especially from the slot position
Displays consistent awareness in working back to the quarterback
Great burst off the line of scrimmage and possesses good game speed
Lined up all across the formation from the Z, the slot, and in the backfield
Good body control and can adjust mid-air to the ball’s trajectory
Experience in kick/punt returns aided his ability to make defenders miss in the open field
Quick release off the line of scrimmage but may face difficulty in the NFL with being jammed due to his slight frame
Not a natural hands catcher and needs to work on catching the ball away from his body
May have limited potential at the next level due to his slight frame; relegated to slot duties
Below average blocker, not having enough mass to hold or drive blocks
Film Study
Courtesy of Draft Breakdown, this scouting report consists of the games listed below and represents his 2nd, 5th, and 9th games of the season.
9/6/14 @ Stanford
10/4/14 vs. Arizona State
11/1/14 @ Washington State
Route Running
One of the challenges many wide receiver prospects have to overcome when transitioning into the NFL is an undeveloped route tree. Having played in USC’s pro-style offense should make that transition a little easier for Nelson Agholor. He runs with exceptional burst, displays great agility in his cuts, and understands how to create space for himself in his routes.
These traits are on display on this double move. Agholor makes a great fake to the inside, the DB breaks out of his backpedal with a T-Step (DB’s outside foot gets perpendicular with his inside foot forming a “T”) and drives on the in-breaking route. As the DB is doing this, Agholor, with the help of some nifty footwork, turns back up field for a potential deep pass. The DB is far too committed on the fake and is out of position. This draws a defensive holding call and a new set of downs.
It’s very rare to see a post-corner route at the college level, but Agholor shows off this route against Stanford. Even though I feel he is too far outside of the numbers for this route to be effective, he catches the DB flat-footed again with the double move. Agholor fakes the post which causes the DB’s feet to stumble in front of him. This forces the DB to reach out and grab on what should’ve been at least an illegal contact penalty. What I love most on this play is that Agholor didn’t quit but kept working his way back to the football for the first down, a trait you’ll see more of later.
Agholor goes in motion and the DB follows, signaling man-to-man coverage. Perfect, as it’s 3rd and 5 and USC has a whip route dialed up for Agholor, which is an effective route to beat man-to-man. Agholor does a great job of pivoting out of the shallow cross and back out towards the sideline, catching the DB out of position. If not for an underthrown ball this would’ve been an easy completion for a first down.
Agholor is on the “bunch” side of the formation (three receivers lined up in a triangular alignment) and has enough awareness to widen out his defender by running his route with more of a diagonal stem. Doing so allows him to have a lot more grass to work with when he cuts inside as opposed to just running straight up-field before making his cut.
Here’s another angle.
Working out of a “doubles” alignment (two receivers lined up on each side of the formation), Agholor beats the defender across his face for the post route. It’s critical that he runs his route in front of the defender and not behind. He does a great job of using a stutter move that causes the DB to stop his feet. This allows him to blow right past the DB. Agholor makes the catch and keeps the ball tucked into his body as he braces for contact from the on-coming safety.
Great display of patience here as he allows the play to develop. The Z receiver is working back inside on a shallow cross to set up the natural pick that walls off the DB covering Agholor. It’s imperative that he doesn’t go too early, as the Z receiver needs to get into proper position in order for the play to succeed. The play proves effective as Agholor has a ton of green grass in front of him for an easy touchdown but the ball is poorly thrown.
Continued on the next pageThe second round of the 2015 NFL Draft kicked off with a trade.
The Giants on Friday swung a deal with the Titans to move up seven spots from No. 40 to No. 33 overall, where they selected Alabama safety Landon Collins.
In return, Tennessee received New York's 40th overall pick along with Big Blue's fourth-round selection (No. 108) and this year's seventh-rounder (No. 245).
Collins fills an immediate need for the Giants, who house only Cooper Taylor and Nat Berhe at the position. The 6-foot, 228-pound backstop drew praise from NFL Media's Mike Mayock as a defender with fine closing speed who shows up against the run.
He's an aggressive defender with enough talent to cover tight ends while dropping the hammer on opposing backs. Choosing Collins feels like a no-brainer for the Giants.
The latest Around The NFL Podcast recaps the first round of the NFL Draft. Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.First rites: China's Orthodox Christians see Easter resurrection
His red and gold vestments bathed in candlelight, the first mainland Chinese Orthodox priest ordained for six decades led an Easter service on Sunday -- one of the most surprising fruits of warming ties between Moscow and Beijing.
Alexander Yu Shi said prayers in the Church Slavonic language and in Mandarin beside the Church of Holy Protection in the northeastern city of Harbin, surrounded by local worshippers.
"It is a happy day. We are welcoming the resurrection," he said. "And for the Eastern Orthodox Church in Harbin, it's also a resurrection."
Chinese priest Alexander Yu Shi performs an Easter vigil service inside a Catholic church in Harbin, China on April 30, 2016 ©Nicolas Asfouri (AFP/File)
The small and elderly Orthodox community -– mostly descended from Chinese and Russians who intermarried in the city's cosmopolitan heyday a century ago -– lacked a priest for 15 years.
Shi, a soft-spoken former bank manager, is the first ever Chinese to have studied at an Orthodox seminary with backing from China's avowedly atheist Communist Party.
"With the help of the governments of both countries, I was able to learn theology systematically," he told AFP in his office, sitting below photographs of himself alongside bearded Russian church luminaries.
Shi, who has Buddhist grandparents, converted while studying business in Moscow in the 1990s. He returned a few years ago to enrol in the St Petersburg theological seminary.
Ordained last year, he led the most important festival in the church's calendar for the first time.
Shi presided at the altar of a Catholic church opposite his parish since his Holy Protection Church is undergoing state-backed refurbishment.
He led a procession to the scaffolding-clad structure, swinging a thurible of incense and declaring loudly in Chinese: "Christ is risen!"
- 'We all suffered' -
As Shi's quiet, insistent Slavonic intonation echoed down the pews, about 60 worshippers -– around half Chinese and the rest Russian expatriates -- bowed repeatedly and made the sign of the cross.
"This is very meaningful," said Alla Lin, 50, a choir member who wore white scarves and sang in Mandarin. Her father was half-Russian.
Harbin was once known as the "Paris of the East" because of its international population, including tens of thousands of Russians and more than 20 Orthodox Churches.
But after the Communist party took power in 1949, many Russians fled or were repatriated and believers went underground, with church buildings demolished during the chaotic Cultural Revolution launched in 1966 by Mao Zedong.
During this period "my father was accused of being a Soviet spy. Anyone with Russian blood suffered," Lin said.
Now only a couple of churches remain -– including the green onion-domed former cathedral, used as a city museum.
Orthodox services resumed in the 1980s following Mao's death but there were no ordinations, leaving locals unable to hold services after the city's ageing priest died in 2000.
- Currying favour -
The Communist Party is still suspicious of religion, with President Xi Jinping reminding believers last month to obey the party. Several police cars kept watch over the Easter vigil.
But the country's estimated 10,000 Orthodox believers are dwarfed by a burgeoning Protestant population of some 60 million.
Orthodoxy has received a surprising boost from the budding alliance between Moscow and Beijing nurtured by energy deals and mutual suspicion of the US.
Xi has met Vladimir Putin – who has close ties to the Orthodox Church -- more than ten times, as well as church leader Patriarch Kirill who held a landmark service in Beijing in 2013.
A Hong Kong priest was ordained a year later, but Shi's ordination showed a "major shift in China's attitude towards Orthodox Christianity", the Communist party-linked Global Times said.
"It's an easy way for Beijing to curry favour with Putin," a religion researcher at a Chinese state think-tank told AFP, declining to be named. "Beijing perceives the risks as low, because the Orthodox population is tiny."
At the Easter vigil service, a choir of expatriate Russians easily drowned out the Chinese crowd, who sang translated Orthodox chants.
But Yu Maosheng, a retired electrical engineer whose wife has a Russian grandmother, said he hoped to be baptised by Shi.
"It's because of the governments of both sides," he said, when asked about the church's revival.
Shi added: "Since I started performing services, people have begin returning to the church. We will have new believers.”
After a marathon four-and-a-half hour ceremony, he sprayed holy water on boiled eggs and neatly folded his vestments.
"Because we are of the correct faith, Eastern Orthodoxy will take root in China and will develop," he predicted.
Alexander Yu Shi is the first Chinese priest ordained by the Russian Orthodox Church for 60 years, and is also the first ever Orthodox priest recognised by the Chinese Communist Party ©Nicolas Asfouri (AFP/File)
Worshippers pictured during the Easter vigil service outside Pokrov Orthodox church in Harbin, China on May 1, 2016 ©Nicolas Asfouri (AFP)
Most people from the small, elderly Orthodox community in northeast China's Harbin are mostly descended from Chinese and Russians who intermarried in the city's cosmopolitan heyday a century ago ©Nicolas Asfouri (AFP)NAGPUR: After lying low for a while, Maoists struck again on Friday, torching 30-35 trucks at Surjagarh, in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district. No casualties were reported at the time of going to press though some of the truckers were injured. Losses to transporters ran into a few crore rupees.Though security forces claimed not more than 35 trucks were damaged, transporters said the number was around 80. Senior cops said that some security personnel managed to visit the arson site, but no intensive efforts were made for fear that the incident might be a Maoist trap to lure them into a minefield.Santosh Agrawal, a contractor, claimed 11 of his trucks were torched. "Another 11and 58 trucks belonging to two other contractors, too, were damaged," he said.The trucks transport iron ore from the mines. The Maoists have been opposing mining activities in Surjagarh since the project's inception. Three representatives of Lloyds Metals and Energy Ltd, executing the project, have been shot dead at the site in the past.Around 350 locals are engaged in mining work, but the Maoists claim the mining project will drain the area of its natural resources and pave the way for massive displacement. The Maoists have also called a bandh in the district from December 25 to January 3 to highlight several issues, including their opposition to mining. While police claimed around 20-25 armed Maoists, along with some supporters, had stormed the site where the trucks had been, local sources said they may have numbered about 200.After urging the truckers to abandon their vehicles, the Maoists thrashed some of them, triggering rumours that many had died. Sources also said three supervisors of Lloyds Metals, which owns the mining lease at Surjagarh, were left unharmed. State director general of police Satish Mathur said detailed reports of the incident were awaited. "We are undertaking required strategic precautions," he said.Gadchiroli superintendent of police Abhinav Deshmukh said the Maoists had compelled the labourers to join the action. "Our forces have already visited the site but the formalities will be completed in daylight," he said. "Some of the truckers have sustained injuries in the incident as the Naxalites thrashed them with sticks and lathis," Deshmukh said.The security forces, however, have not yet confirmed which local Maoist outfit carried out the attack. A section of the security forces presumes the Maoists might have approached the site from the northern and north-eastern sides after sneaking into Maharashtra from Narayanpur district of Chhattishgarh. The state government has as yet opened a few police posts in Etapalli taluka to surround the mining site, but the vulnerable north and north-eastern sides remain mostly unguarded.Image copyright Getty Images
Scientists have used hair to locate where distinct Aboriginal groups lived in Australia up to 50,000 years ago.
The genetic study could help reconnect indigenous families with ancestral communities, according to the University of Adelaide-led study.
It shows the first Australians spread rapidly before largely spending continuous time in distinct areas.
The research is an important step in learning more about ancestry prior to European settlement, the authors said.
It again confirmed that Aboriginal Australians descended from a single population that arrived 50,000 years ago from New Guinea, when it was joined to Australia.
Genetic map
The research, published in the journal Nature, analysed 111 hair samples taken by anthropologists from across Australia in the early 20th Century.
The DNA allowed researchers to trace maternal ancestry through unique genetic material.
"What we've found is that we can see right the way back to the first colonisation of Australia by Aboriginal people," said lead author Prof Alan Cooper.
Image copyright Nature Image caption A map showing the movements of the first Aboriginal Australians
The first population spread rapidly. Within 2,000 years people had circled the east and west coasts before meeting somewhere in South Australia, the study said.
"The amazing bit is that they don't seem to move again once they've done that," Prof Cooper said.
"There's small movements into the desert interior but that basic pattern has held for 50,000 years."
The findings offered another compelling reason for the strong indigenous connection to the land, he said.
Connecting with country
One of the study's co-authors, geneticist Dr Ray Tobler, said he traced his own family history to a small Queensland settlement.
"My great-grandmother worked in the area around Cherbourg," he told the BBC, referring to area 260km (160 miles) north of Brisbane.
"My grandad was born not too far from there."
His grandfather never spoke about his heritage because, like more than 100,000 Aboriginal children, he was forcibly removed from his family at a young age.
"This project can help provide lost history to some families," Dr Tobler said.
Reporting by the BBC's Greg DunlopA man holding a gun directly at the viewer via Shutterstock.com
A Tennessee woman is in critical condition after her sister’s husband shot her and killed himself at a Cookeville church on Sunday.
Putnam County Sheriff David Andrews told WSMV that 65-year-old Tommy Meadows got in an altercation with his wife, 61-year-old Wanda Meadows, and her sister, 61-year-old Etta Medley, while they were at Double Springs Community Church preparing for services just after 9 a.m. on Sunday.
Andrews explained to The Tennessean that investigators believe that Tommy Meadows had been targeting his wife, who escaped with “bruising and things like that.”
Officers responding to the scene found Etta Medley shot in the abdomen and Tommy Meadows dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound. But the sheriff’s department was treating Tommy Meadows’ death as a possible homicide for purposes of the investigation.
“We’re doing sketches, photographs,” Andrews noted. “We’ve been doing interviews. We’re treating it just like a homicide, like we didn’t know anything.”
Medley was transported to Cookeville Regional Hospital where she was listed in critical condition after undergoing surgery.
Double Springs Community Church 11 a.m. services were cancelled following the shooting.
Watch this video from WSMV, broadcast Feb. 2, 2014.
WSMV Channel 4
[A man holding a gun directly at the viewer via Shutterstock.com]A week ago I returned from a vacation to the islands of Hawaii where we were lucky enough to visit numerous locations from the Jurassic Park movies and the television show Lost, as well as a handful of others.
The islands of both Oahu and Kauai have been used extensively for film and TV productions over the years but I would say that the islands are most recognizable as both Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna.
Visiting the islands has been a lifelong dream – as it is for many fans – and standing on the many locations where the cast and crew of the movies stood can get fairly surreal. Seeing the mountains, valleys, and film sets in person is nothing short of awe-inspiring.
I wanted to share some photos from my trip, as well as describe the Kualoa Ranch tour (famous for the Gallimimus sequence, I-Rex Paddock, Gyrosphere Station) and the Jurassic Falls tour (landing at the famous waterfall) which I highly recommend to all fans who are lucky enough to visit the islands! I have already shared some photos from the trip on Instagram:
I was lucky enough to be shown around by my friend Sean from Reel News Hawaii, who knows the island of Oahu like the back of his hand. Leaving out the many locations we hit for Lost, we started off with the pier where the Isla Nublar ferry arrives at Jurassic World! The pier is naturally exactly as it was seen on screen, but you’ll notice the flag poles and CGI monorail aren’t to be seen.
We visited the Hawaii Convention Center which stood in for the Isla Nublar Hilton, as well as the car park in Jurassic World where workers are panicking and Owen and Claire leave on the ATV:
The Jurassic Park 3 landing strip was up next, which is at Dillingham Airfield. It was interesting to learn that a lot of foliage was added to the sides of the landing strip, and the small shack/building was also added. I had always just assumed it was always like this! Our website designer had some fun with the photo:
This was always one of my favourite scenes in Jurassic Park 3, so it was pretty cool to stand and explore this landing strip.
The first official tour we took was the Premier Movie Sites Tour at the Kualoa Ranch. It is the only tour that takes place in an air conditioned Mercedes Sprinter van and the tour is incredibly in-depth, playing scenes on monitors from various movies as you drive past, and in some cases, stop at famous movie sites. Our tour guide was called Stephanie and I’d highly recommend her! She was brilliant, knew as much about the Jurassic movies as any fan, and really has a passion for movies and the locations in which they filmed. She was joined by trainee Melani who will no doubt make an great tour guide herself. The famous Gallimimus scenes takes place right next to Hurley’s Golf Course in Lost, and while they don’t sign post the Gallimimus hill, a log sits roughly where the original log sat.
There are many other locations at the Kualoa Ranch, mostly from Jurassic World. The Helipad, the I-Rex Paddock, the Mosasaurus lagoon, the Gyrosphere Station and the “Jurassic Park” gate were all constructed here and in some cases, they remain. Check out the gallery below!
And obviously we had to recreate some photos too! Credit to Reel News Hawaii for some of the featured photos and the I-Rex poster below!
It’s pretty safe to say this tour is a must do for any Jurassic Park fan. The Kualoa Ranch have done an outstanding job of restoring many of the Jurassic World sets, and they ensure you have the best experience while touring the property. The property itself really shows off Hawaii’s natural beauty; I often found myself gazing at my surroundings, taking it all in.
If you take the Premier Movie Sites Tour – which I recommend – then you are given 10% off at the gift shop too. What I did find strange however, is that there is not a single piece of Jurassic merchandise to be found. After asking around, it seems that Universal Pictures have not provided the rights for the Kualoa Ranch to sell merchandise, which is just downright bizarre. After visiting the Jurassic Park filming locations, doesn’t everybody want to buy a shirt? It seems like one of the most logical places to actually sell merchandise, yet there is none to be found. Even the staff found it odd.
Aside from that, the Kualoa Ranch is a must-see on the island of Oahu!
While there are many locations to be found on the island of Oahu, the island of Kauai is where a large chunk of Jurassic Park was filmed. We only had the day on Kauai so we did not get to see much, but two minutes from the airport is the Island Helicopters office – the only helicopter company that land at the Manawaiopuna Falls, the waterfall from Jurassic Park!
This was the most surreal of it all. As you approach the waterfall, they play the Jurassic Park theme through your headphones – icing on the cake. It really places you there. Our pilot told me that some of the original pieces of the landing pad had been left on the other side of the plunge pool but I couldn’t quite make anything out in particular.
Once you have gazed in awe at the waterfall the Helicopter tour continues, taking you around the beautiful island of Kauai and showing you the Nā Pali coast, hidden beaches and much more. It’s a great tour, the whole island looks like Isla Nublar. Our waterfall experience was amazing, and we even got to witness a wedding proposal – congratulations to Marissa and her partner! What a great place to have proposed.
It’s hard, if not impossible to say which location was my favourite to visit but the waterfall does comes close. The whole trip was absolutely wonderful and I’m so grateful to have seen the islands. It’s something I have wanted to do since as early as I can remember and this trip ticked all the boxes. I finally got to visit Jurassic Park. Hands down the best vacation I have had.
I want to thank Sean for showing us so much on the island of Oahu! The Reel News Hawaii/Jurassic Outpost meetup finally happened!
If you are lucky enough to take a vacation to Hawaii then be sure to check out the Kualoa Ranch website for more information on the tours they offer, and the Island Helicopters website for information on the waterfall tour!
I hope you have enjoyed this write-up and the photos too! This trip was filled with great memories that I’ll never forget. Have you been to the islands? Be sure to share your stories and photos with us in the comments section below!We demonstrate a new light trapping technique that exploits dielectric core–shell optical antennas to strongly enhance solar absorption. This approach can allow the thickness of active materials in solar cells lowered by almost 1 order of magnitude without scarifying solar absorption capability. For example, it can enable a 70 nm thick hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film to absorb 90% of incident solar radiation above the bandgap, which would otherwise require a thickness of 400 nm in typical antireflective coated thin films. This strong enhancement arises from a controlled optical antenna effect in patterned core–shell nanostructures that consist of absorbing semiconductors and nonabsorbing dielectric materials. This core–shell optical antenna benefits from a multiplication of enhancements contributed by leaky mode resonances (LMRs) in the semiconductor part and antireflection effects in the dielectric part. We investigate the fundamental mechanism for this enhancement multiplication and demonstrate that the size ratio of the semiconductor and the dielectric parts in the core–shell structure is key for optimizing the enhancement. By enabling strong solar absorption enhancement, this approach holds promise for cost reduction and efficiency improvement of solar conversion devices, including solar cells and solar-to-fuel systems. It can generally apply to a wide range of inorganic and organic active materials. This dielectric core–shell antenna can also find applications in other photonic devices such as photodetectors, sensors, and solid-state lighting diodes.Iranian Popular Mobilization Units may determine Kirkuk outcome
On Oct. 13, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis conveyed a message via reporters that Iraqi parties should “stay focused on defeating ISIS,” or the Islamic State (IS).
The next day, as forces massed near Kirkuk, Iraq, Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, paid his respects at the tomb of former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in Sulaimaniyah.
The contrast might be illustrative of what to expect in coming days. Despite long-standing US political and military ties with both Baghdad and Erbil, it is Tehran, not Washington, that seems best placed to determine the course of events, as we wrote in this column two weeks ago. Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), which recently liberated the city of Hawija from IS, as Shelly Kittleson reports, have lined up in support of Iraqi government forces around key military and oil installations outside Kirkuk, which is defended by Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga units.
Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has been able to play both statesman and nationalist by opposing the Iraqi Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum and seeking a negotiated solution to the crisis. His endgame includes re-establishing Iraqi government control of areas of Kirkuk lost to IS in 2014 and subsequently seized by Iraqi Kurdish forces.
Abadi would prefer a victory without bloodshed, given Iraq’s fragile polity. The precedent of the Iraqi referendum could spur Basra and some Iraqi Sunni communities to seek autonomy as well, as Adnan Abu Zeed reports. But there may now be an escalatory dynamic, and Abadi is one of several players, with Iran holding the balance.
The crisis over the referendum has given new charge to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which has strong ties to Iran. At Talabani’s funeral, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sat one seat away from Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani; the United States was represented by its ambassador in Iraq. Perhaps it is no surprise that Soleimani is in PUK territory, as Iran-backed militias are opposite peshmerga fighters on the Kirkuk front.
The PUK had been skeptical of the independence referendum, which was driven by the Barzani-led Kurdistan Democratic Party. The PUK, including the late president's son Bafel Talabani, has taken the lead in calling for a negotiated solution to the crisis and for holding talks with Iraqi President Fuad Masum, who is also a Kurd, in Sulamaniyah, the party’s home base in the region.
There is also the role of Iraqi Turkmens, who number about 3 million (about 8.3% of Iraq’s population) and are concentrated mostly in Kirkuk and surrounding regions. Turkmen parties opposed the independence referendum and have been able to “establish armed factions within the [PMU] in mixed areas such as Tuz Khormato and al-Bashir,” writes Hamdi Malik. “Shiite forces such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq backed the Turkmen PMU factions to pressure the Kurds in these areas. … The Turkmens hope the liberation of Hawija and adjacent areas as well as pressure from the federal forces will ultimately weaken the Kurds in these areas.”
Turkey looks to Syrian tribes for support
Turkey deployed special forces, commandos and Free Syrian Army (FSA) units into Idlib, which is mostly controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the al-Qaeda-linked armed group, in accord with a de-escalation agreement with Russia and Iran. The Syrian government criticized the incursion.
Khaled al-Khateb reports from Aleppo, “Although Turkey controls the FSA factions in the liberated areas, it still needs the allegiance of the tribes spread across the areas they hold. Organizing the tribes into a council makes it easier for Turkey to control them. Hence, the new council's formation is a boon for Turkey.”
“The tribes constitute a strong suit in the civil war, so all the parties involved want to win them over,” Khateb adds. “Turkey is trying to take advantage of the role the tribes play in the liberated areas while also preventing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad or the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from enrolling them as allies. Tribes are particularly prominent in northern and eastern Syria, where they have a lot of social clout. The SDF has relied on several tribes in the Aleppo and Raqqa countrysides in its fight against [IS]. Some tribes have also fought with the regime in Aleppo's eastern countryside. The establishment of the new tribal council in the liberated areas is a step aimed at getting the tribes to ally with Turkey.”
DeMistura seeks to build on de-escalation zones
Syrians are suffering unacceptable levels of violence, and civilian casualties have spiked recently as a result of what may be the final or near final battles against IS in Raqqa and Deir Ez-Zor.
A report from the UN secretary-general to the Security Council last month notes that “ongoing clashes, in particular military operations targeting strongholds of [IS], continued to result in the injury, death and displacement of the civilian population and the destruction of civilian infrastructure” and contains a plea “for the parties to the conflict, in particular the Syrian Government, to release detainees, abductees and missing persons.”
The spike in civilian casualties may have obscured another trend in the report, which acknowledges “the persistent and determined efforts to reduce violence through de-escalation agreements, which have delivered observable results in reducing hostilities by all parties to the conflict.”
The report points out that there are nearly a million fewer people living in besieged or hard-to-reach locations in Syria, a total of 3.47 million, down from 4.44 million, “as a result of increased access in the northeast of the country.” The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported in June that 440,000 internally displaced Syrians and over 30,000 refugees had returned to their homes in the first six months of 2017. It is a good bet that those numbers are increasing.
Although the situation is fragile, we can say at this point that the de-escalation zones have exceeded most expectations and may offer the best chance in years for a renewed political process. That is certainly the plan of UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, who told the Security Council on Sept. 27 that “de-escalation should be a precursor to a truly nationwide cease-fire, and to action on the humanitarian and confidence-building fronts … [and to] laying the basis for a renewed Geneva process — one that moves from preparatory talks into genuine negotiations on the political future of Syria.”
De Mistura is banking on a Saudi initiative, a "Riyadh 2" conference in Geneva, to unify and impart “realism” into the opposition platform prior to a new round of Geneva talks to commence in October or November.
Signs of realism may be evident among Syria’s Kurdish leaders. Gen. Mazlum Kobane, the chief commander of the SDF and leader of its military campaign in Raqqa, told Amberin Zaman in September that he considers the Syrian government a “threat to us at present," but added that "one has to come to terms with the current regime. The Syrian regime is a reality. Militarily, the regime has won a victory against the opposition — the opposition other than us, I mean — at least in the areas it is currently present. And looking at things objectively, the regime is here to stay." He also said, "Our essential objective is to negotiate with the central government and get a certain status for the areas we liberated. If required, we are ready to engage in dialogue with the central government on this.”Mark Zuckerberg caught on video asking filmmaker to stop recording as he is asked questions about privacy standards
Film crew wanted Facebook founder to 'experience privacy infringement'
Terms and Conditions May Apply exposes rules internet users agree to
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who has regularly been criticized over his website's privacy settings, has had the tables turned on him in a documentary about online privacy.
When the social network's founder was approached by a film crew outside his California home, he asked not to be filmed, but unbeknown to him the filmmaker continued to record their encounter using a camera hidden in his glasses.
The encounter was part of C |
pattern to see if it was working.
The pink pixels are the ones that failed to render due to some sort of bug. Rather than die when the raytrace() function has a problem, it just returns pink.
I moved the camera to see if it would change the perspecitive. It did! A good sign that things were really rendering in 3D.
Then I put the camera in the blocks. As you can see, they are partially transparent. I think they were about 15% solid. The pink on the right is where rays exited the 16x16x16 world and had some sort of failure.
I threw out the checkerboard and randomly placed random-colored blocks throughout the world. I forgot to use binary mode when writing the BMP file which led to the distortion.
Fixed the binary mode glitch.
I made the blocks less transparent. Ok, now there's too many blocks.
...So I set the random generation to make less blocks.
Instead of completely randomly placed blocks, I decided to place a floor layer filled with blocks, and then randomly stack blocks on top here and there. The goal was to create a city-scape kind of environment.
I also made it so when the ray hits different sides of the cubes, it grabs a slightly different brightness value.
Here I increased the size of the world from 16x16x16 to 64x64x64.
Making sure the transparency still works. The cool thing is this didn't really slow down the render that much. Only by about 5%!
I added a light source. The farther away it is, the less light hits each pixel by a factor of the inverse distance squared. Just like real life!
Now we're getting somewhere! When a ray from the screen hits a solid block, the code computes a new ray from the hit point to the light source. If this ray doesn't hit an object, we have light! Otherwise, shadow. The result is pixel-perfect lighting and shadows.
I added tons of random blocks to the "sky" to make the effect more dramatic.
Added a second light source and took another pic.
I got sick of that black background so I tried to add a blue sky. The steepness at which a ray escapes the world determines the brightness it returns. I got it backwards so the sky is upside-down. :/
More importantly, I made the lowest layer of blocks reflective! When a ray hits one, it bouces off and keeps searching for something else to collide with. This was quite simple to do.
Also those "pink" error pixels are back except now they are black. They were probably there all along, hiding in the dark... :O
A real good shot of the pixel-perfect shadowing. If a ray can make it to a colored block and jump of directly to the light source without any other collisions, you get a lit pixel. It's that simple!
The "terrain" is generated with a pretty basic algorithm of picking completely random heights for a few seed points, then smoothing between them.
Finally fixed the error pixels. When a ray exited the world into -x or -y space, my code didn't make sense and was causing an infinite loop. Well infinite except for my emergency if(k>1000) break; statement.
A shot of the edge of the world. You can also see the terrain reflected in the lowest layer of blocks.
Increased the size of the world again. And then fell asleep. It was about 5:00 AM. :D
SUNDAY February 18, 2007:
Added some intentional inaccuracy when a ray bounces off a reflective surface. This scattering causes the surface to look textured, or like waves of really reflective water.
Added shadows to reflective surfaces. This was very easy, all I had to do was do the lighting calculation even when the ray bounces. Really just a re-ordering of some lines of code.
I set a square region in the middle of the world to a flat 30 blocks tall and made them all reflective. I wanted to try reflection on more than just level surfaces.
Whoa look at that!
As cool as this looks it really wasn't too tough with ray-tracing! The sphere is just a center point and a radius. Each time the code shoots a ray into the scene, it calculates the distance to the first intersection point with the sphere. This is just a matter of solving for the roots of the quadratic equation. There are always 0, 1, or 2 points where a ray will hit a sphere, either missing, colliding tangentially or entry and exit wounds. Once we have the hit point on the sphere, the normal on the surface is just the radius vector, so we can easily bounce, and get a new ray! The rest is already taken care of by the old reflection code.
Lighting for the hit point on the sphere is already handled by the old lit-test code, too.
Added 100 more spheres, but most of them are way up in the sky. :/
(You can see 'em in the reflections.)
All these spheres barely slow down the render, by just 10-15%! Using bounding boxes we can avoid testing most spheres most of the time. Since most rays don't reflect, and the ones that do are unlikely to do it again, I allowed up to 100 bounces per ray shot into the scene, without much worry.
Capped the max height of randomly placed spheres to try and see how they intersect with the terrain and stuff.
Turned the camera to the left a little. (Actually I moved the target to just below that original sphere.)
I decided to make the terrain colors less random and more yellow. I lost the random generation seed for this shot or I'd render a high-res one. :(
Looking up at the underside of a high-in-the-sky sphere.
There is a potential for a ray to bounce infinitely between spheres but this is unlikely. You have to give up after some number of bounces.
This was the first shot I used for my wallpaper. Nothing new here really but I did mess up the terrain generation. After this shot I took some mystery pills for my tooth ache and I don't remember what all happened but that was the end of coding for the day!
Closing Thoughts
Video Clips!
These were created by rendering a sequence of still images and stringing them together in an MPG with VideoMach. Each frame I moved the camera a little and the spheres slide up, down or stay still based on their array index modulo 3.
Low-Res Video Clip
High-Res Video Clip
Source Code
Here's the source code at this point if you're into that sorta thing. Please remember that I wrote this over a weekend for the hell of it so the code is a bit... fresh.
Now Windows and *nix compatible! VS2005 Project files and g++ Makefile are included.
PixelMachine Source Code
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I've always liked the idea of ray-tracing to render 3D images with crazy accuracy. On Saturday night (being a huge nerd) I decided I'd try to write one from scratch for the hell of it. By from scratch I mean I started with this C++ code in a text file:I used NO graphics libraries or any outside code other than the standard C/C++ stuff in Visual Studio Express 2005. I decided to output to Windows BMP files since the format is braindead-simple.Ray-tracing works sort of like a camera in real life, but in reverse. With a camera (or your eyes, for that matter), rays of light from the environment enter the lens and hit the film/digital chip/meaty eye cells. Something magical happens where the light hits and we get an image!With ray tracing, we start at each point on our "film" or image, and blast a rayof our camera lens and see what it hits. What it hits determines the color and brightness at that spot on the film. Of course by "film" I mean digital image, and by "spot" I mean pixel.I decided my entire program would be centered around one function, called raytrace(). The idea is this: You give raytrace() a starting point and a direction, and it follows that ray until it collides with something in my virtual environment. It returns the color of the object it collided with.When generating a 3D image, raytrace() will find the color for just ONE pixel in the result image. By running raytrace once for each pixel, we can get the whole scene! Ray-tracing is kind of slow because, for example, in a 1 megapixel image you'd have to run it 1 million times....and here's a visual log of my progress...The working title for my new app is... cuz that sounds l33t.The whole thing clocked in at about 800 fresh new lines of code. I only recycled 20 lines from CollideRaySphere(), a function from my elusive game engine I've been working on for ever. Actually, this was a great test to see if CollideRaySphere() works. (It does!)Next up I'll be testing CollideRayCylinder(), CollideRayTriangle(), CollideTriangleTriangle() and more...In terms of's graphics effects future, I'll be adding specular lighting, overbright bloom, high dynamic range, depth of field, volume fog/light, those kinda things...If things really come together I'll merge all this functionality into my game engine, and have a "take ray-traced screen shot" button or something kick-ass like 'at!On 23 August 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It marked the beginning of one of the darkest periods in the recent history of our continent, bringing with it the deportation, torture and murder of tens of millions of people under totalitarian regimes. While the end of World War II marked the defeat of the Nazi regime, many Central and Eastern Europeans continued to suffer under other totalitarian regimes.
Tomorrow, 77 years after the Pact's signature, we will remember all the victims of the totalitarian and authoritarian regimes that have scarred parts of Europe during the 20th century. The Europe-Wide Day of Remembrance for the victims of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes keeps alive the memory of the victims and pays tribute to them. This commemoration also helps us to recall lessons learnt from this dark chapter in European history.
Fortunately, the young generations of Europeans today have not experienced life under a totalitarian or authoritarian regime. However, we must never take our freedoms for granted. Therefore, the preservation of historical memory and our commitment to democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law, remain more important than ever.
The memory of Europe's history should nourish our commitment to stand up for our common values and principles.
Background
The Europe-Wide Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes has been celebrated since 2009.
On 23 August 2016, on the occasion of this year's Day of Remembrance, Commissioner Tibor Navracsics, responsible for Education, Youth, Culture and Sport, will participate in a Commemorative Programme and Ministerial Conference hosted by the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the European Union, in Bratislava.Developer summary
Azriel Odin, ex-assassin, arrives on the rain-drenched planet of Barracus. When things go horribly wrong, he can only seek help from the very criminals he used to work for. Meanwhile, across the galaxy, a man called Delta-Six wakes up in a hospital with no memory. Without knowing where to turn or who to trust, he vows to escape before he loses his identity completely. As fate brings these two closer together, we discover a world where life is cheap, identities are bought and sold, and a quest for redemption can change the fate of a whole galaxy.
What we think
Actors often ask “What’s my motivation?” as an exercise to get into the skin of their characters. Gemini Rue exhibits this in many ways by presenting character development through their dialog, learning new skills, and observation of the world around them. They are full of personality and the spot-on voice-acting and ambient music lend itself to the unfolding gem of a story. Through careful exposition both visually and aurally, Gemini Rue is not a tale that gives up its secrets quickly.
Two characters’ stories are told in parallel in this Cyberpunk Neo-Noir Adventure Game. You start off as Delta-Six, an otherwise anonymous inmate at what appears to be a high-security facility. You don’t know of his crime yet, but the scientists around him try to immobilize him with an apparatus meant to erase his memories. The leader amongst them disparages how the mind wipe may cause Delta-Six to forget some of the skills that he’s been taught at the facility, and that he’d have to train the inmate all over again.
Just as we’re reeled into this evocative conflict-in-the-making, we change scenes to follow in the footsteps of Azriel Odin. He’s navigating the decrepit city of Pittsburg on the planet Barracus, in search for defectors of the hegemonic grasp of the Boryokudan crime syndicate. By using Azriel to speak with the sparse locals visible to the public eye, we find out that the Boryokudan keep the locals under their heel through pervasive drug distribution and violent intimidation. Azriel’s personal quest to connect with old companions distrustful of the Boryokudan will come head-to-head with Delta-Six’s investigations into his own identity.
I do not want to expose a large percentage of the game’s expository tale when the game can express itself much more deliberately. Instead, I suggest that the game manages to articulate a humanistic look at the contradictory aims and ideals of a futuristic urban society (with obvious nods to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner), and how the power to incarcerate can easily become a mode of exploitation. This is more an underlying sentiment rather than something heavy-handed. Gemini Rue achieves this because it focuses on character stories and individuals relating to each other.
Nonetheless, the broader social themes here – should you chose to read into them more deeply – feel relevant when we live in a world with Guantánamo Bay and countries with arbitrary standards of justice. The game’s structure simply flows very well, regardless of how much you want to read into the narrative context. It encourages exploration and moves the story along. Indeed, the game can be compared to a book in the sense that, the more you learn about its world, the more impossible it is to put it down.
The game is crafted in a meticulous retro-style graphics, sporting a selection of memorable visual backdrops and settings. The environments are beautifully arranged with clear attention to color and scale. Items can be identified through both its illustrated cues as well as in pop-up dialog boxes when hovering over items with a mouse. Rather than detract from the experience, the character’s varied attitudes and thoughts regarding the objects around them lend life to the world.
Like other engaging adventure game titles, it triggers for the player a sense of in-game objects having more of a significance and function beyond what they have been shown within the game’s duration. Just as characters have histories in these narrative-driven games, so too do the objects, the streets, the organizations, and so on. Everything can be seen through somebody else’s eyes; The lucidity and pacing of Gemini Rue makes this relevant and spurs the player’s imagination on the “what-might-have-beens”.
Game mechanics are a form of point-and-click adventure and are straight-forward and unencumbered. You can chose to interact with any object or person with the following four options: look, speak, touch/lead, and kick/climb. Of course, depending on the context, the chosen action may become so out-of-character that it is declared preposterous.
The puzzles are non-arbitrary and lend a tangible logic to exploring futuristic environments. Non-interactive cut scenes are spaced apart and concise, but each offers increasing complexity to the storyline that it feels rewarding. Gamers who enjoy seeing a story through to its solid conclusion will find that Gemini Rue has much for them to explore.
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A man has been jailed after violence exploded between two groups of gardeners on a quiet residential street.
Pitch forks and hammers were used in front of stunned residents when the gangs, from Oldham and Manchester clashed on a smart cul-de-sac in Poulton, near Blackpool.
Wayne Langley, 29, was locked up for two years at Preston Crown Court.
Langley, of Kenyon Lane, Middleton, had been accused of having an affair with the wife of one of two men who turned up on Riversway on April 3 to do some work at the same time he and his crew were selling compost door-to-door.
When both groups spotted each other Langley got out of a van and armed himself with a pitch fork, the court heard.
Jon Close, prosecuting, said Andrew Pollitt, who was with Langley, smashed two windows on a vehicle belonging to brothers Paul Smith, 49 and Keith Smith, 53. The same defendant was also accused of hitting Paul Smith over the head with a hammer. Seeing his brother lying injured, Keith Smith ran at two of the defendants.
He ended up raising an arm across his face and was stabbed in the upper arm. Andrew Pollitt then allegedly struck him with a hammer.
Keith Smith approached Langley and was said to have been stabbed in the chest with a pitch fork.
Mr Close told the court: “The Crown say Wayne Langley and Andrew Pollitt were armed with weapons and caused injury.
“It is difficult to say which they precisely caused.”
The defendants were arrested after their vehicle was spotted on the hard shoulder of the M6 travelling south, leaving their victims writhing on the pavement.
Robin Kitching, defending Langley, said there had been a chance meeting between the two groups of men.
“His intention was to have a verbal confrontation.
“There have been incidents of damage in the past and shouting in the street,” he said.
Sentencing on Andrew Pollitt, of Park View, Oldham, was adjourned until January for more information about a previous conviction.
Two other men were also sentenced for their parts in the incident. Arthur Pollitt, 54, of Eaves Lane, Oldham, was said to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He was given a 15 month sentence, suspended for two years, with 240 hours unpaid work.
Samuel Pollitt, 27, of Huntingdon Avenue, Oldham, was also said to have played a lesser role.
He was given 12 months in prison, suspended for two years, with two years supervision and 200 hours unpaid work.
All four men pleaded guilty to affray.
The judge, Recorder Nicholas Clarke QC, said “It is almost impossible to imagine a more serious offence of affray.”The death of a 23-year-old Mizo footballer from spinal-cord injuries he sustained during a goal-celebrating somersault has found a mention in football-centric online portals. Bloggers also paid tribute to Peter Biaksangzuala and a local news channel ran a special programme in his memory during prime-time on Monday evening.
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Biaksangzuala, 23, a native of the eastern town of Khawzawl, played in the midfield position for the Mizoram Premier League club Bethlehem Vengthlang (BVT) FC, an Aizawl-based club. A player who could handle both defensive and midfield roles due to his experience on the semi-professional level, Peter earlier played for another MPL club, Kulikawn FC, and in between also signed with then reigning champions Dinthar FC. He moved briefly to a Shillong team before entering the MPL again, joining BVT this season.
Peter’s side had been down by a goal for the first 62 minutes in last Tuesday’s match against Chanmari West FC, a game that was important for the club currently third in the league table. The defensive midfielder then scored an equalizer, which was coincidentally also his first goal in the MPL.
As he celebrated with a series of somersaults, Peter fell and landed on his neck. He was carried off the field on a stretcher. His team eventually lost the match 3-2. Peter was admitted to the Aizawl Civil Hospital, where attempts to repair his spinal cord were unsuccessful. He was wheeled into the ICU on Friday night and put on a ventilator. He passed away at 7am on Sunday. Perhaps as a parting gift, he had donated his eyes.
Later that day, Indian Super League clubs North-East United and Goa also paid tribute to Peter by observing a few moments of silence before the match in Guwahati. MPL commentator Lalthanzama Vanchhawng remembers Peter fondly, and talks about a Christian youth event earlier this year at Peter’s hometown where the two chatted at length about his dreams of establishing a professional football career.
“He lived in a rented house in the Aizawl Venglai neighbourhood, and people I know from there have always spoken of him with fondness. He was a religious boy who also took part in a lot of community service,” Vanchhawng said. “Before he was wheeled into the ICU last week, he told his club officials not to worry, that he was going to rest in God’s arms.”
Final entry
Thousands attended a farewell ceremony held in the community hall on Sunday, and there was uncontrolled sobbing when the Pastor read out the last entry in his diary, which quotes from the Corinthians chapter of the Bible.
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In a tearful farewell issued on the club’s Facebook page, BVT FC said in a statement, “Peter, look how many have come to see you off. The whole neighbourhood is grieving. On the roadside people are crying your name out, calling to you through tears but you do not answer. You wanted to spend your life on the football field, now you will spend eternity in heaven. Sing for us a victory song from there. Goodnight Peter.”Petro and the Past
The fabric of life in the South has been colored by race from the outset. The long chains of slavery, particularly in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, still linger in the destitution and poverty of many of those whose ancestors had been enslaved there.
The economy of the antebellum South was dependent on slave labor. Following the Civil War and emancipation, many former slaves continued to live on or near the plantations where they’d been enslaved. In Louisiana, along the Mississippi River, many of the old plantations that remain intact were the scenes of unspeakable acts of violence and terror.
Plantations stretched up and down River Road, the winding artery that snakes alongside the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. When slaves were freed, many who’d lived in the River Road plantations took up in houses nearby. Many of these houses were passed down through generations of black families. Many of the descendants of former slaves continue to live in the area.
A refinery seen through a car window in Baton Rouge, La. The petrochemical companies “try to make us feel like we’re in the wrong.”
As big industry expanded in the region, it did so along the river on land that had been owned by slavers and planters, where there was access to the waterway and rails. While the corporations bought up some of the old plantation land, it proved much more difficult to purchase land passed down by the descendants of slaves, local historians say. Because of Louisiana’s Napoleonic Codes, property could only legally be sold with proper proof of ownership. That means the big industrial facilities were unable to get their hands on many of the properties along the lane. To this day, many small black communities that have been around since Reconstruction remain, clustered around the facilities that have expanded or popped up over the last several decades.
“That’s how you see the fence line communities now,” Subra said. “They didn’t move them away, they just developed right next to them.”
Many of the companies have since bought out many former residents, paying to relocate them across town or across the street, razing homes to create what look like buffer zones between the facilities and the communities. Subra and other activists have worked as brokers between the companies and the nearby communities, helping residents work through the process of requesting buyouts.
“The issue becomes, my grandmother and my mother lived in the house and now me and my brother live in the house. But the facilities buy them out and they have to split up the profit with all the relatives,” Subra said. “In the end they don’t get enough money to buy a new house. So they’re stuck.”
“[These families] were there and these Goliaths moved in and the Davids have suffered. The disenfranchised, which we try to empower, don’t have access or a sense of empowerment.”
The petrochemical companies and the black communities, including the physical land these communities have occupied for generations, have become so enmeshed that a number of refinery grounds include old black cemeteries and other hallowed ground.
Buried deep in the belly of the Marathon Petroleum Company in Garysville is Bishop cemetery, a patch of crumbling headstones and green grass surrounded by barbed wire and machinery. The cemetery holds the remains of former slaves and their descendants from the San Francisco Plantation nearby.
The crypts and tombs, the peace of the dead, offer stark relief to the twisting metal pipes and smokestacks that hover not far above.
Marathon spokeswoman Sid Barth said families that can prove they’re descendants of the plantation can still be buried in the cemetery. The refinery maintains the grounds and has a special procedure for visits and funerals, though they haven’t conducted many in recent years.
A secretary at Hobbs Funeral home, one of the oldest black funeral homes in St. James Parish, where the cemetery and refinery are located, said they haven’t buried anyone in Bishop for a few years. But families still make the annual pilgrimage to the site on All Saints Day, when mourners deliver flowers and bouquets to the graves of their ancestors.
“It’s something to see. If you’re born and raised out here like I am, some things just don’t cross your mind, you’ve seen it all your life,” said the secretary, who noted that her great-grandmother and other relatives are buried there. She said she appreciates that Marathon has left the cemetery largely undisturbed. And that for the most part they’ve been good stewards of the land. Her only gripe would be the refineries’ continued expansion into nearby land.There are the memories we make and the memories we inherit. When the elusive electronic artist Burial was a child, his older brother regaled him with stories of the nights he spent in the underground raves of London in the ’90s, relishing the vibrant U.K. garage and jungle scene. Burial, née William Bevan, was too young to experience any of it firsthand, but his brother’s effusive depictions of youth culture became his own memories. That vicariousness is often how worldviews are shaped for younger siblings; in Burial’s case, it’s also how an entire world was built.
When an inherited memory begins to vine around lived experience, it can be difficult to separate your truth from someone else’s. Bevan, however, had always been aware of his status as an outsider. He may have been a raver in spirit, but unlike his older brother, he’d never been to a clandestine warehouse party, never attended an illegal show. He’d spent most of his young life walking around South London; he was someone with a truant heart, as he’d say. It’s an identity that colors his perspective as an artist; Burial’s music has always explored the space between the self and its surroundings.
“I wanna make tunes that are like a space in London but also a space in a club or in your head,” Bevan said in 2006 in one of the few interviews he’s ever given. "A club is not that dissimilar to sitting on your own with headphones.”
Burial is trying to make sense of oxymoronic imagery. Going to a club is inherently different than having a headphone session, but the two experiences represent two sides of isolation: Getting lost in sound is a liminal experience that’s both out-of-body and self-immersive. Bevan’s music seeks to create a space for both.
In 2006, as an anonymous 26-year-old producer so averse to attention that he refused even those press photos that obscured his head, Burial released a self-titled debut that served as the foundation of his sound. “He’s so gifted, he truly is,” BBC Radio 1 electronic music host Mary Anne Hobbs said on a broadcast previewing the album. “And the textures of the beautiful, widescreen music that he makes are so unbelievably unique.” But it wasn’t until a year later that he truly found his voice. It was buried under broken glass, radio-static hisses, empty spray paint canisters rolling along the sidewalk, the screeches of buses and trains, waterspouts emptying into the gutter. Beneath layers of urban terroir were a muddy, subterranean bass, alien drum patterns that seemed to slip in and out, and R&B vocals stretched and pitch-shifted to an unrecognizable, digitized androgyny—somehow only magnifying the emotional resonance in their voices.
Bevan cast a Venn diagram of light and darkness; Untrue, his magnum opus, was the interlocking center. Ten years after its release in 2007, Burial’s sophomore album remains the most exemplary piece of electronic music of the millennium, and its influence casts a wide net reaching far beyond the underground.
The way in which Burial’s identity was packaged in the mid-aughts deserves to be in a time capsule; is it even possible to thrive as a faceless entity in 2017? Is it possible to withhold elements of yourself wholesale without it being cynically charged as performative? Burial’s emergence amid total anonymity came during the rise of the mp3 blog as a sort of new-age pirate radio, before music blogging became another branch of the relentless gig economy. But even then, the mystery of Burial threatened to engulf his music. Rumors of his true identity spread and took on a life of their own; it just didn’t seem possible that such a fully fleshed-out sound could come from a total unknown. By 2008, Bevan had grown tired of the media’s wild goose chase and revealed his name and a low-res photo of himself on Myspace. But, as is customary of the Burial experience, there’s space carved out for those who choose to cling to the mystery—williambevan.co.uk is the domain of a funeral service.
The internet was once a haven for those who wished to keep their identities secret, but as it grew into an investigative platform for anyone who wanted to know about anything, maintaining an element of mystery became an increasingly valuable tool. Witch house, the short-lived electronic subgenre almost entirely indebted to Burial’s sound, emphasized obscure gothic imagery, unpronounceable monikers, and a dragged-out audio malaise; the Swedish music group Iamamiwhoami announced its existence in 2010 through a series of willfully obscure YouTube clips that became music-blog catnip; and Sia’s faceless promotion of her 2014 album, 1000 Forms of Fear, brought the mystery to top-40 radio.
Yet as much as Untrue was an influence in the years following its release, Burial’s sonic playground on the album is an homage to the ’90s in his home of South London. The ethereal melodies and syncopated rhythms of U.K. jungle, the chopped-up R&B amphetamine of two-step garage, and the Fifth Element sound of stateside producers like Timbaland and Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins are all equalized in a dreary veil of field recordings. The album’s lead single, “Archangel,” is a perfect triangulation of influence—a strange, alternate-dimension pop hit contained within the album’s dimly lit caverns. Burial made it in less than a day, mourning the death of his pet dog.
In today’s age of crystalline production that presents electronic music as fractals, Burial’s production on Untrue takes on a lo-fi, wabi-sabi ethos that borders on technophobic—or as technophobic as an electronic artist can possibly be. Burial has long claimed to be self-taught, only knowing how to create music on Sound Forge, one of the oldest professional audio editing programs still in existence. The jury-rigged setup has become a part of his mystique. Mistakes are smoothed over with fades and then built over; each song serves as its own palimpsest. He samples everything from Ray J to the sound of someone walking through a church, from Aaliyah to a crackling wood fire. A distorted line from David Lynch’s Inland Empire is the first thing you hear on the record. The drums, which are occasionally overlaid with sounds of rain, were not run through a sequencer (because Burial didn’t know how to use one at the time), which means they aren’t always completely aligned to a time signature. If it sounds as though momentum is pushing the percussion into itself, that’s likely what you’re hearing. But it’s by design.
“When I try and do drums that are too regimented, they lose something,” he told Martin Clark, a fellow British producer, in 2006. “But the moment I put drums where I think they sound good, rather than in time, they seem to have that roll, the swing of the jungle and garage tunes I love.”
The critical acclaim for Untrue came during the golden age of U.K. dubstep, and that was indeed how Burial’s music was labeled. But where most of his contemporaries like El-B, Skream, and Benga were sending clarion wub-wubs into the future, Burial’s sound was just trying to recapture the afterglow of the night before. The object of the music was to get lost in it—to hit the thousand-yard stare in the tune, as he once put it. Untrue is music as augmented reality: The sensory details of real life vivify the textures of the album and vice versa. The whirring of transit becomes symphonic; the cracked pavement and loose gravel imitate the various vinyl pops and hisses heard throughout. Through headphones, the voices in Burial’s world and our own are obscured and far off. They start to sound like the subconscious.
Untrue seems expressly made for the transition from night to day, the wee hours where ideas flicker and fade alongside the waning consciousness. It’s post-euphoric, there to serve as a crutch for the comedown as you’re alone on the subway, alone in a McDonald’s, alone with your thoughts. The album may be rooted in the sonic imagery of South London, but its narratives and depictions are universal. It fosters communion in being alone, together. It’s a safe space as much as it is an album.
“Safe space” may seem a strange designation for such a dark record, but its darkness isn’t a portent or an equivocation of evil; it’s simply an ever-present reality. And whether the listener is aware of it or not, Bevan provides equipment to navigate through it. Every song on Untrue is populated with little clinking percussive bits filling in the voids. Most of them are the sounds of lighters being flicked. Growing up, Bevan had dreams of being transported in the night; the closest—or furthest—he ever got was the seaside, away from the ambient glow of London’s inner city. “I love it out there, because when it’s dark, it’s totally dark,” he told the late Wire Magazine writer Mark Fisher in 2007. “We used to have to walk back and hold hands and use a lighter. See the light, see where you were, and then you’d walk on, and the image of where [you] just were would still be on your retina.”
We’ve witnessed a decade of world building in the time since Untrue’s release. Burial’s 2006 self-titled debut established the environment, but Untrue populated it with empathetic characters and voices. It was a cursory exploration in how to build a place of harmony and acceptance. Bevan mastered the use of vocal samples, finding humanity in the ghostly voices he employed by stripping away gendered signifiers altogether; chopped snippets of vocals are pitch-shifted up and down to sound male and female simultaneously. “Some jungle tunes had a balance, the glow, the moodiness that comes from the presence of both girls and boys in the same tune,” Bevan told Fisher. “There's tension because it’s close, but sometimes perfect together. Men sometimes exist in this place where they don’t have a fucking clue what girls go through.”
In 2013, Bevan expanded his music’s scope on matters of identity and sexuality with the release of Rival Dealer, which stands alongside Untrue as his best work. The EP’s coda is a collage of lines from director Lana Wachowski’s Visibility Award speech at the Human Rights Campaign gala in 2012, under a blanket of distortion, speaking power to trans acceptance. The record ends the way Wachowski ends her speech, communicating an idea—a dream—that Burial has long tried to contain in sound: “This world that we imagine in this room might be used to gain access to other rooms, to other worlds previously unimaginable.”
In May, Bevan reopened a portal into his world with the release of Subtemple/Beachfires, a two-song suite devoid of rhythm but full of cavernous echoes, chimes, and the clacking sound of a combination lock being turned. On “Subtemple,” there’s a persistent refrain: Don’t get so loud. The record is a pure view of the Burial ethos, stripped of the pretense of propulsive sound. It’s a place to breathe and walk around for those who need it.
Two months earlier, a car drove through a crowd of pedestrians along the Westminster Bridge in London, killing four and injuring 50; three days after the record’s release, a shrapnel bomb exploded at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena, killing at least 22 and wounding 59 others. Subtemple/Beachfires felt like an invitation back into the safe space. The miracle of Burial will always be the pathos in his sound collages and how they articulate the bonds we share with those we may never know. “If you alone could hear someone upset on the other side of the world, then maybe then you could do something about it,” Bevan told Fisher.
Electronic music codifies modern human expression in ways acoustic can’t; it taps into anxieties and exultations that have only ever existed in the now. At times it can feel like a language transmitted to us from the future, whose proper grammar we’ve spent the last century reverse engineering. With Untrue, Bevan managed to escape the temptation of decoding the age ahead of us, instead opting to use the technology at his disposal to repackage memories under threat of being left behind. Hidden behind |
looking forward to seeing Mr Griffin on BBC One. But not a single resident who is black or Asian wants to talk about it.
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In a Lync and Exchange UM environment (version doesn’t particularly matter in this case), voicemail messages were not being delivered. The voicemail folder on Exchange (C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\UnifiedMessaging\voicemail) was filling up with hundreds of.txt (header files) and.wav (voicemail audio files).
Resolution
This issue is not necessarily new (Reference1 Reference2), but it didn’t immediately come up in search results. I also wanted to spend more time discussing why this issue happened and why it’s important to understand receive connector scoping.
This issue was caused by incorrectly modifying a receive connector on Exchange. Specifically, a custom connector used for application relay was modified so instead of only the individual IP addresses needed for relay (EX: Printers/Copiers/Scanners/3rd Party Applications requiring relay), the entire IP subnet was included in the Remote IP Ranges scoping. This ultimately meant that instead of Lync/ExchangeUM using the default receive connectors (which have the required “Exchange Server Authentication” enabled), they instead were using the custom application relay connector (which did not have Exchange Server Authentication enabled).
This resulted in the voicemail messages sitting in the voicemail folder and errors (Event ID 1423/1446/1335) being thrown in the Application log. The errors will state processing failed for the messages:
The Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging service on the Mailbox server encountered an error while trying to process the message with header file “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\UnifiedMessaging\voicemail\<string>.txt”. Error details: “Microsoft.Exchange.UM.UMCore.SmtpSubmissionException: Submission to the Hub Transport server failed. The operation will be retried. —> Microsoft.Exchange.Net.ExSmtpClient.UnexpectedSmtpServerResponseException: Unexpected SMTP server response. Expected: 220, actual: 500, whole response: 500 5.3.3 Unrecognized command
It’s also possible that the voicemail messages will eventually be deleted due to having failed processing too many times (EventID 1335):
The Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging service on the Mailbox server encountered an error while trying to process the message with header file “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\UnifiedMessaging\voicemail\<string>.txt”. The message will be deleted and the “MSExchangeUMAvailability: % of Messages Successfully Processed Over the Last Hour” performance counter will be decreased. Error details: “Microsoft.Exchange.UM.UMCore.ReachMaxProcessedTimesException: This message has reached the maximum processed count, “6”.
Unfortunately, once you see this message above (EventID 1335) the message cannot be recovered. When UM states the message will be deleted, it will in fact be deleted with no chance of recovery. If the issue had been going on for several days and this folder were part of your daily backup sets then you could technically restore the files and paste them into the current directory; where they would be processed. However, if you did not have a backup then these voicemails would be permanently lost.
Note: Certain failed voicemail messages can be found in the “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\UnifiedMessaging\badvoicemail” directory. However, as our failure was a permanent failure related to Transport, they did not get moved to the badvoicemail directory and instead were permanently deleted.
Background
I wanted to further explain how this issue happened, and hopefully clear up confusion around receive connector scoping. In our scenario, someone left a voicemail for an Exchange UM-enabled mailbox which was received and processed by Exchange. The header and audio files for this voicemail message were temporarily stored in the “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\UnifiedMessaging\voicemail” directory on the Exchange UM server. Our scenario involved Exchange 2013, but the same general logic would apply to Exchange 2007/2010/2016. UM would normally submit these voicemail messages to transport using one of the default Receive Connectors which would have “Exchange Server Authentication” enabled. These messages would then be delivered to the destination mailbox.
Our failure was a result of the UM services being directed to a Receive Connector which did not have the necessary authentication enabled on it (the custom relay connector which only had Anonymous authentication enabled). Under normal circumstances, this issue would probably be detected within a few hours (as users began complaining of not receiving voicemails) but in our case the change was made before the holidays and was not detected until this week (another reason to avoid IT changes before a long holiday). This resulted in the permanent Event 1335 failure noted above and the loss of the voicemail. Since this failure occurs before reaching transport, Safety Net will not be any help.
So let’s turn our focus to Receive Connector scoping, and specifically, defining the RemoteIPRange parameter. Remote IP Ranges define for which incoming IP address/addresses that connector is responsible for handling. Depending on the local listening port, local listening IP address, & RemoteIPRange configuration of each Receive Connector, the Microsoft Exchange Frontend Transport Service and Microsoft Exchange Transport Service will route incoming connections to the correct Receive Connector. The chosen connector then handles the connection accordingly, based on the connector’s configured authentication methods, permission groups, etc. A Receive Connector must have a unique combination of local listening port, local listening IP address, and Remote IP Address (RemoteIPRange) configuration. This means you can have multiple Receive Connectors with the same listening IP address and port (25 for instance) as long as each of their RemoteIPRange configurations are unique. You could also have the same RemoteIPRange configuration on multiple Receive Connectors if your port or listening IP are different; and so on.
The default Receive Connectors all have a default RemoteIPRange of 0.0.0.0-255.255.255.255 (all IPv4 addresses) and ::-ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff (all IPv6 addresses). The rule for processing RemoteIPRange configurations is that the most accurate configuration is used. Say I have two Receive Connectors in the below configuration:
Name: Default Receive Connector
Local Listening IP and Port (Bindings): 192.168.1.10:25
RemoteIPRange: 0.0.0.0-255.255.255.255
Name: ApplicationRelayConnector
Local Listening IP and Port (Bindings): 192.168.1.10:25
RemoteIPRange: 192.168.1.55
With this configuration, if an inbound connection on port 25 destined for 192.168.1.10 is created from 192.168.1.55, then ApplicationRelayConnector would be used and it’s settings would be applicable. If an inbound connection to 192.168.1.10:25 came from 192.168.1.200 then Default Receive Connector would instead be used.
The below image was taken from the “Troubleshooting Transport” chapter of the Exchange Server Troubleshooting Companion, an eBook co-authored by Paul Cunningham and myself. It’s a great visual aid for understanding which Receive Connector will accept which connection from a given remote IP address. The chapter also contains great tips for troubleshooting connectors, mail flow, and Exchange in general.
So in my customer’s specific scenario, instead of defining individual IP addresses on their custom application relay receive connector, they instead defined the entire internal IP subnet (192.168.1.0/24). This resulted in not only the internal devices needing to relay hitting the custom application relay connector, but also the Exchange Server itself and the Lync server also hitting the custom application relay connector; thus breaking Exchange Server Authentication. As a best practice, you should always use individual IP addresses when configuring custom application relay connectors, so that you do not inadvertently break other Exchange communications. If this customer had multiple Exchange Servers, this change would have also broken Exchange server-to-server port 25 communications.
Advertisementsepa05371906 Police block access to Avenue de Caserne in Etterbeek during a reconstruction of the Maelbeek terrorist attack, Brussels, Belgium, 17 June 2016. Thirty-one people were killed and hundreds injured on 22 March 2016 in bomb explosions at the departures hall of Brussels airport and at the Maelbeek Metro station in downtown Brussels. Militants of the terrorist militia refering to itself as Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attacks. EPA/OLIVIER HOSLET Archiwum PAP/EPA
Belgijska policja w nocy z piątku na sobotę dokonała przeszukań w 16 gminach w ramach śledztwa antyterrorystycznego. Zatrzymano 12 osób podejrzanych o planowanie ataków terrorystycznych - poinformowało w sobotę w oświadczeniu biuro prokuratora federalnego.
Podano, że w ramach zakrojonej na szeroką skalę akcji przeszukano kilkadziesiąt domów i kilkaset garaży w całej Belgii.
"Dowody zebrane w ramach śledztwa wymagają natychmiastowej interwencji. Przesłuchano 40 osób i 12 z nich zatrzymano. W najbliższych godzinach sędzia zdecyduje o ich dalszych losach" - napisano w oświadczeniu.
W sumie przeszukano 152 garaże, lecz nie znaleziono "ani broni ani materiałów wybuchowych" - podało to samo źródło.
Do przeszukań, podczas których "obyło się bez incydentów", doszło głównie w aglomeracji brukselskiej, a także we Flandrii i Walonii.
"Obecnie nie możemy podać informacji co do skonfiskowanych rzeczy i tożsamości osób" podała prokuratura, wyjaśniając, że "śledztwo trwa".
W atakach islamistów w Paryżu w listopadzie ubiegłego roku zginęło 130 osób, a w marcu tego roku w zamachach bombowych na lotnisku i w metrze w Brukseli śmierć poniosły 32 osoby. (PAP)
jo/ malk/AMC is getting ready for The Walking Dead’s seventh season and, according to new statements from network president Josh Sapan, there are no plans to end the series anytime soon.
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference, as reported by The Wrap, Sapan likened the franchise to Star Trek and said it had the potential to run for years in a multitude of ways. Much like how the original Star Trek series had a series of spinoffs, Sapan said that AMC wanted to do something similar with The Walking Dead. The network already has one spinoff on the air, Fear the Walking Dead, and while it hasn’t been as successful with critics or in the ratings, it still pulls decent numbers for AMC.
Sapan said that The Walking Dead has "an incredibly long life left in it" and could run for "many, many more years," with additional spinoff series possibly being created. Fans have asked for a spinoff featuring Norman Reedus’ beloved character, Daryl, but AMC hasn’t said whether it has plans to look into the possibility of bringing that to fruition.
In its plans to keep The Walking Dead and its spinoff series alive for as long as possible, Sapan said that like the original Star Trek, it was the type of franchise that they could keep coming back to whenever they thought there was an arc or character worth exploring more in-depth.
"[Star Trek] came and went three times," Sapan said, according to The Wrap. "We do think that we have a franchise [in The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead] that is one of the rare franchises that you occasionally come across in what we do for a living."
Sapan added that he thought other popular series on the network, like Preacher and Into the Badlands, had franchise-like qualities, but didn’t speak about whether the network was looking into expanding those shows at this time.
The Walking Dead returns on Oct. 23 at 9 p.m.38 Shares
RAYGUN found itself involved in a bit of a controversy this afternoon after recounting a customer exchange on the company’s official Facebook page. The post received dozens of comments, likes and “shares” before disappearing from RAYGUN’s page shortly before 6:00 p.m.
The initial update was posted shortly after 12:00 p.m. Verbatim, RAYGUN wrote:
a senior Iowa Legislature staffer for the Republican “Senate Minority Leader” (we’re assuming that’s Senator Bill Dix?) asked us for a 20% discount on some glasses. Mike asked if he demands discounts just from small places or big ones like Home Depot, and this guy (and his wife) assured us that he demands discounts from “everyone.” Mike remarked, “that must make dinners out exhausting.” #MakersAndTakers
RAYGUN then added the following as a subsequent comment:
new slogan in here somewhere? “RAYGUN: Moderately-Priced American-Made Products that You Should Demand to Pay Even Less For.”
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This update immediately began to circulate around the social network, receiving dozens of comments and being shared across more than 30 Facebook pages, including our own. However, the details surrounding this story became slightly more obtuse when the customer in question, Ed Failor Jr., responded directly to RAYGUN’s initial update.
Failor’s verbatim response was as follows:
THIS IS UNFAIR. I never identified myself. I said I wanted to buy a dozen of an item sold individually. I asked specifically whether he would discount a dozen purchase. AFTER I PAID, he asked me what I do for a living. I answered honestly.
RAYGUN’s verbatim response to Failor:
that’s true, but we’ve only got so many words to work with, Ed Failor Jr so we gave the abridged version. we don’t normally put up anecdotes about customers, but figured this one was reimbursement-in-entertainment for the $24. we encourage you to take that savings and spend it locally!
As it turns out, this response would be a divisive one for RAYGUN, which–it should be noted–does indeed offer a bulk discount on purchases. The comment section’s largely unified voice began to splinter. Many stood by RAYGUN, but others began to criticize the company for how it had presented the exchange. An element of confusion set in.
As the conversation continued to deteriorate, Ed Failor’s wife chimed in to add her account of the story.
Kristine Failor’s verbatim response was as follows:
That is a horrid and very unclassy move on your part Mike. I can guarantee (as the wife) we just commented that it was a lot for glasses and would buy multiple if there was a discount for bulk. No mention of what either if us did for a living. Its disgusting that you would utilize friendly conversation for your own political points. I can guarantee after years of being proprietors we will no longer be buying ANYTHING there again. Bad form.
A short time later, Kristine Failor replied a second time. Responding to another users’s remark about RAYGUN’s return policy, she wrote:
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Oh good because I will be returning the 30 some shirts I own from your store. I also have some friends who are already interesting in taking advantage of your “no receipt”policy. Oh and Michael Fischer, Walmart posts their bulk discount policy. I was there and that is exactly how he asked. We said we wanted to buy a dozen and if there was a discount for bulk. Mr Draper chose (and admitted to above) manipulating the conversation in order to fit into the word count. Apparently his integrity has a word limit.
By this point, RAYGUN’s initial post had received dozens of additional comments. Some leveled claims of libel at RAYGUN. Others criticized the Failors for inquiring about a bulk discount given his involvement in the public sector. Regardless, the shift in tone was palpable and RAYGUN soon found itself surrounded by just as many critics as it did supporters. Some in RAYGUN’s corner weren’t quite sure of what to make of the exchange, while a number of others voiced their disappointment more explicitly.
RAYGUN would make one more comment, this time responding to Kristine:
we accept all returns no questions asked. so Kristin’s request would be fine with us.
This concludes the exchange between RAYGUN, Ed Failor Jr. and his wife Kristine, though the initial post continued to receive comments until it was deleted approximately six hours after its publication.
A call was made to RAYGUN’s Des Moines location this afternoon, though CEO Mike Draper could not be immediately reached for comment. Little Village will update if more information comes in.A report by counter-extremism think tank Quilliam has found that more than eight out of ten men convicted of grooming gang offences have an ‘Asian’ background.
When the study’s authors — both of whom are of Pakistani heritage — set out on their research into grooming gangs, they expected to “debunk” the perception that Muslims of Asian heritage are overrepresented.
But instead their analysis revealed that 222 of 264 convictions related to 58 cases of grooming gangs identified in Britain between 2005 and 2017 — or 84 per cent — involved perpetrators of Asian origin, despite Asians making up just 7 per cent of the population.
The report found just 18 of the 264 offenders (7 per cent) were white, while 22 were black (8 per cent), and the ethnicities of a further two men were unknown.
What the report means by ‘Asian’ will not be clear until the report is officially published over the coming days, but Quilliam founder, LBC presenter and former Islamic extremist Maajid Nawaz gave some indication when he tweeted that “84% of collective child-grooming and rape cases in the UK involve gangs of British South-Asian Muslim men” in connection with it.
‘Conspiracy of Silence’: The British towns where underage girls were raped by Muslim grooming gangs for decades https://t.co/uHVBTdmhPT — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 12, 2017
Author Muna Adil said: “We began thinking we would debunk the media narrative that Asians are overrepresented in this specific crime.
“But, when the final numbers came in we were alarmed and dismayed. For both of us being of Pakistani heritage, this issue is deeply personal and deeply disturbing.”
“In attempts to protect the ‘’sentiments’’ of the British Pakistani community, we have failed vulnerable young girls who have suffered years of irreversible damage,” Adil and co-author of the report Haras Rafiq said in a statement, noting that “the victims that have come forward so far are almost exclusively white girls”.
According to the study, which is based on the testimonies of grooming gang offenders during court hearings, Asian men deliberately preyed on white girls — who they deemed “easy targets” and “open to sex”.
“Girls from the Asian community are seen as commodities to be ‘protected’, whereas girls from outside of the community are seen as fair game,” says the report.
Newcastle groomer: “White women are good for only one thing – for people like me to f*** and use as trash.” https://t.co/IgYuHbvDgX — Jack Montgomery ن (@JackBMontgomery) August 10, 2017
Adil added: “There are elements from within the British Pakistani community that still subscribe to outdated and sexist views of women embedded within their jaded interpretations of Islam. These backward views are passed down from generation to generation until the lines between faith and culture dissolve, making it increasingly difficult to criticise one without being seen as a critic of the other.”
Speaking to Sky News from his home in Rochdale — a town affected by grooming, and where whistleblowers have warned gang members are still at large — Rafiq said it’s vital that the topic continues to be discussed, “because the problem won’t go away.”
“We didn’t want there to be a pattern of people from our ethnic demographic carrying out these attacks. But unfortunately we were proven wrong,” he added.
Last month, Pakistani Muslims living in Birmingham told reporters that their community has nothing to do with the epidemic of grooming gangs in the UK.
“The crimes are committed in this country; these grooming crimes are not committed in Pakistan. They are committed in this society, and it is the conditions of this society that are encouraging people to commit crimes like that,” one man told ITV News.Manila, Philippines (CNN) Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's vitriol against the United States took another caustic turn Tuesday, when he threatened to "break up" with the US and said President Barack Obama can "go to hell."
Duterte's latest remarks came just as the US and Philippines started joint military exercises -- perhaps for the last time.
The war drills began Tuesday in Manila and will last until October 12. Last week, Duterte said this round of joint drills with the US would be the last.
"I serve notice to you now that this will be the last joint military exercise with US," Duterte said
'I will break up with America'
Durterte's verbal tirade against the US heated up after widespread criticism of his anti-drug campaign.
Thousands of suspected drug dealers and users have died during Duterte's aggressive crackdown on the illegal drug trade.
Some were killed during shootouts with local police when suspects allegedly resisted arrest. Others died in nightly vigilante-style killings, where bodies are left on the streets with cardboard signs describing their alleged drug-related crimes.
On Tuesday, Duterte said he's willing to cut ties with the US in favor of Russia and China.
"Respect is important," he said in one of three speeches Tuesday. "If this is what happens now, I will be reconfiguring my foreign policy. Eventually I might, in my time, I will break up with America. I'd rather go to Russia and to China."
Duterte also had harsh words for the US President and the European Union: "Mr. Obama, you can go to hell.... The EU better choose purgatory."
Obama administration responds
JUST WATCHED Who is Rodrigo Duterte? Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Who is Rodrigo Duterte? 02:31
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Duterte's recent comments, such as telling Obama to "go to hell," contradicted the "warm relationship" between the two countries.
He cited US recovery efforts after natural disasters as an example of the close ties between the two nations. Earnest also said the US has not received any request from the Philippines to change their bilateral relationship.
But the White House spokesman insisted the US will "not hesitate" to raise concerns about extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, which he said were "entirely inconsistent" with universal values of human rights.
"We won't be silent in raising our significant concerns about these reports," Earnest said.
'If you will not leave my city, I will kill you'
Duterte won the presidency by a landslide this year on a platform of ending drug proliferation, despite having been accused of running the Davao Death Squad when he was mayor of Davao.
JUST WATCHED Motobato claims he was Duterte's hitman Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Motobato claims he was Duterte's hitman 02:16
On Tuesday, Duterte said he won't stop his anti-drug crackdown "until the last pusher is taken out of the street."
"It will be unrelenting," the President said.
Duterte also defended his threats to kill criminals, saying he used similar language when he was mayor of Davao.
"If you will not leave my city, I will kill you," he reminisced.
"There is no law at all which says I cannot threaten criminals as mayor or even as president."
Under Duterte's presidency, police have made thousands of arrests and have implemented a controversial " knock and plead " policy of visiting suspected drug users in their homes and inviting them to register as users with community officials.
Duterte has also told police they can kill drug dealers if they fight back.
Souring relations with the US?
In his first few months in office, Duterte has made shocking remarks about the US, a longtime ally of the Philippines.
Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Speaking at a business forum in Manila in December 2016, Duterte admitted killing suspected criminals during his time as mayor of Davao City. Hide Caption 1 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. The day after Trump won the US presidential election in November 2016, Duterte said he and Trump share some traits. Hide Caption 2 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. After reports emerged of a potentially blocked arms sale, Duterte told CNN Philippines in November 2016 that he would turn to Russia for weapons. Hide Caption 3 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. During a state visit to China in October 2016, Duterte announced his economic and military'separation' from the US. Hide Caption 4 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. In October 2016 Duterte expressed growing hostility with the US president. Hide Caption 5 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. After US president Barack Obama said he would raise extrajudicial killings in a meeting with Duterte, the Philippines President responded angrily on September 5, first in English then in Tagalog. As a result, Obama canceled the meeting. Hide Caption 6 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. As he addressed troops at the country's Armed Forces Central Command Headquarters on August 5, Duterte recounted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to the country, saying in Tagalog that he was feuding with U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg. Hide Caption 7 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. The Philippines president-elect effectively said he supported vigilantism against drug dealers and criminals in a nationally televised speech in June 2016. Hide Caption 8 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Foreign diplomats weighing in on Rodrigo Duterte's controversial remarks did not sit well with the then-mayor. Hide Caption 9 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Duterte apologized to the Pope after cursing him for the traffic he caused during a 2015 Papal visit to the Philippines. Hide Caption 10 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. In September 2016, Duterte likened himself to the Nazi leader and announced that he wants to kill millions of drug addicts. Hide Caption 11 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Speaking at a press conference to unveil his new cabinet on May 31 2016, Rodrigo Duterte said journalists killed on the job in the Philippines were often corrupt. Hide Caption 12 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. During the third and last presidential debate, Duterte had said that he would plant a Philippine flag in disputed territories should China refuse to recognize a favorable ruling for the Philippines. Hide Caption 13 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Duterte made international headlines in April 2016 with his inflammatory comments on the 1989 rape and murder of an Australian missionary that took place in Davao City. Hide Caption 14 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. He also lashed out at the womens' group that filed a complaint against him before the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). Hide Caption 15 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. At a CNN Philippines Townhall event in February 2016, Duterte, admitted that he had three girlfriends and a common-law wife. His marriage to Elizabeth Zimmerman was annulled due to his womanizing, but he denied this meant he objectified women. Hide Caption 16 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Although he later denied the accusations, the former Davao City mayor admitted his links to the alleged Davao death squad in a May 2015 broadcast of his local television talk show. Hide Caption 17 of 17
He's called both Obama and the US ambassador to the Philippines a " son of a bitch."
American investors have already expressed concern over drug-related killings under the Duterte administration.
"The increased number of killings during the heightened anti-drug campaign is harming the country's image, as portrayed by international media, and some investors are now asking whether this campaign reduces the rule of law," the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, Inc. said last month.
But US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said last week that the decades-old alliance with the Philippines was " ironclad."
He said US-Philippines cooperation "has served the interests of our nations for many years now" and added that he had good discussions about "ongoing alliance operations" with his counterpart from the Philippines.Federal laws already ban employer discrimination based on on race, color, sex, nationality, religion, age or disability.
Marcos Garcia holds an equality flag in front of the U.S. Supreme Court before the court hears arguments about gay marriage on March 27. (Photo11: Mark Wilson, Getty Images) Story Highlights The Employment Non-Discrimination Act bans workplace discrimination on basis of sexual orientation
The Senate last voted on it in 1996, when it failed by one vote
It is unclear if House GOP leaders will bring it to the floor
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate will take up a gay rights bill before Thanksgiving, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act bans workplace discrimination by employers on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Religious organizations and the U.S. military are exempted. ENDA has been introduced in nearly every Congress since 1994, and it came one vote shy of passage in 1996. It has not been given a full Senate vote since.
Federal laws already ban employer discrimination based on on race, color, sex, nationality, religion, age or disability.
"We think this vote is long overdue," said Freedom to Work founder Tico Almeida, a former counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives who helped draft the legislation. The House passed a version of the legislation in 2007, but it died in the Senate and faced a veto threat from then-President George W. Bush.
Almeida said he and other ENDA advocates have worked to build critical Republican support for the legislation, which included provisions to ensure protections for religious-based employers. That language helped garner the support of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who voted for the bill in committee.
Almeida is confident the legislation has enough support to pass a 60-vote hurdle in the Senate to break a potential filibuster. At least 55 senators have already endorsed the legislation, including GOP Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Susan Collins of Maine.
President Obama supports ENDA, but it faces an uncertain future in the GOP-controlled House. One of the chief House sponsors is Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and the legislation has 186 co-sponsors in the House with support from moderate Republicans including Reps. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania and Richard Hanna of New York.
"The question is: Can we push House leadership to actually hold a vote? If they held it, I think we would win," said Almeida, who said lawmakers could seek other paths to a vote, including a discharge petition, which forces a vote on the floor if a majority demands it.
There are indicators that conservatives could also support the bill. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the party's 2012 vice presidential nominee and a trusted voice within the House ranks, voted for the House bill in 2007 and his potential support for the current legislation is a "glimmer of hope" for ENDA advocates, Almeida said.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1bvV9KVNow that the Super Bowl has been played and free agency is approaching in early March, the Last Word On Sports NFL department will be looking at the top three needs for each team. In this article, the Green Bay Packers are the focus.
The Packers finished the 2015 season with a 10-6 record (second in the NFC North) after starting the season 6-0. Green Bay defeated the Washington Redskins 35-18 on the road in the Wild Card round of the playoffs but then lost in the Divisional round to the Arizona Cardinals in a game that featured a wild ending. With Aaron Rodgers at quarterback, Mike McCarthy’s team is all set under center, and the team just signed kicker Mason Crosby to a four-year, $16.1M contract. But there are other areas on which the Packers need to focus this offseason if they want to contend for a Super Bowl next season.
GREEN BAY PACKERS 2016 OFF-SEASON: TOP 3 NEEDS
Linebacker
Packers fans are still wondering how in the world general manager Ted Thompson and the rest of the organization didn’t address the issue of linebacker before the 2015 season. Green Bay must make this position a priority this off-season.
Linebacker Clay Matthews belongs playing on the outside, rushing the passer. But the former USC Trojan was forced to move inside due to personnel and depth issues. Jake Ryan, who the Packers selected in the fourth round of last year’s draft, showed promise at times last season, and Sam Barrington, who Green Bay drafted in 2013, look to be the starters at inside linebacker heading into 2016. But Barrington is still working on coming back from the foot injury that ended his 2015 season after Week 1 and it remains to be seen if Ryan can play well with consistency, from week to week.
If defensive coordinator Dom Capers wants to utilize Matthews the way he should be, the Packers need to add some talent and depth at both inside and outside linebacker. If they want to address this position through the draft the Pack could certainly try to target Scooby Wright out of Arizona in the second round or they could target some free agents, including Rolando McClain, Derrick Johnson or Danny Trevathan. But, however they want to go about it, the Packers need to shore up their linebacking corps before the 2016 season.
Offensive Line
It’s true that when Green Bay’s starting offensive linemen are healthy they can play well. But the issue in 2015 was that the entire line did not stay healthy and they failed to protect Rodgers with any amount of consistency. The Packers allowed 47 sacks (fifth worst) and 104 quarterback hits (eighth worst) last season.
Tackle Don Barclay is a free agent this off-season, and the organization also needs to keep in mind that JC Tretter, TJ Lang, David Bakhtiari and Josh Sitton are all scheduled to be free agents after the 2016 season, and it’s highly doubtful they will be able to re-sign all four players.
Signing a high priced free agent does not solve this problem so Green Bay needs to add depth and find players who can add value beyond next season in the draft. They could target the likes of Joe Haeg (North Dakota State) or Tyler Johnstone (Oregon), among others in April’s draft.
Running Back
In 2015, Eddie Lacy (drafted in the second round in 2013) struggled to perform after playing well in his first two seasons in the NFL. This dramatic drop in production seemed to be mainly due to Lacy gaining too much weight and the offensive line struggling throughout the season. James Starks was pretty productive, particularly as a pass catching back, last season, but he is a free agent this off-season.
If Starks is not in the Green and Gold in 2016 the Packers need to add a pass catching back this off-season. Green Bay also needs to look to a future without Lacy. This coming season is a contact season for Lacy, but, even if he performs as well as he did in 2013 and 2014, it is far from certain that the Packers would bring him back. Green Bay certainly doesn’t need to sign a high priced free agent (Matt Forte might be too pricey) or draft a back in the first, or even second, round of the draft, but it is a position they need to address. The team cannot ask Aaron Rodgers to do everything, even if he is clearly one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
The Packers, for the most part, were a good, sometimes really good, team in 2015. But if they want to truly compete for a Super Bowl in 2016, and beyond, they need to address the above areas. Adding some depth and playmakers at tight end and wide receiver wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world either.Three men are being sought after a penguin was stolen from Dublin Zoo this morning.
The bizarre theft happened at around 8.30am before the zoo opened to the public.
Three men climbed the perimeter fence and entered the penguin habitat, capturing a 10-year-old female named Kelli.
They put her into a sack and left the zoo where they hailed a taxi passing through the Phoenix Park.
They told the driver they had a rabbit with them and he dropped them in Dublin's north inner city.
The penguin was found on Rutland Street and was taken back to the zoo by gardaí from Store Street.
Kelli was returned to the penguin habitat after a vet inspection found she had no injuries.
In a statement this afternoon, Dublin Zoo said it 'is naturally relieved that the animal is safe and unharmed'.
However, they underlined their annoyance about the incident saying it 'is not frivolous and is certainly not something amusing'.
Gardaí are now hunting for the men involved.I know that lots of guys like their women to be on the plump side, and even though I’m a girl, I can relate to that. That’s because I also love to feel their soft breast and smooth skin that feels so soft wherever you touch it. A girl that goes by the name of Marie is not an excuse to that rule. Her boobs are more than big, they are huge and soft, or at least I imagine them to be soft under my wanting arms. She isn’t shy at all when it comes to caressing or revealing them for the camera. Watch her cam in the chubby section of ExhibitionistCams.Web |
kill a person. You can get septic and pass away in short order. Henry David Thoreau's brother John died that way, as did Lord Carnarvon, shortly after discovering the burial chamber of Tutankhamen in 1922.
5. Earn tax refunds
A movement is afoot that - if adopted by Congress - would provide up to $250.00 in tax refunds for moustached Americans. They could then apply that money towards a gym membership or vital medication. You can sign the STACHE Act here.
6. Protect vocal apparatus / Appease vengeful God
According to a poorly-contextualized but nonetheless provocative argument from someone calling him/herself Dr. Ruddock:
The beard and the moustache should be permitted to grow as they afford an excellent protection to the delicate organs of the voice of those in whom it is subjected to undue or irregular exercise. After a public address, the tissues in the vicinity of the throat become relaxed and on leaving the place of assembly and entering the open air, inflammatory action commences, and if repeated, chronic affections of the throat and bronchial tubes are often induced; but the unshorn natural respirator, which our Maker intended to be one of the distinguishing features of the male seed, effectively protects these important parts. The hair planted on the human face by the wisdom and goodness of our Creator, has its uses, and we may add, its beauties. Let the young man, therefore, never become a slave to the false and pernicious fashion which compels him to shave off the beard, as it is found contributory to the health, if not the personal improvement, of those who wear it.
7. Eliminate boring conversationsFor seven years now, Atlantic puffins have been abandoning chicks and eggs in their nesting colonies because they cannot find enough food. The ocean is teeming with mackerel which consume the small fish that puffins normally feed to their offspring.
Nature is known to be fickle and a boon for one species will likely be the bane of another.
Scientists are eager to see what happens this spring when the puffins return to the Norwegian coast to nest in colonies.
The past seven years have been sad in the puffin colonies, especially the ones furthest south.
Eggs and chicks have been left to die as puffin parents give up on finding enough small fish for their offspring.
Key indicator
Seabirds are key indicators of marine ecosystems and the puffin, sometimes called “the parrot of the north” because of its colourful beak, is in a special predicament.
Norwegian scientists have studied the Atlantic puffin avidly for 50 years. They have comprehensive data on stocks of these migratory seabirds and their close link to the Norwegian spring-spawning herring, which is the birds’ main staple.
This is especially true for Røst, which has the coast’s largest puffin colonies.
Three-fourths are gone
The scientists have been particularly ardent in their studies of puffin stock developments since 1979, especially on Røst.
The isolated island municipality of Røst was the summer residence of 1.5 million breeding pairs of puffins just 35 years ago. Now only 350,000 to 400,000 of these life-long couples are left.
Fortunately, by migratory bird standards puffins are blessed with longevity.
The ones who make it past their juvenile stage of five to seven years normally live to be 15 to 20. The oldest individual which Senior Researcher Tycho Anker-Nilssen knows about made it to a ripe old 41. Anker-Nilssen works at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA).
“This means that the bird has many years to nest. But a prolonged breakdown in access to small fish in the ocean areas around the colony is taking its toll. If a majority of these parent pairs fail to raise chicks many years in a row it could be critical for the size of the stock.”
The Røst stock is currently diminishing by 7-8 percent per year, which is thought to equal the natural mortality rate of the adult birds.
Food shortage and changing climate
Mackerel, on the other hand, are enjoying a population boom. They eat some of the same food as the puffins.
A warmer ocean has opened up rich new feeding grounds for this effective fish. Mackerel can migrate fast and a course on their menu is herring fry. The fish also eats zooplankton which small herring need to survive.
Mackerel spawn far out at sea. This means mackerel fry, despite an upswing in stocks, are not an option for puffin parents while nesting in colonies along the coast.
Delicate balance
Anker-Nilssen is concerned.
“The food chain consists of delicate balances. Competition among certain key species determines the greater dynamics. Without understanding this balance it gets hard to manage fisheries to the advantage of the ecosystem,” says Anker-Nilssen.
We don’t currently know the size of mackerel stocks in the Atlantic.
“I wouldn’t sound the alarms on behalf of the herring but we’ve had several years now without good replenishment. Perhaps this could be counteracted by increasing limits on mackerel catches, which we haven’t done for several years,” he says.
More stability further north
Another large puffin colony is at Gjesvær near the North Cape –the northernmost spot on the European Continent. The Gjesvær population of the bird has remained stable.
Mackerel have not yet entered central areas of the Barents Sea, where a small fish, capelin, thrives in the absence of young herring. Anker-Nilssen thinks the capelin boom can be a reason why the puffin colony is faring much better up by the North Cape.
Røst is more vulnerable, and not just because of a warmer sea.
In the Røst region the coastal current which carries the herring fry northwards is widest, and the islands here are ringed in by rich ocean waters, with 100 km of continental shelf in all directions.
The current passes over these relatively shallow waters – of notoriety in maritime history for their maelstroms, which were exaggerated by seamen’s lore. This whirls up and exchanges water from different depths, which is beneficial for production of plankton and herring larvae. Mackerel are swift and persistent swimmers and can quickly eradicate a school of small herring in these waters.
A mismatch between the puffin and their food
Nevertheless, mackerel are just one of the factors in the wake of a warmer sea.
The reason why puffin chicks are starving or not being hatched at all off parts of the Norwegian coast is more complex than that.
One theory is served by Senior Researcher Leif Nøttestad at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research.
Nesting activities among puffins are greatly guided by seasonal daylight. The bird comes back from the Norwegian Sea, where it has spent autumn and winter, when the days grow long in spring.
This makes the puffin’s nesting period pretty constant from year to year.
Herring, however, are steered by ocean temperatures and are much more flexible with regard to when they spawn. Sometimes this can be February – other times not until March and April.
Herring will tend to spawn early when the sea is warmer and late when the sea is colder.
“When the herring spawns early in the spring, as we’ve observed in recent years, the larvae drift northwards before the puffin’s nesting season has fully started.”
“The result is a mismatch between the puffin and its food,” says Nøttestad.
To improve its timing the puffin either needs to start nesting earlier or start further north.
Colony patriots
The seabird expert Anker-Nilssen would like to initiate cooperation with marine researchers to tack down the factors that are making puffins miss out on herring fry feasts.
“The birds like to nest in the same area where they hatched and they are faithful to their nesting colonies. They prefer to use the same nest from year to year. But young birds will sometimes choose other colonies to nest.”
Anker-Nilssen asserts that as long as the birds are faring better further north, the stock’s prime habitat will be edging northwards.
But he points out that such processes are slow.
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Read the Norwegian version of this article at forskning.noBlown-out windows in an office high-rise and the remnants of a tree in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. after Hurricane Wilma, the last major hurricane to strike the U.S. mainland, passed through in 2005 with winds up to 125 mph. (AP photo)
(CNSNews.com) – As of today, it has been a record 118 months since the last major hurricane struck the continental United States, according to records kept by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Hurricane Research Division, which list all hurricanes to strike the U.S. mainland going back to 1851
A major hurricane is Category 3 or higher hurrucine. The last one to strike the continental U.S. was Hurricane Wilma, which made landfall in Florida on Oct. 24, 2005.
President Obama is the first president in 122 years, since Benjamin Harrison was in office, who has not seen a major hurricane strike the U.S. during his time in office. In a statement on its website, NOAA expressed concern that Americans might suffer from “hurricane amnesia.”
The second longest stretch between major hurricanes hitting the continental U.S. was the eight years between 1860 and 1869, NOAA records show.
“It has been 10 years since Hurricanes Katrina (Aug. 29), Rita (Sept. 23/24) and Wilma (Oct. 24) made landfall along the Gulf Coast during one of the most active hurricane seasons in recorded history,” NOAA said in a statement marking the 10-year anniversary of the 2005 hurricane season.
“Wilma is also the last major hurricane to strike the U.S.--an unprecedented stretch that could unfortunately lead to ‘hurricane amnesia’ for the destruction such a hurricane can cause.”
Such a “drought” in major hurricane activity is “a rare event,” occurring every 177 years, according to a study published in May by researchers at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies entitled The Frequency and duration of U.S. hurricane droughts, who concluded that “the admittedly unusual 9-year U.S. Cat3+ landfall drought is a matter of luck.”
Dr. Gerry Bell, NOAA's lead seasonal hurricane forecaster, told CNSNews.com that the agency's seasonal outlooks are "not a hurricane landfall predictor. Where hurricanes strike and how strong they are depends on weather patterns, and there's no way to predict those patterns months in advance," he told CNSNews.com.
"What we do know is that we have a cycle in which there are more hurricanes and fewer hurricanes. In 2003, '04 and '05, we had one storm after another," he continued. "Beginning with 2006, we started getting a break, as weather patterns in the Eastern United States steered a lot more storms out to sea. Right now, that is expected to be the overall pattern this year" during hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.
But Bell warned that storms that are not classified as major hurricanes can still do a tremendous amount of damage.
"We tell coastal residents to prepare every hurricane season, because it only takes one storm to make it a bad year," he said. Hurricane strength is "only one factor," he added. The size of the storm surge, whether it spins off tornadoes, and the amount of rainfall created by a slow-moving storm can create as much damage as a major hurricane, he said.
NOAA classifies hurricanes from 1 to 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale according to the speed of their sustained winds and the type of damage they inflict.
A Category 3 storm is defined as one with winds between 111 and 129 miles per hour, which can cause “devastating damage” to trees, buildings and infrastructure.
Category 4 hurricanes, with sustained wind speeds between 130 to 156 mph, and Category 5 hurricanes, with winds 157 miles per hour or more, are capable of “catastrophic damage,” according to NOAA.
Only three known Category 5 storms made landfall in the U.S. in modern history: the unnamed Labor Day hurricane that hit the Florida Keys in September,1935; Hurricane Camille, which made landfall in Mississippi in August, 1969; and Hurricane Andrew, which ravaged Florida in August, 1992.
The five deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history were all Category 3 or 4 when they struck the U.S., including the Category 4 storm that hit Galveston, Texas in 1900 that killed as many as 12,000 people.
Related: NOAA: Record 117-Month Major Hurricane Drought Continues
Related: Obama: First President in 122 Years Without a Major Hurricane During His TermNew 'designer carbon' from Stanford boosts battery performance
Stanford scientists have created a new carbon material that significantly improves the performance of batteries and supercapacitors.
John To and Zheng Chen A new 'designer carbon' invented by Stanford scientists significantly improved the power delivery rate of this supercapacitor.
Stanford University scientists have created a new carbon material that significantly boosts the performance of energy-storage technologies. Their results are featured on the cover of the journal ACS Central Science.
"We have developed a 'designer carbon' that is both versatile and controllable," said Zhenan Bao, the senior author of the study and a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford. "Our study shows that this material has exceptional energy-storage capacity, enabling unprecedented performance in lithium-sulfur batteries and supercapacitors."
According to Bao, the new designer carbon represents a dramatic improvement over conventional activated carbon, an inexpensive material widely used in products ranging from water filters and air deodorizers to energy-storage devices.
"A lot of cheap activated carbon is made from coconut shells," Bao said. "To activate the carbon, manufacturers burn the coconut at high temperatures and then chemically treat it."
The activation process creates nanosized holes, or pores, that increase the surface area of the carbon, allowing it to catalyze more chemical reactions and store more electrical charges.
But activated carbon has serious drawbacks, Bao said. For example, there is little interconnectivity between the pores, which limits their ability to transport electricity.
"With activated carbon, there's no way to control pore connectivity," Bao said. "Also, lots of impurities from the coconut shells and other raw starting materials get carried into the carbon. As a refrigerator deodorant, conventional activated carbon is fine, but it doesn't provide high enough performance for electronic devices and energy-storage applications."
3-D networks
Instead of using coconut shells, Bao and her colleagues developed a new way to synthesize high-quality carbon using inexpensive – and uncontaminated – chemicals and polymers.
The process begins with conducting hydrogel, a water-based polymer with a spongy texture similar to soft contact lenses.
"Hydrogel polymers form an interconnected, three-dimensional framework that's ideal for conducting electricity," Bao said. "This framework also contains organic molecules and functional atoms, such as nitrogen, which allow us to tune the electronic properties of the carbon."
For the study, the Stanford team used a mild carbonization and activation process to convert the polymer organic frameworks into nanometer-thick sheets of carbon.
"The carbon sheets form a 3-D network that has good pore connectivity and high electronic conductivity," said graduate student John To, a co-lead author of the study. "We also added potassium hydroxide to chemically activate the carbon sheets and increase their surface area."
The result: designer carbon that can be fine-tuned for a variety of applications.
"We call it designer carbon because we can control its chemical composition, pore size and surface area simply by changing the type of polymers and organic linkers we use, or by adjusting the amount of heat we apply during the fabrication process," To said.
For example, raising the processing temperature from 750 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius) to 1,650 F (900 C) resulted in a 10-fold increase in pore volume.
Subsequent processing produced carbon material with a record-high surface area of 4,073 square meters per gram – the equivalent of three American football fields packed into an ounce of carbon. The maximum surface area achieved with conventional activated carbon is about 3,000 square meters per gram.
"High surface area is essential for many applications, including electrocatalysis, storing energy and capturing carbon dioxide emissions from factories and power plants," Bao said.
Supercapacitors
To see how the new material performed in real-world conditions, the Stanford team fabricated carbon-coated electrodes and installed them in lithium-sulfur batteries and supercapacitors.
"Supercapacitors are energy-storage devices widely used in transportation and electronics because of their ultra-fast charging and discharging capability," said postdoctoral scholar Zheng Chen, a co-lead author. "For supercapacitors, the ideal carbon material has a high surface area for storing electrical charges, high conductivity for transporting electrons and a suitable pore architecture that allows for the rapid movement of ions from the electrolyte solution to the carbon surface."
In the experiment, a current was applied to supercapacitors equipped with designer-carbon electrodes.
The results were dramatic. Electrical conductivity improved threefold compared to supercapacitor electrodes made of conventional activated carbon.
"We also found that our designer carbon improved the rate of power delivery and the stability of the electrodes," Bao added.
Batteries
Tests were also conducted on lithium-sulfur batteries, a promising technology with a serious flaw: When lithium and sulfur react, they produce molecules of lithium polysulfide, which can leak from the electrode into the electrolyte and cause the battery to fail.
The Stanford team discovered that electrodes made with designer carbon can trap those pesky polysulfides and improve the battery's performance.
"We can easily design electrodes with very small pores that allow lithium ions to diffuse through the carbon but prevent the polysulfides from leaching out," Bao said. "Our designer carbon is simple to make, relatively cheap and meets all of the critical requirements for high-performance electrodes."
Other Stanford co-authors of the study are graduate student Jiajun He; postdoctoral scholars Hongbin Yao, Kwanpyo Kim and Ho-Hsiu Chou; visiting scholar Lijia Pan, and professors Jennifer Wilcox and Yi Cui.
The study was partially funded by the Global Climate and Energy Project and the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford. Additional support was provided by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis at Stanford.
Media Contact
Zhenan Bao, Chemical Engineering: (650) 723-2419, zbao@stanford.edu
Mark Shwartz, Precourt Institute for Energy: (650) 723-9296, mshwartz@stanford.edu
Dan Stober, Stanford News Service: (650) 721-6965, dstober@stanford.eduThe state of the athletes' village has caused concern among participating nations
See the photographs here (web only) The full extent of the poor conditions at the Commonwealth Games athletes' village in India has been exposed in photographs seen by BBC Sport. The pictures, taken in the last two days, show dirty bathrooms, animal footprints on beds, exposed wiring and flooding outside the buildings. The first England athletes leave for Delhi on Thursday as organisers race to get the Games ready for 3 October. Wales and Northern Ireland will fly their athletes out as scheduled. Delhi's organising committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi insists progress has been made in cleaning up the athletes' accommodation and they are ready to receive the 7,000 visitors to the 32 tower blocks. An Indian contingent of more than 120 athletes is expected to check into the village on Thursday evening, with the first overseas teams expected on Friday. "I am happy with the progress," he said. "We believe there will be no serious complaints anymore. And we believe that no teams will pull out of the Games." Scotland, Canada and New Zealand have delayed their departures, although Scottish sports minister Shona Robison has said there is a "growing confidence" that the country's athletes will go. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. And Team Scotland's chef de mission Jon Doig has welcomed Thursday's assurances from the Indian government that the accommodation will be fixed and that safety certificates for the village and venues are in place. "We are heartened that Sheila Dikshit [Delhi government's chief minister] has personally taken control of the situation, ensuring that the necessary additional resources are brought in, including support from the Delhi hoteliers association to address standards of cleanliness and hygiene and oversee quality control," said Doig. "We have continued to make progress addressing the maintenance and operational issues within our own accommodation block and things are looking much better. "Therefore subject to a number of assurances from the Organising Committee being realised over the next 24 hours, we feel we will be in a position to confirm [on Friday] that our team will travel as scheduled on Saturday." The Welsh team is due to start flying out to Delhi on Satuday 25 September while Northern Ireland are planning to send their team on Monday 27 September. Concerns over stadium safety, security and conditions in the village have hit the build-up to the 3-14 October event and these pictures will give further worries to team organisers and athletes who will arrive in the Indian capital in the next seven days. Sir Matthew Pinsent, who won four Olympic gold medals in rowing for Great Britain and is going to Delhi as part of the BBC commentary team, questioned the future of the Games. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. He told BBC Radio 5 live: "What groups the Commonwealth together anymore? It used to be the Empire Games and as time goes on you get further away from independence. "If the numbers of athletes are going up and its getting more and more expensive and difficult for host cities, does it carry on, does it have a big future?" Pinsent also believes the Delhi organising committee have only themselves to blame for the mess they find themselves in. "I realise they've had issues with the weather, but it looks disastrous from the photos I saw on the BBC Sport website," said Pinsent. "There's only going to be one story we're all covering. "[They have had] seven years notice, but [they did] nothing for four years and then put the hurry up on. "[If you] then struggle with the weather and the rain is lashing down and you're trying to lay bricks and set concrete, it's not going to set." In the last week, two Taiwanese tourists were injured after gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a bus in Delhi, a pedestrian footbridge to the centrepiece Jawaharlal Nehru stadium has collapsed, injuring 23 people, and part of a false ceiling at a weightlifting sports venue fell down. David Bond's Blog Delhi may yet surprise us. No major event enjoys a smooth build-up with no problem. But this does feel different
Several big-name athletes have already pulled out of the Games, with England's world triple jump champion Phillips Idowu and Australia's discus world champion Dani Samuels withdrawing earlier this week over health and security concerns. On Thursday, New Zealand became the third major nation to announce they would not be sending athletes as scheduled to Delhi. The president of the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC), Mike Stanley, said: "It's tremendously disappointing. The long list of outstanding issues has made it clear the village will now not be ready for New Zealand athletes to move in as planned." India's Foreign Minister SM Krishna has attempted to allay fears over hygiene and safety, while Commonwealth Games Federation president Mike Fennell arrived in Delhi on Thursday for a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the problems. "Let me assure you on behalf of the government of India and the people of India that we will see to it that the Commonwealth Games are conducted according to international standards, and the athletes who come to participate in these games will feel quite happy about their conditions," Krishna told the BBC. A dirty sink in a bathroom at the athletes' village Team England's chef de mission Craig Hunter is optimistic the problems will come together at the last minute "like an Indian wedding". "We looked in some towers where, even [on Thursday], with countries supposed to be moving in, there's no plaster on the walls, they are deep in water and extremely uninhabitable and quite dangerous in many respects," he stated. "We are in good shape, but what we are demanding is that all nations are treated equally. "I've always said this event will be like an Indian wedding and it will be ready just before the bride arrives. "The amount of rain that can fall in a very short space of time is quite incredible and at times we are waterlogged. "Now we're really struggling and having jokes about how we're going to surf down from our accommodation to the dining room because there's so much water." England's world champion teenage diver Tom Daley has confirmed he will be going to the Games unless told otherwise by team officials. The 16-year-old, who won the 10m platform world title in Rome last year, said: "As long as England are going then I'll be going. "As long as they are sending a team I am willing to go because I trust them and I really want to compete in the Commonwealth Games. The only thing I can do now is concentrate on my preparation." Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. And England hockey player James Tindall told BBC Radio 5 live: "I haven't got any concerns or worries about going to India. "We've been [to India] for the World Cup earlier in the year. We enjoyed it and were happy with the security. "The village may be an unknown to us but they've got enough time to the start of the Games." Delhi has had seven years to prepare for the Games but the majority of work only began in 2008. Ticket sales have been disappointing, and the cost of hosting the largest sporting event in the country's history has soared, making it the most expensive Commonwealth Games in history, with estimates ranging from $3bn (£1.9bn) to more than $10bn (£6.3bn).
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionKANSAS CITY — Only four days after defeating the Ravens at home in their season opener, the Broncos take on the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium on Thursday night in a game that might reveal more about Denver’s new offense — and Peyton Manning’s role.
RELATED: Peyton Manning eager for offensive redo in Kansas City
Here are the inactives and top storylines for the Week 2 matchup:
INACTIVES
Safety Omar Bolden (foot), guard Shelley Smith, defensive end Kenny Anunike (knee), quarterback Trevor Siemian, linebacker Lerentee McCray, tight end Mitchell Henry and cornerback Lorenzo Doss.
Bolden injured his foot in Sunday’s opener and did not practice this week. In his absence, Andre Caldwell will start as the Broncos’ kick returner, and Josh Bush will see more time at safety.
Anunike, who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery during training camp, was ruled out Wednesday.
And Smith will sit for the second consecutive game. James Ferentz will serve as the Broncos’ eighth offensive lineman.
Starting running back C.J. Anderson (ankle/toe), defensive end Malik Jackson (head injury) and safety Darian Stewart (groin) will all start.
About that Broncos offense …
The Manning-Gary Kubiak offense was supposed to be a more balanced attack, but on Sunday, it was anything but. Manning took the bulk of his snaps in the shotgun, and the run game failed to produce much (69 yards), especially in the first half (25 yards). Manning finished 24-of-40 for 175 yards, zero touchdowns and one interception that Jimmy Smith returned for a score in the third quarter.
“We got out of whack, especially in the third quarter,” Kubiak said. “What did we end up running the ball? Twenty-five times, and throw it 40 times? We would like to be balanced. That’s one thing that we’d like to be, and hopefully we can get back there this week, but to be balanced you have to feel like you’re making some headway running the ball and we weren’t until the end of the game.”
The offensive line, taking its first live snaps together, looked shaky at best. Manning was sacked four times. The inconsistency among the front five was evident.
“I think that I was the worst of the group,” left guard Evan Mathis said Monday. “I would have liked us to be able to run the ball a little better. That kind of stuff is very valuable for it to happen where you can learn from it and not let it happen again.”
After the game, Manning gave himself a “fair” grade, and Kubiak later took the blame for not rotating more players.
The Broncos had only three days of walk-throughs to work out the kinks before facing the Chiefs, whose home stadium is among the loudest in the NFL (see the last item).
Pass-rushing galore in Broncos vs. Chiefs
Kansas City has the 2014 sack leader in Justin Houston. Denver has Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware. And Shane Ray. And Shaquil Barrett.
The stars of this matchup are on the defensive side, with Houston and Miller, both 2011 draft picks, on the verge of reaching 50 career sacks. One more for Miller (49 in 57 games) would make him the third-fastest to reach the mark in NFL history. One for Houston (49.5 in 61 games) would tie him with Tim Harris and DeMarcus Ware for the fifth-fastest.
RELATED: DeMarcus Ware, back in Phillips’ 3-4, wreaking havoc
Houston made a sack in the Chiefs’ opener against the Texans Sunday and made one for a loss of 5 yards when he faced the Broncos last November. Miller made two sacks in that game.
The return of T.J. Ward
Pro Bowl safety T.J. Ward is back after serving his one-game suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. Theoretically, it should make the Broncos’ secondary better.
Last season at Kansas City, in Week 13, Ward made his second sack of the year to become the first Broncos safety since Brian Dawkins in 2011 to post multiple sacks in a season. He also registered a team-high six tackles in the victory.
RELATED: Broncos’ Wade Phillips keeps his cool at roast of Jamaal Charles
“T.J.’s the leader,” Kubiak said Monday. “I’m very proud of David (Bruton), how David went in and played. (That we) still played the way we did defensively says a lot about the group and the depth of the group. We look forward to getting him back.”
Bruton made three tackles (two solo) and defended two passes in Ward’s place Sunday, and assisted on Stewart’s late interception.
Arrowhead Stadium noise factor
Last September, the crowd at Arrowhead broke the Seahawks’ record for loudest roar by reaching 142.2 decibels.
Great for the fans. Not so great for the Broncos — especially Manning.
Kubiak brushed off concern, but he made the noise an emphasis in the team’s walk-through Tuesday by having the offense play in the field house so he could create as loud an environment as possible.
Lingering effects of Week 1
The Broncos were spared any major injuries in a week that had its fair share (Terrell Suggs, Dez Bryant, the list goes on…). But Denver didn’t come away unscathed. The physical game left many players with nicks and bruises, including safety and leading kick returner, Omar Bolden.
Bolden left Sunday’s game early with a foot injury and did not participate in practices this week. He was listed as doubtful for the game, meaning Andre Caldwell likely will start in his place on kicks and Josh Bush will see more time at safety.
Stewart, who possibly injured his groin shortly before his game-saving interception Sunday, was limited Tuesday and Wednesday, and was listed as questionable for the game. C.J. Anderson (ankle/toe) and Malik Jackson (head) also were listed as questionable.
Even is those three start, it could lead to more time for their backups — Bush at safety, Juwan Thompson at running back, and Antonio Smith, Vance Walker and rookie Darius Kilgo on the line.
RELATED: Mark Kiszla: Gary Kubiak must lay down the law with Peyton Manning
The defensive line already is without end Derek Wolfe, who is serving a four-game ban for a drug-policy violation, and Kenny Anunike, who is recovering from knee surgery and was ruled out for Thursday’s game.
HOW TO WATCH
Broncos (1-0) at Chiefs (1-0), Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City
Kickoff: 6:25 p.m.
TV: NFL Network; CBS (Jim Nantz, play-by-play; Phil Simms, color; Tracy Wolfson, sideline)
Radio: WestwoodOne Sports; KOA (850 AM); The Fox (103.5 FM)
RECORDS TO WATCH
• Peyton Manning: Needs 134 passing yards to join Brett Favre as the only players in NFL history to have 70,000 career yards. Manning has 69,866.
• Von Miller: Needs one sack to become the third-fastest player in NFL history to make 50 career sacks.
• Aqib Talib: Needs one interception to tie Asante Samuel (29) for the most by a cornerback since 2008, when Talib entered the league.
• C.J. Anderson: Needs 84 rushing yards to become the 30th player to rush for 1,000 in his career as a Bronco.
• DeMarcus Ware: Needs one sack to pass Rickey Jackson for possession of No. 13 on the NFL’s all-time list.
• Team: Needs a win at Kansas City to set the record for most consecutive divisional road victories. The Broncos have won 12 divisional road games dating to 2011 to tie San Francisco (1987-90) for the longest streak in NFL history.
SERIES HISTORY
Meetings: 109
Broncos: 53-56-0 (Home: 35-20-0; Away: 18-36-0)
Recent streak: Broncos have won past six meetings with the Chiefs — three at home, three away
Last game: Nov. 30, 2014; Broncos 29-16
C.J. Anderson ran for 168 yards, his second consecutive 160-yard performance; Manning passed for 179 yards and two touchdowns; T.J. Ward made a team-high six tackles; DeMarcus Ware had an interception and a sack, and the Broncos’ defense as a whole recorded six sacks.
CONNECTIONS
• Broncos P Britton Colquitt and Chiefs DB Eric Berry played two seasons (2007-08) together at Tennessee. Colquitt is the younger brother of Chiefs P Dustin Colquitt.
• Broncos OLB Shane Ray was born in Kansas City and played at Missouri, where he was teammates with Chiefs OL Mitch Morse, from 2012-14.
• Broncos T Ryan Harris and DE Vance Walker played for the Chiefs in 2014.
NEXT UP
Sun., Sept. 27 at Detroit, 6:30 p.m. (NBC)
Nicki Jhabvala: njhabvala@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nickijhabvalaAs I said in today’s column, nobody who thought Trump would be a disaster should change his or her mind because he won the election. He will, in fact, be a disaster on every front. And I think he will eventually drag the Republican Party into the abyss along with his own reputation; the question is whether he drags the rest of the country, and the world, down with him.
But it’s important not to expect this to happen right away. There’s a temptation to predict immediate economic or foreign-policy collapse; I gave in to that temptation Tuesday night, but quickly realized that I was making the same mistake as the opponents of Brexit (which I got right). So I am retracting that call, right now. It’s at least possible that bigger budget deficits will, if anything, strengthen the economy briefly. More detail in Monday’s column, I suspect.
On other fronts, too, don’t expect immediate vindication. America has a vast stock of reputational capital, built up over generations; even Trump will take some time to squander it.
The true awfulness of Trump will become apparent over time. Bad things will happen, and he will be clueless about how to respond; if you want a parallel, think about how Katrina revealed the hollowness of the Bush administration, and multiply by a hundred. And his promises to bring back the good old days will eventually be revealed as the lies they are.
But it probably won’t happen in a year. So the effort to reclaim American decency is going to have to have staying power; we need to build the case, organize, create the framework. And, of course, never forget who is right.
It’s going to be a long time in the wilderness, and it’s going to be awful. If I sound calm and philosophical, I’m not — like everyone who cares, I’m frazzled, sleepless, depressed. But we need to be stalwart.Australia's offshore processing policy being examined by High Court in Canberra
Updated
The future of Australia's offshore detention regime has come under the spotlight in the High Court of Australia in Canberra.
Lawyers for a Bangladeshi woman argued it was illegal for the Australian Government to operate and pay for offshore detention in a third country.
If the court agrees, the whole offshore detention regime could be invalid.
Nauru announced on Monday it would end detention and process refugee applications for the remaining 600 asylum seekers by the end of the week.
But the Australian and Nauruan governments deny the move had anything to do with the imminent High Court hearing.
Human Rights Law Centre's director of legal advocacy Daniel Webb said the changes to the detention arrangements on Nauru were "one of the issues before the court".
"Irrespective of these changes, there remain important and untested constitutional questions about the power of the Australian Government to pay and to control the detention of innocent people in other countries," he said.
"Allowing people the freedom to go for a walk does not address the fundamental injustice inherent in leaving them languishing indefinitely on a tiny pacific island."
Mr Webb said the case was being run on behalf of the Bangladeshi woman who was brought to Australia due to a serious deterioration in her health during the late stages of pregnancy and "who was now facing imminent return to Nauru with her |
ives on it."
Yes, it was just one play against the Jets—Manziel would finish 13-of-24 for 182 yards with one touchdown and one interception in the 31-10 loss—but it raised a legitimate question: Is Johnny Manziel, who was a flop as a rookie and who spent 10 weeks in a rehab facility in Ohio during the offseason, on his way to a career rebirth at the age of 22?
With McCown's status for Sunday's game against the Tennessee Titans unclear as of Tuesday morning, Manziel may start against the defense that last week intercepted Jameis Winston twice and held him to a QBR of 6.7, the lowest among Week 1 starting quarterbacks.
This we know: There are NFL scouts who still very much believe in Johnny.
"It was known throughout the league that when Johnny was coming out of college he was a party guy," said a longtime NFC scout. "But it's now also known throughout the league that Johnny has genuinely turned his life around. He's making all the right decisions off the field. And on the field, he's got the NFL arm, he's got the speed, he's got the intelligence, but he's only 5'11".
"Still, I think he's got a chance to be very good. He was up and down against the Jets, but there was more good than bad. There were times he looked like a young Fran Tarkenton, and that's who he should model his game after. To me, he looks like a new-and-improved Johnny."
To begin to understand this new version of Manziel, you must travel to the place of his birth. Because after the legend of Johnny Football nearly destroyed the person of Jonathan Paul Manziel, Tyler was the place that helped lift him back to his feet.
AP Photo
Once upon a time in this dusty East Texas town, there was a boy named Johnny. This is really how every story about this child should begin, because his life seemed ripped from the pages of a folk tale.
When he was two, Johnny could swing his three-foot-long Fisher-Price golf club as if he were a miniature Ben Hogan, repeatedly blasting plastic golf balls over his backyard pool, over a fence and into the neighbor's yard. Within a decade, Johnny would consistently shoot in the mid-70s at Tyler's Hollytree Country Club, where the Manziels lived off the 16th hole.
"Johnny's hand-eye coordination was mind-boggling," said Hooper of his nephew.
When he was nine, Johnny hit so many baseballs over the left field fence at Golden Road Park in Tyler that the Little League coaches erected a taller fence that resembled a mini-Green Monster. But in his first plate appearance at the newly appointed field, little Johnny, narrowing his eyes in determination, crushed a moonshot over the fence. The ball traveled so far that it broke a woman's bathroom window.
"Johnny was a little guy, but he had big hands, and his feet were as big as the Little League rubber on the pitcher's mound," said Drew Landes, one of Manziel's Little League coaches. "At age 11, he wore size-12 shoes. He always was forgetting his cleats, and we'd have to drive to Wal-Mart to get him a new pair.
"The thing about Johnny was that he was just so intense. He'd get so mad at himself if he failed at something, and he was so aggressive. We'd have to calm him down sometimes, but it showed how badly he wanted to succeed and beat the guys standing in front of him."
When he was 10, Johnny watched the Tyler Hurricanes Pop Warner team from the sideline. Michelle Manziel wouldn't let her little boy play—she was afraid he was too brittle—and so Johnny would pace up and down the sideline during the Hurricanes' games, teeth clenched, his eyes riveted to the action on the field.
The next year, Michelle Manziel relented, and Johnny became the starting quarterback of the Hurricanes. On the first play of his first practice, his coach, Jacky Lee, called a bootleg to Johnny's left.
"Johnny was running sideways to his left and fired a 15-yard bullet across his body that hit our tight end on the money," said Lee. "I looked to an assistant and said, 'This is our go-to guy.'"
But the go-to guy didn't take losing well. Lee remembers seeing him cry after the team lost its first game to a team from South Dallas. "Johnny was hyper-competitive," said Lee. "It was like football was a huge outlet for him."
AP Photo
The beginning of Manziel's problems, according to those who know him best, can be traced to the hour of his greatest triumph. On Nov. 10, 2012, Manziel and Texas A&M knocked off top-ranked Alabama, 29-24, in Tuscaloosa. Manziel was brilliant—the redshirt freshman passed for 253 yards and ran for another 92 yards—as the Aggies snapped the Crimson Tide's 13-game winning streak.
After the game, an overjoyed Michelle tried to hug her son outside the visitor's locker room but was kept at bay by six state troopers.
In a matter of three heart-stopping hours, Manziel—who before the season had briefly contemplated transferring if he wasn't going to be named the starter by coach Kevin Sumlin—had became a national figure.
"Johnny's life did a total 180-degree shift after the Alabama game," said J.B. Moss, one of Manziel's closest friends in Tyler. "He couldn't even go out to eat in College Station because it would cause such a scene. Johnny had never even thought about being famous before. But almost overnight he went from a couple thousand followers on Twitter to a million."
Before the Alabama game, Moss said Manziel had enjoyed a relatively normal and carefree lifestyle, going to Texas Rangers games, golf tournaments and concerts like most other college students.
"He liked to have fun, and his family had money, so it was no big deal," Moss said. "But then the fame thing happens, and then Johnny is having dinner with LeBron James and hanging with Drake. He's still just Johnny having fun, but fans began to question his work ethic. It got to be a lot for Johnny to deal with."
"Johnny went from being a backup quarterback at A&M to, eight months later, winning the Heisman Trophy," said Lee, his old Pop Warner coach. "That is a lot for 20-year-old kid to handle. He certainly enjoyed himself, but who could blame him? He was a college kid having fun."
Edwin Duncan, a longtime family friend in Tyler, worried about Manziel as he watched the hero-worship surrounding Johnny Football grow.
AP Photo
"Girls made themselves available to Johnny, and guys wanted to be Johnny," said Duncan, a vascular surgeon. "When you sit around with Johnny, he's a very polite, low-key guy, someone who I promise you would like. Once he won the Heisman Trophy, he felt pressure to live up to that. Everyone was always looking at him, pointing at him, asking for his autograph. At some point, the demons started running through his head."
Even as a teenager—the Manziel family moved from Tyler to Kerrville, Texas, when Johnny was 13—Manziel enjoyed a frat-boy lifestyle. He once cut a deal with his parents, according to Tim Rohan of the New York Times, that he wouldn't drink in exchange for a new car. (Johnny was presented with a red Camaro the week before the Alabama game in 2012.) At A&M, he underwent counseling for issues with alcohol, according to ESPN The Magazine's Wright Thompson.
Those problems, according to friends and family members, continued to haunt Manziel after Cleveland selected him in the first round of the 2014 NFL draft. Manziel bought an apartment in downtown Cleveland and, in the words of one family member, "began running with people who didn't have Johnny's best interests in their hearts."
"Johnny started to party a little harder," said a family member who requested anonymity. "It got out of control."
Last Dec. 14, Manziel's football career hit rock bottom. In pregame warm-ups before his first NFL start against the Bengals, Manziel repeatedly overthrew receivers—often by 10 yards.
Hooper had flown to Cleveland for the game. He watched from the stands as Johnny looked thoroughly confused and overmatched, tossing two interceptions and completing 10 of 18 passes for 80 yards in the 30-0 loss.
By the time the final whistle blew, Hooper was consumed with one thought: This isn't the Johnny I know.
"At that point, it became clear that something needed to change with Johnny," said Hooper. "We knew he was struggling."
The last domino fell Dec. 27, the day before Cleveland's final game of the season against Baltimore. Manziel slept through a scheduled appointment with the team's medical staff for treatment on his hamstring. He later admitted—to the team and to reporters—that he had been partying into the wee hours of the morning.
AP Photo
"It was a mistake by me," Manziel told reporters. "At the same time, you can sit here and say and talk and say this all you want, but when your actions don't reflect that, and you make a conscious decision to put yourself in that position that you stay out too late and not wake up the next morning, that's going to cause a lot of trouble, so I did that to myself. I brought this on myself."
A few weeks later, Manziel checked into a Pennsylvania rehab clinic for 10 weeks of inpatient therapy. But before he did, he traveled to Tyler one last time for his grandmother's 70th birthday.
Surrounded by about 100 of his family members and closest friends, Manziel appeared at peace, according to family members. It was clear to everyone in attendance that he had made up his mind to change his late-night lifestyle.
"Everyone was happy to see Johnny so happy," said a family member. "It made the party."
AP Photo
A few months later, there were more glimmers that the old Johnny—the Johnny with the bright eyes, the easy smile and the quick wit—was back.
During his rehab stint, he traveled to Tyler for Easter. The extended family gathered at Johnny's parents' place outside of town. Johnny was, by all accounts, the sober life of the party.
He played cards with his beloved grandmother, posed for pictures with his relatives and reminisced about the days of being young and footloose in Tyler. He also explained to those who matter most to him how excited he was to return to Cleveland and make his family proud of him once again.
"We all saw that the fire was back in Johnny," said a family member. "Johnny made so many people happy back when he was playing ball at A&M and doing things on the field that you had to see to believe. Now he wants to bring that same joy to Cleveland. He's been through a storm, but he's coming out the other side of it."
AP Photo
On a bluebird summer morning in Tyler, a middle-aged man who refused to give his name sat atop a lawnmower. He carefully guided the machine over every blade of grass on the Hubbard Middle School athletic field. He steered around the rusted goalpost, kicked up a swirl of dirt as he glided over a bald patch of land and wheeled around a massive oak tree with precision.
He was meticulous in every move he made—he had pride in his craftsmanship—and for good reason: This ground, to him, was hallowed. For this was where Johnny first played football.
"Right here is where the legend was born," said the man, dripping with sweat under the fireball East Texas sun. "And now the legend is coming back. I promise you, he's coming back."
In Tyler, they still believe in the magic of Johnny Football.
Now comes the hard part for Manziel: turning skeptics into believers—one day at a time—1,100 miles away in Cleveland.Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was fairly neutral for most of the election night coverage, but she wasn’t about to let Donald Trump have a victory without addressing his sins.
As the electoral map started to fall and it became clear that President-Elect Donald Trump was about to snatch the most improbable victory in the history of American politics, Kelly put herself in the shoes of everyone who she believed was in fear.
“Something we haven’t discussed is the number of groups who are likely feeling real fear right now,” she said. “You’ve got Muslims who are maybe feeling that way tonight. You’ve got women who have seen him, you know, accused of groping women against their will …”
The crowd gathered outside of Fox News studios began to jeer the anchor as she rattled off the reasons for fear.
“They may be booing but this is true,” Kelly said.
Perhaps, but apparently, more people had fear of an expansion of Obamacare, refugees flooding the nation, open borders and a Supreme Court that would have torched the Constitution.
Get over it.
Wake up right! Receive our free morning news blast HEREIn 1950, the fishing village of Shenzhen in south-east China had 3,148 inhabitants. By 2025, the UN predicts, that number will exceed 12 million. Congo’s capital Kinshasa will have gone from 200,000 to more than 16 million, growing over the next decade at the vertiginous rate of 4% a year (about 40 people an hour). Meanwhile Brazil’s economic engine São Paulo will have slowed to less than 1% per annum, nonetheless experiencing a 10-fold expansion over the 75-year period.
Earlier this year London overtook its historical high of 8.6 million reached at the outset of the second world war, bucking the trend of many European and North American cities which have experienced only slight or even negative growth. Compared to other global cities, London is inching forward, with only nine new residents an hour, compared to double that number in São Paulo and over 70 in Delhi, Lagos and Dhaka. Nonetheless, London will accommodate one million more people by 2030.
These snapshots reflect deep differences in patterns of urban growth and change across the globe, often masked by the crude statistic that the world is now more urban than rural, and that we are heading towards the 70% threshold by 2050. To better understand the impacts of these regional differences, the Urban Age has investigated the demographic, economic and environmental patterns linked to global urbanisation and urban change.
Demographic change
Historically, urbanisation has always been closely linked to economic development. While growth in the mature cities of Europe and North America accelerated in the 19th century, most reached their peak by mid-20th century. Other regions of the world saw their cities grow most significantly since the 1950s. Tokyo grew by more than half a million inhabitants each year between 1950 and 1990, Mexico City and São Paulo by more than 300,000, and Mumbai by around 240,000.
The only exceptions in this period were cities in China and Sub-Saharan Africa, which experienced only modest growth. But from the 1990s onwards – with the impact of globalisation and opening up of the Chinese economy – cities continued to grow rapidly in south and south-east Asia, with China experiencing a sustained growth spurt that is palpable today. For example, the South Guangdong metropolitan area (which includes Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Dongguan) saw its 5.5 million inhabitants in 1990 increase six-fold to reach almost 32 million in just two decades.
The result of this process of growth and change is an uneven distribution of urbanisation across the globe. Europe, South and North America are the most urbanised of the five continents – with 73%, 83% and 82% of people respectively living in cities, towns and other urban settlements. Africa stands at around 40% and Asia at 48% – and both regions are set to experience exponential growth in the coming decades, a combined effect of increased birth rate and migration.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Past and present growth of large cities. Source: World Urbanisation Prospects/LSE Cities
The stark differences in patterns of urban growth across the globe are graphically illustrated in the map above. It charts the population size of a selection of world cities with more than a million people from 1950 to 2025. By highlighting three periods of past and future growth (based on UN predictions), the uneven distribution of urbanisation becomes clear to see. Most large cities of Europe and parts of North America hit their current size by 1950. Latin America, the west coast of the USA, Japan and some Asian cities grew substantially in the years leading to 1990. But the bulk of urban growth will be experienced in Sub-Saharan Africa, India and China and other Asian cities like Dhaka and Manila, while Tokyo will experience relatively modest growth over the same period.
The same data has been translated by the Urban Age to capture how these numbers impact cities on the ground. The map at the top of the page shows how many people are likely to be added to some of the world’s largest cities through a combination of natural internal growth and migration. Again, the projected growth rates of African and Indian cities stand out. Of the Urban Age cities, the regional pattern is reinforced, with Delhi growing at 79 people/hour, Shanghai at 53 and Mumbai at 51; Latin American cities like Mexico City, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro slowing to 22, 18 and 10 respectively while New York and London demonstrate their urban resurgence at 9 and 10 people/hour, running contrary to the majority of mature cities in Europe (especially Eastern Europe) and some cities in North America which have been hit particularly hard by economic restructuring and the recent recession. Interestingly, Hong Kong’s highly controlled and efficient planning regime leads to a relatively low projection of 4 people/hour.
Economic development
Analysing patterns of economic development in cities across the globe reveals equally striking regional differences. Using data on the economic performance of 700 cities with more than 500,000 people over the next 15 years (based on data from UN Desa), it appears that larger cities tend to perform disproportionately well. In 2012, large cities made up 33% of the world’s global population, but produced more than 55% of all global economic output.
Future patterns of economic output and growth for the same 700 cities show that dramatic regional differences will still persist in GDP per capita in 2030 between the global north and global south – with important exceptions in the Middle East, China and parts of Latin America and Oceania, with the most intense growth in average GDP concentrated in China and East Asia. While there is evidence that urbanisation contributes to wealth creation, especially in cities in developing countries, it is likely that the economic gulf between rich and poor is likely to persist.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The geography of energy consumption. Source: LandScan, IEA, World Energy Balances Database/LSE Cities
Environmental impact
Where people live and how much they consume are inextricably linked. People living in the highly concentrated urbanised regions of eastern China and the Ganges Valley in India have modest consumption patterns compared to the oil and petrol-guzzling habits of those in the more sparsely populated regions of North America and the Middle East, where people have much higher income levels. There are equally varied patterns between the established urban areas of Europe and the US, and the more widely scattered but dense cities of Latin America and Africa. Reflecting global disparities in wealth, lifestyles and consumption, the map below confirms that a person living in the United Arab Emirates is likely to use 40 times more energy than a Bangladeshi, while a UK citizen consumes less than half of his US counterpart, but twice as much as a typical Mexican, and slightly less than a Dane.
Electricity is a major component of the world’s energy mix. Yet, electrification differs substantially between countries, swinging from less than 5% of total energy in Nigeria and Nepal, to more than 50% in Sweden and France. But a high share of electricity does not necessarily deliver environmental benefits. Generation is still dominated by carbon emitting fossil fuels, and electricity is not always the most efficient energy choice for uses such as heating and cooling in buildings. Aside from electricity, most of the world’s energy consumption involves directly burning fossil fuels, such as oil for transport, coal for making steel and cement industries and gas for heating. Despite recent improvements in some countries in procuring energy from renewables, they make up only 13% of the world’s total consumption – mostly hydro-electricity in high-income countries and biomass for cooking and heating in low income countries.
Carbon emissions by sector confirm that fossil-fuel based electricity is an important contributor to global climate change. Emissions from electricity generation vary depending on fuel source, with coal-dependent countries such as Australia, China and South Africa showing high proportions. In contrast, Denmark has lower emissions from electricity due to its high level of renewable generation. Varying levels of emissions from transport also echo motorisation rates. Global carbon emissions are concentrated in a few nations with China and the US alone producing 39% of global emissions.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Urban v rural populations. Photograph: LSE Cities
The urban footprint
To capture the subtle variations in patterns of urban and rural habitats, the Urban Age has mapped the urban footprint of Europe, Africa, China and India. In Europe, there is a more decentralised form of urbanisation that reflects the culture, history and geography of the region – and the fact that Europe urbanised early at a time when transport costs were significantly higher.
Even though 73% of Europeans live in urban areas – the most urbanised of the four global regions – the urbanisation density threshold is low, meaning that areas with more than 314 people/sq km are considered urban, contrasting with India where this threshold is over 10 times higher. Europe’s urban residents occupy just 3% of the total land area of the geographic region, and a third of the total land area remains unpopulated, consisting mostly of large bodies of water and mountains. In addition to 128 cities with over 500,000 people, there are a large number of highly connected smaller cities and towns across parts of Germany, the Netherlands and Benelux countries, and Northern Italy. This highly connected urban area represents one of the wealthiest parts of the globe.
India stands out for the far higher population densities in rural areas across vast territories such as the Ganga valley, as well as the emerging presence of large cities like Calcutta, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. The dark grey areas in Northern India reflect the preponderance of high-density rural areas which, by European standards, would be considered urban. While India has an urbanisation level of 32%, its urban areas represent only 1% of the total land surface of the country, but only 5% of the country is unpopulated – a much lower percentage the other three global regions. In India, the urbanisation density threshold is by far the highest of the four regions, at 4,128 people/sq km.
Climate change and cities: a prime source of problems, yet key to a solution Read more
Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the largest of the four regions and is experiencing a period of intense demographic growth. While only 37% of the population lives in urban areas today, that percentage is set to rise dramatically, much of it through informal growth. While urbanisation levels are below that of the other global regions, just 0.4% of the total land area in this part of the continent is urban, while around a third of the total land area (32%) remains unpopulated. There are fewer, higher density rural areas than in China or Asia, with concentrations around Lagos, Kigali, Nairobi and Addis Ababa. The urbanisation density threshold is 1,019 people/sq km.
Just over half China’s population (54%) live in urban areas, which represent just 2% of the total geographic footprint of the nation, with largely unpopulated regions making up 39% of the total land surface area. With its rapid demographic and economic growth, urbanisation levels are approximately two-thirds that of Europe. As in India, there are extensive concentrations of higher density rural areas in the regions stretching from Beijing to Shanghai, and around the Chongqing, Chengdu and Nanchong districts, all areas which are experiencing a rapid transformation from agricultural to urban economies. China has an urbanisation density threshold of 1,433 people/sq km.
Urban Age is a worldwide investigation into the future of cities, organised by LSE Cities and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society. Its 10-year anniversary debates are held in conjunction with Guardian CitiesAn employee from id Software confirms that DOOM won’t have any framerate limitations for the PC release, though console gamers are still locked in to 60FPS.
Even though the open beta for DOOM is already underway, it’s clear that id Software is still striving to make some significant technical advances. The lead rendering programmer at the studio, Tiago Sousa, just put out a Tweet stating that DOOM won’t have any framerate lock on the PC version of the game, meaning gamers with high-end rigs can feel free to push their copy of DOOM to the limit.
In comparison, the console editions of the game will be locked to 60 FPS and run at a 1080P resolution, which is just about as good as anyone can possibly hope in the current console generation. PC gamers, however, are known for wanting to push their more-easily upgraded hardware to the limits, so the release from any framerate limitations should come in as a big crowd-pleaser for the more hardcore gamers out there.
Here’s Sousa’s tweet announcing the feature:
This also means that any game developers who base their future games off the engine that id Software is working on will be able to deliver a game without framerate limits to their own fans, too.
According to Sousa, there was a lot of work put in to make this feat possible: technical debt from the previous engine was fairly entrenched into the engine’s coding, which had to be replaced from the ground up. While we don’t know how long Sousa and his team worked on removing any framerate limitations, he did mention it was ‘a long time’ coming.
Bethesda recently showed off some of the power weapons available in DOOM, and we have to say that game already looks like it runs very smoothly. Despite the graphical prowess behind the gore-filled game, the studio jumped into to the live-action trailer craze for their most recent advertisement, though the live-action video ironically has more framerate limitations than the game itself will on PC.
Despite the good news about the lack of a framerate limit, the open beta is currently receiving very mixed reviews on Steam for the PC version, though the console editions are riding a wave of positive feedback. It’s clear that DOOM has gone in a more console-friendly direction, and it looks like many gamers are upset that the classic traditional PC franchise has made changes to the formula.
What do you think about PC games still coming out with framerate limits, Ranters?
DOOM is set to release on May 13th, 2016 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Source: TwitterGoogle’s ambitions and investments have increasingly broadened beyond its digital origins in Internet search and online advertising into the arena of physical objects: self-driving cars, Internet-connected eyeglasses, smart thermostats and a biotech venture to develop life-extending treatments.
Now Google is getting into the ultimate manifestation of the messy real world: cities.
The Silicon Valley giant is starting and funding an independent company dedicated to coming up with new technologies to improve urban life. The start-up, Sidewalk Labs, will be headed by Daniel L. Doctoroff, former deputy mayor of New York City for economic development and former chief executive of Bloomberg L.P. Mr. Doctoroff jointly conceived the idea for the company, which will be based in New York, with a team at Google, led by its chief executive, Larry Page.
The founders describe Sidewalk Labs as an “urban innovation company” that will pursue technologies to cut pollution, curb energy use, streamline transportation and reduce the cost of city living. To achieve that goal, Mr. Doctoroff said Sidewalk Labs planned to build technology itself, buy it and invest in partnerships.
“It’s going to evolve and we’re just starting up,” he said in an interview.
Neither Mr. Doctoroff nor Google would say how much Google intended to invest in Sidewalk Labs, but it could be sizable eventually. A model for Sidewalk Labs, they said, is Calico, a company backed by Google, established in 2013 and run by Arthur D. Levinson, a former Genentech chief executive. Last September, Calico and AbbVie, a pharmaceutical company, announced that they would build a research center in the San Francisco Bay Area for diseases that affect the elderly, like dementia, with an initial investment, split evenly, of $500 million.Fine Art [Fine Art](https://kotaku.com/c/fine-art) is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and personal portfolios. If you’re in the business and have some art you’d like to share, [get in touch!](mailto:plunkett@kotaku.com)
While we’ve already seen some of the work Karakter did on Horizon Zero Dawn, the studio has since released a lot more. Which means we’re going to take a look at it here, because everything visual about this game is just the best.
You can see more of Karakter’s work at their company site.
The artists involved in the Oseram images were:
Tobias Mannewitz – Creative Direction
Christian Günther – Creative Writer
Floris Didden – Concept Artist
Dan Blomberg – Concept Artist
Viktor Jonsson – Concept Artist
Marko Schöbel – Previz Artist
Henrik Bolle – Lead Character Designer
Viktor Fetsch – Character Designer
Adrian Wilkins – Character Designer
Andrejs Skuja – Character Designer
Tim Löchner – Characte Designer
Ville Eriksson – Prop Designer
Sven Sauer – Matte Painter
Tom Hiebler – Matte Painter
Meredith Rowe – Graphic Designer
Knuth Möde – Technical Artist
Valentin Lessnerkraus – Production Coordinator
Philipp Scherer – Concept Artist
Kirill Barybin – Intern
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While the Carja team consisted of:
Tobias Mannewitz – Creative Director
Christian Günther – Creative Writer
Nadja Ster – Studio Manager
Valentin Lessnerkraus – Production Coordinator
Floris Didden – Concept Artist
Dan Blomberg – Concept Artist
Viktor Jonsson – Concept Artist
Kirill Barybin – Concept Artist
Philipp Scherer – Concept Artist
Sebastian Gromann – Concept Artist
Karl Kopinski – Concept Artist
Andrejs Skuja – Character Designer
Adrian Wilkins – Character Designer
Viktor Fetsch – Character Designer
Tim Löchner – Character Designer
Craig Mullins – Concept Artist
Mike Hill – Concept Artist
Marko Schöbel – Previz Concept Artist
Steven Bagatzky – Prop Designer
Ville Ericsson – Prop Designer
Tom Hiebler – Matte Painter
Scott McInnes – Add. Matte Painter
To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the top-left corner.
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Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and personal portfolios. If you’re in the business and have some concept, environment, promotional or character art you’d like to share, drop us a line!
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AdvertisementFirst, there was a 1968 book by Richard Hooker, "MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors". Then, there was a 1970 movie, "MASH", directed by Robert Altman and written by Ring Lardner, Jr. Finally, a TV show, "MASH", which ran from Sept 1972 - Feb 1983. The series was set in South Korea, at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War, and followed the antics and tragedies of the doctors, nurses, and support staff. The show's run lasted longer than the actual Korean War (1950-53). The movie and the TV show were allegories about both the Korean and VietNam wars.The television show's theme was instrumental, but in the movie, there were lyrics. Robert Altman wanted it to be the "stupidist song ever written". He tried to write the lyrics himself, but ended up getting his then 14 year old son, Michael, to write them. It was written specifically for the faux suicide scene of the dentist, Walter "Painless Pole" Waldoski. Altman liked the song so well, he ended up using it as the film's main theme.Suicide Is Painless (Theme From Mash) - Words by Mike Altman. Music by Johnny MandelThrough early morning fog I see,Visions of the things to be,The pains that are withheld for me,I realize and I can see...That suicide is painless.It brings on many changes.And I can take or leave it if I please.I try to find a way to make,All our little joys relate,Without that ever-present hate,But now I know that it's too late, and...That suicide is painless.It brings on many changes.And I can take or leave it if I please.The game of life is hard to play,I'm gonna lose it anyway.The losing card I'll someday lay,So this is all I have to say.That suicide is painless.It brings on many changes.And I can take or leave it if I please.The only way to win is cheat,And lay it down before I'm beat,And to another give my seat,For that's the only painless feat.That suicide is painless.It brings on many changes.And I can take or leave it if I please.The sword of time will pierce our skins.It doesn't hurt when it begins.But as it works its way on in,The pain grows stronger...watch it grin, but...That suicide is painless.It brings on many changes.And I can take or leave it if I please.A brave man once requested me,to answer questions that are key.Is it to be or not to be?And I replied 'Oh why ask me?'That suicide is painless.It brings on many changes.And I can take or leave it if I please.'Cause suicide is painless.It brings on many changes.And I can take or leave it if I please....And you can do the same thing if you choose.Given the divisive political climate up on Capitol Hill right now, one might think the greatest liability to the Obama administration for its positive reaction to Iran’s diplomatic overtures would be Republicans who prefer sanctions and war over détente. But one would be wrong. The real pressure to rebuff Iran’s extended hand comes from America’s closest allies in the Middle East: Israel and Saudi Arabia.
“Israel and a number of allied Persian Gulf states are voicing concern about the pace of rapprochement,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “arguing that Iran will use the diplomatic cover to advance its nuclear work.”
The article goes on to report that Obama is scheduled to have what is sure to be a fretful meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today at the White House. And administration officials have listened to strong opposition to easing tensions with Iran from the Arab Gulf states.
Note the misleading reason given in the lede that Israel and the Persian Gulf states are concerned about Iran “advanc[ing] its nuclear work.” No, they are not. As the U.S. intelligence community has repeatedly established, Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and, according to the IAEA, none of Iran’s enriched uranium has been diverted to uninspected facilities for possible military use.
If Israel were truly concerned about the possibility of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, it would have responded affirmatively to the successive proposals to impose a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region, instead of opposing it each and every time. Truthfully, Israel needs Iran as a foreign bogeyman to keep attention away from the Israeli-Palestinian issue. As former CIA Middle East analyst Paul Pillar has written, “the Iran issue” provides a “distraction” from international “attention to the Palestinians’ lack of popular sovereignty.”
And the Persian Gulf states aren’t worried about an Iranian bomb so much as they are concerned that, absent U.S. pressure to keep Iran down, Iran’s geo-political role in the region would expand at the expense of their own.
The Wall Street Journal acknowledges this in its buried lede half-way through the article: “U.S. officials acknowledge that the Persian Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, also are concerned about the U.S. rapprochement with Iran. The Arab states are concerned that Iran could use improved ties with Washington to advance its efforts to dominate the Mideast.”
This is purely realpolitik for the GCC states. The same has been true for Syria, where Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others have pressured the U.S. towards undermining and even toppling the Assad regime. This was made starkly clear in an email exchange among employees at the intelligence contractor Stratfor, released by WikiLeaks, in which one analyst writes about “the Saudis trying to put a hole in the
Iranian plan to its radical/Shia arc of influence stretching from Iran to Lebanon.”
Riyadh can’t do much in Lebanon and has lost Iraq. The uprising in Syria provides for the Saudis an opportunity to undermine the arc if they can topple the regime in Damascus. This would be a huge blow for the Iranians, which is why they have been trying to support the Syrian regime. For Iran, which is still waiting to finalize its hold over Iraq and thus complete the arc, the loss of Syria would be huge. For a quarter of century the Iranians sought Iraq but couldn’t get it and now when they are almost there they staring into the abyss of loosing Syria and with it Lebanon.
The U.S. was on the brink of war with Syria earlier this month because of these types of pressures. Our supposed allies in the Middle East would like the same fate for Tehran.
Here’s an idea: Let’s stop outsourcing our own “national interests” to nefarious “allied” regimes in the Middle East.Stop Designing For Only 85% Of Users: Nailing Accessibility In Design
Smashing Newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our editors’ picks twice a month. Your email Subscribe →
The visual interface is an obvious place to begin digging into accessibility. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the most common visual impairments, focusing on color-blindness to explain how you can make small changes to your workflow and products to ensure you’re not alienating users.
The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies 4% of the global population as being visually impaired, 4% as having low vision and |
guy last season and I stand by it. It was Manu's outside shot and overall decision-making -- on both sides of the ball -- that were off. But even I have to admit that this is the spriest I've seen Manu in a while. It's obviously just the first game of the season and everything could go awry from here on out. I've rushed to declare Manu "back" before, simply because I wanted him back, so I really should be more careful now. But if this performance doesn't excite Manu fanboys everywhere, what will? Tempering expectations is what I should be doing here but when I'm this optimistic about Manu's prospects for the season, it would be dishonest to claim otherwise.
A healthy Ginobili, even at age 36, should be a fantastic offensive weapon. If preseason is any indication, his shot seems to be back and, at least for one game, so do his explosiveness and finishing ability. If taking the summer off can allow him to dodge any nagging injuries for the duration of the season -- like it did in 2010/11 -- Manu should be more than capable of providing a spark off the bench for this Spurs team.
And if that happens, look out, rest of the league. Because the Spurs are coming.
More from Pounding The Rock:FanGraphs uses Slack in order to keep all the writers in communication, and it’s in there that we claim post topics so that we don’t accidentally overlap. A couple days ago, I made a soft commitment to write about Aaron Sanchez’s secondary stuff, regardless of how he actually did on Tuesday. The way I figured, one way or the other, it was going to be worth an article. Now, what I didn’t know was that the Rays/Blue Jays game would end with a very 2016 type of controversial call. That’s overshadowed everything else, and few care anymore about how Sanchez did in the earlier innings. But I’m here to fulfill my commitment. And, guess what: I’ve long been a Sanchez skeptic, as his being a starter is concerned, but he had a wonderful, wonderful outing, before the Jose Bautista slide. He made it very easy to be encouraged.
Let’s start simple and go from there. Sanchez lasted seven innings, allowing a run on five hits. He didn’t walk anyone, he didn’t hit anyone, and he recorded eight strikeouts. That’s an excellent line. You can forgive the one solo dinger.
Going to the next step, Sanchez picked up strikes on 64 of his 91 pitches. That works out to a rate of 70%. Last year, in his 11 big-league starts, Sanchez never finished with a strike rate over 64%. His overall average was a lousy 58%. It had also been around that low in Double-A and Triple-A. The game line implies that Sanchez was in control. A more granular examination supports it.
Sanchez’s release point? He basically maintained it, over seven innings.
And the velocity? According to Brooks Baseball, Sanchez’s average fastball velocity in each inning started with a 96. So he didn’t show signs of wearing down, after coming out too strong. He started with heat, and he finished with heat.
We can get dorkier still. Ever so much dorkier. I want to show you a few plots, which include pitch speed and spin axis. Spin axis is a PITCHf/x measurement, and I gathered this data from Baseball Savant. You don’t need to really understand spin axis, per se — I just like this as a way to group Sanchez’s various pitches. It’ll probably make more sense after the images. Here’s Sanchez as a starter a year ago:
You see some errant pitches floating around the middle. That’s the curveball, toward the bottom left. Near the upper right, you see the fastball blob, and then poor differentiation between the fastball and the changeup. Here’s a similar plot of Sanchez’s results from Tuesday:
Look how well the pitches are (mostly) grouped. There’s one slider there in the middle, and then one weird “fast curveball” or something, but on this plot it’s easy to identify the fastballs, the changeups, and the curves. Each of them stand out, and beyond that, there’s not a lot of variation in the spin axes. It’s suggested that the pitches were thrown with pretty good consistency, or if you prefer, repeatability. I take this as a sign that Sanchez did a good job of repeating his deliveries, which might be the very most important part of pitching.
Earlier I said I was going to talk about the secondary stuff. Really, I’m just talking about Sanchez in general, but we can focus on the secondary stuff, too. That part’s important for him, and Sanchez has thrown curves, changeups, and sliders. I think we can agree on a general rule of thumb: Those are pitches you want to keep down. Especially if you throw a power sinker, like Sanchez. So, borrowing from Brooks, here’s where Sanchez threw his secondary stuff last year, as a starter:
This is what he did with those pitches in the limited sample of Tuesday:
It’s plain to see that fewer of these pitches were left up. Presumably, that’s a consequence of better repetition. A year ago, Sanchez threw 60% of these pitches in the lowest two-fifths of the plot shown. Yesterday, that’s where he put 21 of these 28 pitches. He didn’t fly open so much and miss up and arm-side. There was better control of the secondary stuff, therefore. And at the same time, Sanchez went from 43% fastballs in the zone to 56%. This can be easily simplified: Sanchez threw strikes with his heater, and that allowed him to throw non-strikes with his offspeed stuff.
The result: Sanchez got strikes in the zone, and he got strikes out of the zone. He didn’t get strikes out of the zone before. As a starter last year, Sanchez ran an O-Swing rate of 22%, and he topped out at 30%. Yesterday he finished at 41%, with 19 Rays swings at 46 would-be balls. When a pitcher can get strikes without throwing strikes, there’s no truer sign of being in command.
Tuesday, in his first start of 2016, Aaron Sanchez was legitimately in command. It builds on what seemed awful promising in spring training, and this is something that would’ve been difficult to imagine saying last summer. But it happened, over 91 pitches against a pretty good team, and even though most people just remember the game for its conclusion, what Sanchez showed could mean more to the Blue Jays than one unfortunate loss. It should go without saying that Sanchez needs to keep this up. Every wild pitcher has had un-wild days, and it’d be better to have five good starts than one. And Sanchez, for his part, did in fact miss with a few early curveballs. He needs to take these gains forward, in order to be a truly convincing starter. But already, Sanchez showed something he didn’t show much last year. Strikes have always been the question. Aaron Sanchez just threw strikes.This is a delightful, short (one and a half hours), whimsical little tale that seems like it very well could have been based on a true story (a part of me hopes that it was!). Some moments are typical dry British/Irish wit whilst others are sheer hilarity - imagine a scrawny geriatric Irishman racing as fast as he can through the Irish countryside on a motorbike wearing absolutely nothing save for a helmet and goggles plus his boots, for example! Although the main surface subject regards how this very small, quaint Irish town (Tullymore) collectively deals with lottery winnings, THE STORY REALLY IS CENTERED UPON THOSE THINGS WHICH TRULY MATTER IN LIFE (not money). Plus, if you're somewhat the musical type, it has a very nice soundtrack (not "excellent," but "very nice"). The movie opens dramatically with The Waterboys' 1988 "Fisherman's Blues" (which, if I recall correctly, was more of a 90s hit?). The rest is filled with more traditional tunes. Give it a try if you haven't already!Sam Allardyce has claimed Manchester United should have handed former manager David Moyes 150 million pounds to spend in the transfer window, the amount of expenditure current boss Louis van Gaal was afforded last summer.
- Patterson: Van Gaal must remedy United's mentality
- Okwonga: United fans shouldn't panic after Leicester debacle
Since succeeding Moyes in the summer, Van Gaal has amassed just five points from as many games in what has become United's worst start to a season in Premier League history despite their lavish summer spending.
The Red Devils let slip a 3-1 lead to lose 5-3 at Leicester on Sunday, and it was the first time the club have ever lost after taking a two-goal lead in the Premier League.
And Allardyce, whose West Ham side visit Old Trafford on Saturday, feels United's capitulation at the King Power Stadium was not "normal."
"A normal United would have regrouped and won 5-3 at Leicester, not lost. You don't expect them to go under like that. Apparently they are in transition," Allardyce told The Sun. "But we've been in transition too and, while ours has been smooth, theirs hasn't. We've brought in nine new players and eight have gone out."
Van Gaal wielded the axe at United this summer with 15 players cleared out, while Radamel Falcao, Angel Di Maria, Ander Herrera, Daley Blind, Luke Shaw and Marcos Rojo all arrived.
But Allardyce has questioned why Moyes was not backed in a similar way in the transfer market by United when it came to acquiring his top targets last summer.
David Moyes was sacked by Manchester United just eight months into a six-year contract in April.
Allardyce -- whose West Ham side stunned Liverpool 3-1 at home on Saturday -- may be provoking Van Gaal, but he is a good friend of Moyes and thinks the club treated him badly by sacking him just eight months into a six-year contract in April.
"If I was sat at home in David's shoes I would be wondering why they didn't spend the 150 million pounds with me," said Allardyce. "There was a complacency by United in not going out and delivering the signings David felt he needed. Now there's a panic on.
"He will obviously look at what he might have done better but he should have got the players he wanted and he tells me he didn't get any of them.
"It was difficult enough taking over from [Sir] Alex Ferguson but if, when you take over, you don't get what you want, it's so much harder. It was a great shame because he'd done everything right at Everton and Sir Alex saw the fact he wanted to build at United like he had done at Everton.
"I'm not so sure anybody would have been successful in that season -- history tells you that. Look at other examples, like when Brian Clough took over from a legend in Don Revie at Leeds and only lasted 44 days."The hundreds of Syrians camped out on the green beside Belgrade’s bus station had moved on, headed for the European Union. The only traces of their presence were a row of portable toilets, Arabic notices on a help kiosk and a cordon around some tired-looking grass. But just nearby, a very different Arab arrival is emerging in the Serbian capital.
Belgrade Waterfront is a €3.5bn (£2.5bn) project of condominiums, hotels, offices, retail, parks and paths dominated by a glass skyscraper that will be the tallest between Vienna and Istanbul. Its developer is Abu Dhabi-based Eagle Hills, chaired by Mohamed Alabbar, who previously founded Emaar, builders of the world’s largest shopping mall and tallest building, both in Dubai. Their project manager in Belgrade, Nikola Nedeljkovic, says that “we envisage Belgrade Waterfront to be a game-changing hub for Serbia”, and that it “takes into consideration the balanced sensitivity to nature, culture and modernity”.
Belgrade is painfully divided about the development. Some see a prosperous future in it, others are aghast at the project’s hitherto-alien cityscape, unconvinced of its economic or social benefits and suspicious of Serbia’s relationship with Eagle Hills. There is a dedicated protest movement, whose mascot is an oversized yellow duck. (In Serbian, duck also means dick.)
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A protest against the Belgrade Waterfront project in April. Photograph: Darko Vojinovic/AP
Belgrade seems an unlikely place for Gulf petrodollars to settle, or for glitzy towers to rise. The Balkan city, where the great Sava and Danube rivers meet, was fought over by Slavs, Greeks, Ottomans and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was Tito’s capital of post-war Yugoslavia, then Slobodan Milošević’s Serbian capital, bombed by Nato in 1999. Recently, the gritty city has emerged as an outpost of creative activity and urban cool on the cheap, against the lingering backdrop of socialism. Decaying but defiantly alive, Belgrade is often compared to Berlin after the fall of the Wall.
The ground zero of Belgrade cool is Savamala, a district which slopes down to the river Sava and into Belgrade Waterfront’s site. As well as its hip bars and all-night partying, it became known for its street art, especially along a sidestreet called Mostarska. A block away on busy Karadjordjeva Street, next to the Hotel Bristol – where royalty and Rockefellers once stayed – is one of Serbia’s architectural masterpieces, a heavy 1907 art nouveau block designed by Nikola Nestorović and Andra Stevanović, known as Geozavod because it once housed the Institute of Geophysics. Not so long ago, it was so blackened by pollution that it was hardly visible. But in summer 2014 it re-emerged, impeccably restored and surrounded by blue Belgrade Waterfront banners. Now it is the BW Gallery, and houses the mother of marketing suites.
Climbing its monumental staircase, you enter a baroque hall with marble columns and gold ornamentation, full of light from great windows. The centrepiece, half-filling the room: a vast model of Belgrade Waterfront.
The model shows the entire 1.77 sq km district – a core of dense high-rise buildings, dominated by a glass tower that is twisted in the middle. Called the Kula Beograd, the tower has been designed by the Chicago office of skyscraper architecture titans SOM, and would overlook the River Sava and the new 1.8km Sava Promenade.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest KC Grad, a cultural venue in the hip district of Savamala, near the proposed Belgrade Waterfront site
Also part of the masterplan is the Balkans’ largest shopping mall, a soap-bubble dome on disused railway land further away from the river. Its 140,000 sq m would make it almost as big as London’s Westfield Stratford. Surrounding the mall would be upwards of 6,000 flats. “We’re trying to focus on the affordable as well as the high-end segments,” Nedeljkovic says. “We’re trying to have a diverse mix of product.” The mix is not obvious in the model. There are offices, of course, and hotels, including a including a swanky W Hotel to open in 2019. Parkland and tree-lined boulevards are spread liberally. Belgrade’s 1884 railway station will become a museum.
This would not be the first time Belgrade has had a vast upgrade in the prevailing urban fashion of the time. From the 1950s, Tito extended Belgrade across the river Sava by creating Novi Beograd, a vast centrally planned grid of brutalist blocks. It includes Genex Tower, currently Serbia’s highest skyscraper. What’s changed since then, worldwide, is a gradual surrender of urban planning to the private sector. Civic masterplans threaded with social ideals have given way to developers’ mixed-use visions promising sustainability and lifestyle – with a waterside dimension if at all possible. Belgrade Waterfront ticks all those boxes.
In fact, the city has actually been wanting to do something like this for a long time. In 2009, architect Daniel Libeskind worked up a plan with Jan Gehl, pioneer of “human-centred urbanism”, for Luka Beograd, a similar project to develop the Danube port area. So when the prime minister, Aleksandar Vučić, unveiled the Belgrade Waterfront scheme in June 2014, it didn’t come as a huge surprise – and the prospect of investment and 20,000 jobs in a country where unemployment hovers at 25% must have seemed like a lottery win. What’s not to like?
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The model of Belgrade Waterfront. Photograph: Petar Pavlovic
When the UAE came to Serbia
The movement Ne da(vi)mo Beograd (a pun that loosely translates as “We won’t let Belgrade d(r)own”) organises street protests against Belgrade Waterfront. They carry yellow ducks and rally behind a gigantic oversized duck the size of a car.
Dobrica Veselinović, one of the movement’s activists, alleges that the agreement to build Belgrade Waterfront is contrary to Serbian law and procedures because he claims that the promenade construction works started without a building permit. He adds: “It does not take into account the needs of society or economic and urban reality in Belgrade.” The group argues that local people were not consulted, that the deal does not provide adequate affordable housing and that it was done in secret.
They also say that families in the area were summarily evicted with mere days’ warning, and their houses demolished. Radio Television of Vojvodina (RTV), a public broadcaster in neighbouring Vojvodina province, ran a report in April interviewing some of the families who said their houses were destroyed without permission. The apartments in which they were resettled were only for limited periods or to buy, according to Veselinović, and “no social service or legal assistance was offered to them”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Serbian news reporter interviews families who say they were evicted from the port area
Eagle Hills did not respond to queries about the evictions. A public relations spokesperson forwarded a statement that the Belgrade Waterfront agreement is transparent and publicly available, and complied with all applicable laws and regulations. It stated that it received a building permit for Hercegovacka Street leading to the Promenade; as for the embankment reconstruction, it said it had applied for a permit, declaring that the law allowed construction to proceed in the meantime.
The UAE has a strong foothold in Serbia: under an investment deal signed by Vučić when he was minister of defence, the UAE have made agreements with the Serbian defence industry and to secure food supplies, as well buying into Air Serbia. The perceived backroom nature of the Belgrade Waterfront deal has caused real anger.
Balša Božović, the opposition leader in Belgrade’s city assembly, has gone on record calling Belgrade Waterfront the “scam of the century”. He says that Eagle Hills’ total investment will actually be more like €300m, not €3.5bn, and argues that the contract shows that Serbian taxpayers will end up picking up much of the rest of the bill. But support for his DS party has slumped since the post-Milošević times, when the DS ruled a system of crony capitalism; there is a perception that DS represents the “bad old days”, undermining Božović’s complaints. The company did not comment.
On the frontlines in Savamala itself sits Mikser House, a cultural centre with a bar and shop. “We came first as an event [the Mikser festival],” says founder Maja Lalic. “We were parasites.” But as time passed, the Mikser became prime exponents of community participation and projects, and a vital local hub. When the municipality cut down trees nearby, Mikser House organised the response on Facebook and took the protest to city officials; while the annual Mikser Festival solicits citizen engagement in civic issues.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A rendering shows part of the Belgrade Waterfront scheme
Lalic calls Belgrade Waterfront “a marketing project – actually a PDF brochure of the new city with residences. It all relies on pre-sales.” In London and elsewhere, hardly a week goes by without the “launch” of another unbuilt luxury residential scheme – but residential pre-sales are a model that is relatively new to Serbia. Lalic’s colleague at Mikser, Ivan Kucina, an architecture professor at Belgrade University and the Dessau Institute, says that the pre-sales model has “been appropriated by Arab investors and it’s coming back to Europe... at the weakest point of Europe”. Belgrade Waterfront’s first major block, a double 20-storey tower called BW Residences, has broken ground. According to Nedeljkovic, 75% of the units have already been sold, to locals, Serbian diaspora and overseas buyers. “Certainly, the international ones are buying for the investment market,” he says.
Milutin Folic, the official city architect, says flatly there will be “no racketeering” involved in Belgrade Waterfront. “All [planning] laws are 100% in line with the EU, and all plans must undergo public display and consultation.” He talks generally about ideas the city has for engaging citizens – neighbourhood workshops, an app for people to report broken pipes and the like, and a plan to give people credits for civic participation that would be redeemable for museum admission, transit tickets or parking tokens. Some of them sound in spirit much like the Mikser’s community initiatives.
Folic is an appointee of mayor Siniša Mali, who was elected in 2014 as an independent. Mali and Folic have reformed the planning committee to build confidence with big investors, who they want to fund ambitious infrastructure projects. The new Chinese-built Pupin bridge has already diverted lorries that thundered through Savamala (though construction traffic is replacing them), as part of long-planned ring-roads, which Folic wants to see happen. His vision is a city-wide jigsaw in which Belgrade Waterfront is just one piece. By converting Prokop station in the south into the city’s new main station, he says that everything “from Belgrade Waterfront to the Pancevo bridge is going to be a green area”. The disused tracks will become “a new park, something like the High Line”. His IME (identity, mobility, environment) blueprint encourages “little projects that make change” and “changes the hierarchy of the traffic”, prioritising pedestrians, then bicycles, public transport, and “at the bottom, the private car”.
Meanwhile, Savamala is changing fast. The cultural venue KC Grad – which opened in 2009 in an abandoned warehouse on Braće Krsmanović, the street running parallel to the river – was the germ of the new Savamala. With all the clubs that sprung up around it, art director Ljudmila Stratimirovic says: “I sometimes feel sorry for what we started – it’s too loud.” But she fears that Belgrade Waterfront will leave her cultural centre with “no meaning”. Nobody from the development has contacted her – and she isn’t even sure if KC Grad lies in the proposed demolition area.
Belgrade's 'top-down' gentrification is far worse than any cereal cafe Read more
Nearby, little of the street art remains on Mostarka, which is now almost obliterated by demolition, on the very edge of the Belgrade Waterfront site. Businesses like Flash Clean’s carwash look like goners, to be replaced by a seven-storey block. A still-active single rail track separates this cluster from the river and the Sava Promenade. Its wide cycle path – still a novelty in Serbia – features bicycle racks crafted from old rails. There are two wide boardwalks over the river, a colourful new playground and a locally designed Strawberry Smart bench which can charge mobile phones. A new restaurant, Savanova, sits in a smart black block that looks quite Mies van der Rohe, near a cluster of food trucks.
Not all of it is so slick yet. A little further south, pedestrians and cycles share the riverside path with lorries rumbling out of the Belgrade Waterfront site in clouds of dust. Construction is under way for BW Residences. Beyond, a landscape of desolation opens out – broken concrete and rubble, freight wagons, containers being shifted and stacked. Jovan Jelovac, founder of Belgrade Design Week and the man responsible for bringing Libeskind and Gehl together on the shelved Danube plan, describes this area as “a narco-traffic shit-hole [where] you walk down the street and inhale 55 lorries going by”. He says Belgrade Waterfront “is what Belgrade deserves after 20 years of corruption”.
Perhaps he is right. Perhaps the completed Belgrade Waterfront will reflect Jan Gehl’s human-centred ideas, with its promises of pedestrian priority and parks. Perhaps power may shift from developers to grass-roots organisations. In the meantime, Veselinović promises more action and protest from Ne da(vi)mo Beograd: “The big yellow duck is here, getting stronger and bigger!”
Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook to join the discussionAfter acquiring the Darksiders franchise following THQ’s collapse in 2013, Nordic Games released a remastered version of its second series entry last year. The rather awkwardly titled Deathfinitive Edition was “just the start” we were told back then, and now an overhaul of the 2010 original is heading our way in October.
It’s called Darksiders Warmastered Edition and brings with it a host of improvements, such as: reworked rendering, including better shadows; enhanced texture resolutions; smoother performance - “60FPS in moment-to-moment gameplay”; and 4K support for PC.
“We think War’s journey is still a great game that deserves to be [remastered] to be an overall better experience,” a Nordic Games spokesperson told us via email. “Also for us, remasters are a way to familiarise with a franchise that could lead to…”
I guess by trailing off, Nordic might be pointing to Darksiders 3—as was sort-of hinted at in the past. In any event, here’s the official blurb on what Darksiders Warmastered Edition is all about:
“Deceived by the forces of evil into prematurely bringing about the end of the world, War – the first Horseman of the Apocalypse – stands accused of breaking the sacred law by inciting a war between Heaven and Hell. In the slaughter that ensued, the demonic forces defeated the heavenly hosts and laid claim to the Earth.
“Brought before the sacred Charred Council, War is indicted for his crimes and stripped of his powers. Dishonored and facing his own death, War is given the opportunity to return to Earth to search for the truth and punish those responsible.
“Hunted by a vengeful group of Angels, War must take on the forces of Hell, forge uneasy alliances with the very demons he hunts, and journey across the ravaged remains of the Earth on his quest for vengeance and vindication.”
Darksiders Warmastered Edition is due to launch October 25 for £14.99/$19.99/€19.99.After the FBI officially blamed North Korea for the Sony Pictures hack, President Obama made a pronouncement that sounded a lot like fighting words: “We will respond, we will respond proportionally, and in a place and time that we choose," said Obama Friday. Days later, North Korea's shaky Internet went down, leading many to speculate that the U.S. government had retaliated for the Sony Pictures hack. However security experts say the attack that temporarily knocked the isolated nation offline looks more like the work of hacker pranksters than a vengeful U.S. government.
Here's the timeline that makes it doubtful the U.S. started a 'cyberwar': Over the weekend, an anonymous person published a guide to North Korea's digital infrastructure after performing a scan of the machines connected to the Internet in the country. Along with an analysis of the tech and software North Korea is using, the guide included a list of the IP addresses the country uses to connect to the wider world.
"A scan like that is basically reconnaissance for an attack," says Norm Laudermilch, COO of threat analysis firm Invincea. It gives anyone seeking to overwhelm a network the targets at which they need to aim.
The day after the guide was published, North Korea's network was flooded with connection requests as part of a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack, according to Arbor Networks, a security company that published an analysis of the attack. "The attack was not that big. North Korea’s infrastructure and connectivity are not robust," says Laudermilch. "The total amount of bandwidth was equivalent to 500 people streaming a high-def film. In other words, a neighborhood of people watching a movie online can bring down North Korea's Internet."
https://twitter.com/JZdziarski/status/547487437665341440
Laudermilch called it a "brute force, unsophisticated attack" that one would expect from a group of hackers with a botnet of enslaved devices under their control, not the "laser precision attack" expected from a nation state.
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Arbor Network's Dan Holden came to the same conclusion. "I’m quite sure that this is not the work of the U.S. government," wrote Holden. "Much like a real world strike from the U.S., you probably wouldn’t know about it until it was too late. This is not the modus operandi of any government work."
Security expert Dan Tentler says that if the U.S. government wanted to take North Korea offline, there is a far more precise way to do it than a clunky and highly visible DDoS attack. "If the stuff we learned about the NSA is to be believed, and they wanted to 'take North Korea offline', it would be as easy as twiddling with [its Internet gateway]," said Tentler by email. "Their main uplink is a SINGLE link that connects through China."
Hacker groups loosely affiliated with Anonymous have been claiming credit for the North Korea Internet takedown, with both the Lizard Squad and Gator League making boasts on Twitter about successfully DDoSing the country.
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https://twitter.com/GatorLeague/status/546770820354547712
North Korea is back online Tuesday after an outage of just nine and a half hours, according to Dyn Research. "If it were a nation state that took them down, they would not be back up again this quickly," says Laudermilch. "All of this indicates it was not an advanced adversary."
Laudermilch says that if sophisticated nation state actors — a.k.a. U.S. Cyber Command — did decide to take North Korea's Internet down, the country wouldn't see it coming and there wouldn't be an obvious evidence trail left in the attack's wake.Photo
One of the common arguments against mandating or providing upfront prices for medical tests and procedures is that American patients are not very skilled consumers of health care and will assume high prices mean high quality.
A study released Monday in the journal Health Affairs suggests we are smarter than that.
The insurer WellPoint provided members who had scheduled an appointment for an elective magnetic resonance imaging test with a list of other scanners in their area that could do the test at a lower price. The alternative providers had been vetted for quality, and patients were asked if they wanted help rescheduling the test somewhere that delivered “better value.”
Fifteen percent of patients agreed to change their test to a cheaper center. “We shined a light on costs,” said Dr. Sam Nussbaum, WellPoint’s chief medical officer. “We acted as a concierge and engaged consumers giving them information about cost and quality.”
The program resulted in a $220 cost reduction (18.7 percent) per test over the course of two years, said Andrea DeVries, the director of payer and provider research at HealthCore, a subsidiary of WellPoint, which conducted the study. It compared the costs of scanning people in the WellPoint program with those of people in plans that did not offer such services.
Better still, Dr. Nussbaum said, the exercise in price transparency had a ripple effect: Hospitals in areas with the program lowered their prices too, because “they were beginning to lose patient referrals.”
Tests like M.R.I.s show some of the widest price variation in American medicine, studies show, often varying by a factor of 10 even in the same city. Hospital scanners tend to charge the highest prices, a practice that in part reflects higher overhead but also reflects hospitals’ power in a market. Physicians affiliated with a hospital often refer to the hospital’s radiology department. In some cases, this is because hospitals require them to do so; in others, it is a matter of familiarity and convenience because the results will turn up more rapidly on their office computers.
After two years of the price transparency program, price variation between hospital and nonhospital facilities was reduced by 30 percent in areas where it was implemented, the Health Affairs study found.
The study also suggests that patients are more vigilant custodians of cost than their doctors. Several years ago, WellPoint gave physicians similar price information on scanning providers in their practice area but did not see a change in referral patterns, Dr. Nussbaum said.
The newer study did not delve into patient motivations. Some patients probably chose the cheaper scans because their insurance plan required a 20 percent copay, so it made a huge different if the scan was billed at $300 or $3,000. But others had probably already met their annual out-of-pocket maximum, so choosing the cheaper site was merely a matter of principle, Dr. DeVries said.
From experience, I can say that shopping for scans is not always easy. When I learned the price a hospital was charging for an M.R.I. a neurologist had recommended for one of my children, I scheduled the test at an outside center that was two-thirds cheaper. The upside was much better value for my health care dollar. The downside: The hospital and the radiology center would not communicate with each other, though they could have easily done so electronically. I had to go to the center and pick up a disk with the scan and carry it to the hospital neurologist.
Join the Conversation: The New York Times’s Paying Till it Hurts Facebook Group is a forum for conversation, analysis and insight into health care pricing and costs in the United States.Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest are causing more people to feel alone, according to US psychologists.
A report suggests that more than two hours of social media use a day doubled the chances of a person experiencing social isolation.
It claims exposure to idealised representations of other people's lives may cause feelings of envy.
The study also looked at those using Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr.
It's important to remember what you see on social isn't necessarily the reason for you feeling bad - but it might be a factor.
Put simply, it might just heighten the emotions you're already feeling.
Read: Here's how to keep social media in perspective.
"We do not yet know which came first - the social media use or the perceived social isolation," co-author Elizabeth Miller, professor of paediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, said.
"It's possible that young adults who initially felt socially isolated turned to social media. Or it could be that their increased use of social media somehow led to feeling isolated from the real world."
Theories in the report suggest the more time a person spends online, the less time they have for real-world interactions.
Usage can also encourage feelings of exclusion, such as seeing photos of friends enjoying an event to which you have not been invited.
The team questioned almost 2,000 adults aged 19 - 32 about their use.
Professor Brian Primack, from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said: "This is an important issue to study because mental health problems and social isolation are at epidemic levels among young adults.
"We are inherently social creatures, but modern life tends to compartmentalise us instead of bringing us together.
"While it may seem that social media presents opportunities to fill that social void, I think this study suggests that it may not be the solution people were hoping for."
If you want more help or advice, you can click here.
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"I don't foam at the mouth", writes Tim Montgomerie in his column in
With uncommon clarity, Montgomerie thus articulates the only coherent position to take in the forthcoming referendum unless, of course, you are in favour of continued EU membership. There is no credible middle way.
Yet, not a million miles away from Montgomerie physically, yet communicating from another galaxy, we have Matthew Elliott writing in the Telegraph. He says that the Prime Minister should "push on with delivering a far-reaching renegotiation", This should include "proper, full-on Treaty change" and a "fundamental change" in Britain's relationship with the EU. "He has the plan", says Elliott, "He has the opportunity. Now he deserves our help delivering it".
Yet it is Elliott, not Montgomerie, who as noted by
Unsurprisingly, therefore, while the "yes" campaign has hit the ground running, the
This is the "
That No. 10 should be trying to influence the management of the "no" campaign might sound rather disturbing, but this is not the first time we have seen such reports. On 8 February this year, the
That the "out" (or "no" campaign as it has become) representative in this instance was Matthew Elliott has not been denied, yet he is also the man who is actively promoting a strategy that would guarantee the failure of the "no" campaign.
The problem is that any departure from the Montgomerie line concedes the high ground to the "yes" campaign. The only way the "no" campaign can maintain an intellectual purity that is vital to its own credibility is to hold that membership of the EU is wrong in principle. There can be no circumstances where the UK can stay in the EU. Once the point of principle is abandoned, the referendum becomes a squabble over detail – a messy argument about whether the "reform" has been sufficient.
But the danger is that those like Elliott who want to play the "reform" game are not only conceding the strategic issue, they are also – at the very least - tactically inept.
In particular, they are under-estimating the degree |
both sides of the Atlantic should have been enough to prove that the concept of multiculturalism, invented in Leftist laboratories, is a fraud.
In this context, I note Eastern European countries, even those in the Schengen free-travel zone, have very few non-whites. Ironically, it may be that for whites, poverty is the only guarantor of separation and homogeneity.
In the richer West, whites do not understand the seriousness of the threat, but as Mao Tse-Tung used to say, “a single spark can start a prairie fire.” With information today so easily available on the Internet it is possible for today’s young whites to learn the truths the media always try to hide.
In France, the Paris attacks of last November prove once again the failure of multiculturalism. These attacks, together with the onslaught of Syrian refugees, will no doubt push the French towards greater resistance against Islam. This will encourage more Muslim immigrants to engage with the Islamic State. A race war in Europe is not out of the question. For those who wonder whether today’s feminized Europeans still have the backbone to fight for their civilization, I note that the rooster is the symbol of France, and the French often say that “he crows even with both feet in shit.” One must never underestimate the potential of an awakened people.Hi everyone, my name is Paulo (PauloDiogo in game) and I’m here to tell you about what it’s like to be free to play (f2p) in TESL.
I started playing as a f2p player by choice in order to make my journey to legend more difficult and rewarding. After finishing the story mode where I received rewards that are spectacular for f2p players, I started my first month grinding in the solo arena and versus arena where I was amazed by the rewards that this game offers us. Achieving an average of 4/5 wins per run will get you a good amount of packs, gold, and soul gems that make the 150 gold investment more than worth it.
After several arenas, I got to a point where I felt satisfied with my collection and ventured into ranked play. I tried out all the classes and found the decks that felt most comfortable to play with and started my journey to reach legend. I reached rank one after some time of playing the decks which felt most satisfying to me and continuing to expand my collection through arena play in order to improve those decks. I did not reach Legend that season due to a lack of time to play but in the next month (November), only a week and a half into the season, I reached legend playing my own version of Crusader and prophecy Monk decks.
That’s my story of getting to legend as a f2p player. Now, let’s go over some tips for those who want to do the same.
Let’s start with some arena tips. For those of you who come from other card games with an arena system, this will be familiar. For those of you who do not have experience with this game mode, the BetweenTheLanes tier list will be very helpful for learning how to draft your own deck.
I recommend picking classes like Scout, Assassin, and Archer in the arena because they have some of the strongest card pools currently and it is easiest to build strong decks from those classes. If you don’t have any of those as an option I normally go by color; classes with Green, Blue or Purple are generally strong choices because of their card pools.
Advice on Soul Trapping
Now let’s talk about soul trapping cards, or getting rid of the copies you own in exchange
for Soul Gems. After some arenas you will have some bad cards
along with your good cards from packs, and it’s important to know which is which. I’ve included the following “guide” to help with that. The cards are ranked either 1 (not playable) or 2 (only somewhat playable). Hopefully this will give you a baseline of cards that are generally pretty safe to soul trap.
Strength (Red)
1: Intimidate, Improvised Weapon, Silvenar Tracker, Bog Lurcher, Orcish Warhammer, Fireball, Trebuchet, Dread Clannfear
2: Plunder, Covenant Marauder, Alik’r Survivalist, Bone Bow
Intelligence (Blue)
1: Moment of Clarity, Wisdom of Ancients, Dres Renegade, Glenumbra Sorceress, Staff of Sparks, Baron of Tear, Ice Wraith, Studium Headmaster
2: Brilliant Experiment
Agility (Green)
1: Elixir of Light Feet, Arenthia Swindler, Murkwater Savage, Elder Centaur
2: Feasting Vulture, Spider Daedra
Endurance (Purple)
1: Elixir of Vigor, Siege Catapault, Yew Shield, Blackrose Herbalist, Night Predator, Plea to Kynareth, Watch Commander
2: Wrothgar Kingpin, Gloom Wraith, Grim Champion, Archein Elite
Willpower (Yellow)
1: Blackmail, Snow Wolf, Alpha Wolf, Hive Warrior, War Cry, Hero of Anvil, Legion Shield, Elixir of the Defender, Tower Alchemist
2: Helgen Squad Leader, Spiteful Dremora, Auroran Sentry, Artaeum Savant
Hopefully this starter list will allow you to get some more soul gems out of your rewards. Premium cards are also a good way to get the soul gems you need. I know that it can be sad to lose some of those shiny premiums, but in my opinion, it’s worth it in the end as a free-to-play player. You can also acquire a lot of soul gems by farming the AI opponents but that takes much more time. You need to play the expert AI and win in over four turns to get fifteen soul gems and the soul gems you can earn cap at 300 soul gems.
Which Cards to Make?
With all that said I have some small tips about soul summoning, or crafting, cards. This will depend on which decks you want to play, of course, as well as what style they are: Aggro, Midrange, Control, or Combo. I advise you all to start with Aggro or Midrange builds because they are cheaper then control. To get you started with a well-rounded collection, some of the best cards to craft early in the game from the common and rare card pools are as follows:
Daring Cutpurse: Good 2-drop with the prophecy mechanic that can snowball fast and or wins you the game or makes your opponent spend a lot of resources to remove
Shrieking Harpy: Amazing defensive (and sometimes offensive) tool for blue decks
Young Mammoth: The best body for the 3-drop slot in the game
Triumphant Jarl: One of the best card draw in the game – helps aggro decks refill their hands or gives the slower midrange style decks a good way to find removal or extra damage
Cliff Racer: One of the best offensive cards, nearly a staple in aggressive green decks
Piercing Javelin: Great targeted removal
Hive Defender: one of the better cards in this game a four magicka 3/6 with guard that helps you by protecting your creatures in Aggro decks and is also used as a tool to counter Aggro by most Control decks using Willpower.
This ones are safe cards to craft now if you want to dive into crafting depending of the deck/archetype i will give you some safe advises from epics to legendarys.
Aggro:
Strength: Lumbering Ogrim; Relentless Raider; Mage Slayer; Earthbone Spinner
Agility: Mournhold Traitor; Tazkad the Packmaster
Class-specific: Rift Thane
Midrange:
Strength: Reive, Blademaster; Markath Bannerman; Blood Dragon; Earthbone Spinner; Belligerent Giant
Agility: House Kinsman; Tazkad the Packmaster
Intelligence: Supreme Atromancer; Daggerfall Mage
Endurance: Bone Colossus; Shadowfen Priest
Willpower: Divine Fervor
Class-specific: Thorn Histmage; High King Emeric
Control:
Strength: Vigilant Giant; Earthbone Spinner; Belligerent Giant
Intelligence: Breton Conjurer; Ice Storm; Daggerfall Mage
Willpower: Cloudrest Illusionist; Pillaging Tribune; Mantikora; Dawn`s Wrath; Miraak, Dragonborn
Agility: Giant Snake; Leaflurker
Endurance: Preserver of the Root; Shadowfen Priest; Night Shadow; Nahagliiv; Blood Magic Lord
Class-specific/Neutral: Ayrenn; Red Bramman, Edict of Azura; Odahviing
For a list of Epics and Legendaries, you can check CVH’s top 10 Epics and Legendaries to craft on his youtube although recent card changes have changed some of the cards since then.
One more thing: if you have time to watch streamers (like CVH, Boomslife, MattOblivium, Snaxximan etc.) or YouTube (CVH, JustinLarson, GymClassHero) I would recommend doing that. These guys helped me a lot with their knowledge about the game. By watching and listening to them share their ideas and experiences you can learn a lot.
Well, guys, these are all the tips I can give you for now. I hope you enjoyed this article and that I have helped you in some way to understand this game better and make your free to play journey more rewarding.
My last piece of advice is that you should have fun and enjoy this amazing game and this community!
Follow PauloDiogo on Twitter
AdvertisementsRecently, there have been some improvements on the popular issue about cannabis potential to kill cancer cells, which will be of great help to eliminate the federal ban on medical marijuana. Namely, it has been rescheduled from schedule I drug, meaning it is harmful, addictive and not beneficial to health, to a schedule II drug.
Regarding the way marijuana was considered so far, the admission to the use of cannabis being able to kill cancer from the government comes quite surprising.
This resulted from a study done several months previously, done by a group of scientist at St. George’s University in London, which proved how effective cannabinoids can be in shrinking aggressive brain tumors.
The study discovered that the two most common cannabinoids in marijuana, weakened the cancer cells to a high extent and made them more susceptible to radiation treatment. These are known as Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). After using cannabinoids and radiation therapy together, huge reductions were noticed.
Furthermore, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) published that “Recent animal studies have shown that marijuana can kill certain cancer cells and reduce the size of others.”
We have been aware for long that cannabis can be of great medical benefit, but now we have the opportunity to have a federally funded site admit and cite research on its curative effects, which is an amazing opportunity, as much as it is surprising.
This is undoubtedly the biggest step so far on the way to use cannabis in the anti- cancer treatments.
Source: www.healthyfoodhouse.com* Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Rising seas and a lack of fresh water threaten the existence of the Marshall Islands
Minister Tony de Brum of the Republic of the Marshall Islands describes the clear and present danger posed by climate change to his nation, and urges the world to act against this threat.
My country needs a precious gift from the world’s people – the vision to take bold, urgent action on climate change, and the will to follow it through. Only concerted action can protect us from the rising seas and lack of fresh water that now threaten my nation’s very existence.
I am from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a string of 34 low-lying coral atolls, comprising over 1,000 islands and islets scattered over one million square miles of the Pacific Ocean.
Climate change is not a distant prospect, but a reality for us now. People are starting to ask: What is happening to our country? What will my children do? Not our grandchildren or great-grandchildren, but our children, who are already on the frontline.
In other countries, you can talk about climate change as something intangible whose impacts will arrive in 50 years. But if the world does not tackle climate change now, then my people will be displaced. We will become strangers in a foreign land, having lost our national identity, our traditions and our very collective being.
This is today’s reality in the Marshall Islands: we lie an average of only 2 metres above a sea level that is rising much more quickly than previously thought. The most recent US National Climate Assessment says that sea levels in our immediate neighbourhood will rise by 2 metres before 2100.
Today, climate change has left our capital Majuro with only two hours’ worth of fresh water every second day, and many of our outer islands with none at all.
We recently declared a State of Emergency to protect lives and communities against this imminent danger. As I write, ships are traveling to these far-flung communities to deliver fresh water and desalination machines. Of all the ironies, these water-makers are powered by climate-warming diesel.
A small nation, a big voice
When world leaders failed to agree an inclusive, ambitious climate deal in Copenhagen in 2009, the Marshall Islands decided that it needed to take matters into its own hands. With our existence at stake, we could not afford to stand by and let the opportunity for truly collective action on climate change slip away.
We want to lead by example. When we host the Pacific Islands Forum summit this September, we will announce the full “solarisation” of our outer island communities – every household and school now uses solar-powered lighting, and every clinic uses solar-powered lighting and refrigeration.
I believe this is a tremendous achievement considering that our islands are scattered over over one million square miles of ocean. It is also a good way of winning hearts, minds and votes for efforts to tackle climate change.
Our foremost foreign policy goal is collective action that delivers a safe climate for humankind and a future for the Marshall Islands. This must happen in two ways.
We must conclude a new legally binding agreement under the UNFCCC, which safeguards the most vulnerable from the impacts of dangerous climate change. But beneath this agreement, we need to see policies, actions and a fundamental change in the way the world powers its growth.
Development cannot come at the expense of the most vulnerable. We need to transition to a no-carbon economy.
Climate diplomacy starts at home
We need to recognise that the inadequacy of the current international response to climate change is an enormous failure of international cooperation. Climate diplomacy is one way to seek to address this.
In the aftermath of Copenhagen, the Marshall Islands’ then-UN Ambassador, now Foreign Minister, convened a multi-stakeholder, week-long workshop involving Ministers, government officials, community leaders and civil society to develop a national climate change roadmap for the future.
The Roadmap put climate change at the heart of government policy, and established a National Committee on Climate Change, comprised of the heads of the relevant government agencies, to implement a new whole-of-government climate change policy.
One initiative under the Roadmap was to invite our friends at Independent Diplomat, with support from the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), to help us develop a new strategy for climate diplomacy.
We threw ourselves into enhancing our technical capacity on climate issues, including among our diplomats and Ministers, and into enhancing our international profile. We now put climate change front and centre in every one of our diplomatic encounters, stressing the existential threat and the need for an urgent response. I took this message to the UN Security Council earlier this year.
We have learned some big lessons about climate diplomacy in the three years since then. It needs to be strategic and high level, and we need to forge alliances around common interests. Most importantly, tackling climate change requires awareness, understanding and action from all parts and levels of society.
Governments cannot do it alone. Businesses cannot do it alone. We must all be part of the solution.
No more delay
This September, the Marshall Islands will host the Pacific Islands Forum summit, and welcome the 14 Pacific Island countries and Australia and New Zealand, as well as our Forum Dialogue partners, including the US, China, EU and India. Altogether, countries representing over 60% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions will take part in the meeting in Majuro.
For the summit, we have chosen the theme Marshalling the Pacific Response to the Climate Challenge.
The Majuro Declaration on Climate Change, the summit’s signature outcome, will spell out what this means: no more ‘kicking the can down the road,’ but action now, by every one of us, to ensure that a below 2 degree world remains within reach.
We all face a desperate battle against a looming and intensifying climate catastrophe. It is the battle of our generation. Will you join my call to arms?
Tony de Brum is Minister in Assistance to the President of the Marshall Islands. Read his February address to the United Nations Security Council here.Now that we’ve moved past that Super exercise which involved only two NFL teams, it’s time to start focusing on the drill that engulfs every team in the league – April’s NFL Draft.
Front-office execs and scouts around the league – including the Seahawks – are huddling this week in preparation for the NFL Scouting Combine, which will be held Feb. 20-26 in Indianapolis. So the mock drafts already are circulating in cyberspace.
The boys at NFLDraftScout.com – Rob Rang and Dane Brugler – have weighed in with their initial mocks at CBSSports.com. Rang listened to coach Pete Carroll when he talked during his season-ender media session about improving the Seahawks’ pass rush, so he has the team selecting Texas defensive end Alex Okafor with the 25th pick in the first round. Brugler, aware that Alan Branch is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent, gives the Seahawks Alabama defensive tackle Jesse Williams at that spot.
Rang on Okafor: “The risky (and ridiculed) selection of undersized pass rusher Bruce Irvin paid off for as the former West Virginia standout led all rookies with eight sacks in 2012. His speed off the edge could be complemented with a more refined pass rusher like Okafor, whose greater length, strength and hand technique could make him a suitable complement as the team adjusts for life with top pass-rusher Chris Clemons recovering with a torn ACL.”
Brugler on Williams: “The Seahawks have one of the better defensive fronts in the NFC, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see them add some depth, especially with Alan Branch slated to hit free agency in the winter. Williams lined up at nose tackle for the Tide, but has the ability to be productive in either and even or odd front.”
Don Banks at SI.com also has the Seahawks doing their first-round shopping in the Crimson Tide aisle, but on the other side of the ball with tackle D.J. Fluker: “The Seahawks could easily take the best available receiver in this slot (Baylor’s Terrance Williams, Clemson’s DeAndre Hopkins or USC’s Robert Woods), and fill a need. But Fluker might earn too high a grade to pass on. Seattle’s offensive line was superb in 2012, but Breno Giacomini is hardly irreplaceable at right tackle. Fluker is seen as a natural right tackle in the NFL and his massive 6-4, 355-pound size and impressive wingspan could solidify the position for the foreseeable future.”
At NFL.com, a trio of mock drafts veers back to the D-line for the Seahawks, with Bucky Brooks going for LSU end Sam Montgomery, Daniel Jeremiah tabbing Ohio State tackle Johnathan Hawkins and Charles Davis opting for BYU end Ezekiel Ansah.I came across this article recently and it got me thinking about all the gadgets and technology we are constantly surrounded by in life from Smart phones to iPads, I love this stuff as much as the next person, and I especially love using my Garmin to track my runs and upload the results to the computer to monitor my training progress.
However, every now and then I do enjoy disconnecting and free myself of technology and forget about the world for a little while to hit the trails and run for the fun of it or on how I feel instead of constantly worrying about heart rate zones or pace, enjoy the scenery and the nature sounds around me.
Do you love to use technology with your training and races or do you prefer to Run Free?Shane Tusch faked his suicide in an attempt to test the authenticity of Facebook suicide prevention tool and got detained for 72 hours
Facebook has rolled out a set of tools to keep a check on its users who are having suicidal tendencies and prevent these users from suicidal attempts. In case some user is having suicidal thoughts and mentions that in the Facebook posts and if a friend of that user reports it to Facebook then a third party will immediately review the post and Facebook would lock the suicidal user’s account and the user will be made to read Facebook’s suicide prevention materials.
Shane Tusch, a resident of San Mateo, wanted to check out if this suicide prevention tool is real or not!
On 26th February 2015, Tusch posted his frustrations regarding the stress he had been facing due to first amendment made to his home loan by the bank. He posted that he was undergoing trouble paying his bank debts for quite some time and in the post he declared that he would take his life in some public place.
Tusch’s post read :”So I have decided to take my life in some very public way that will hopefully get people talking about the crimes these banks have payed off are governments and left their wives and kids in the streets. I think hanging myself from the Golden Gate Bridge with a big sign that says bank america killed me and left my wife and kids without a father or a home!”
Tusch’s used his real Facebook profile to carry out the experiment and neither his family nor his friends knew about his experiment. Immediately, Tusch’s friends responded to his frustrations as they were worried about him and one of his friends even tagged Facebook to his post.
Soon Tusch’s Facebook account was locked and in the meantime some unknown person who read this post informed police. San Mateo police took Tusch in their custody and inquired him regarding the post which Tusch confirmed was written by him however he also made it clear to the police that he was not planning for a suicide, this was just to release his frustrations regarding the First Amendment made by Bank America and he wanted to get this in public.
Shane Tusch is a part time electrician by profession and also an activist.
Tusch was detained in a mental asylum for about 72 hours i.e. 3 days. Not only that it seems he was tested for TB, HIV and overall 7 blood tests done along with his urine tests. He also posted that he was kept in a very inhumane conditions.
With the depression being on its peak all around and people attempting suicides it seems that the step taken by Facebook to prevent the users from committing suicide is really good; however there has to be some proper methods which should be taken because if people like Shane Tusch are just using Facebook to release their frustrations on Facebook and get caught then it would be a great problem.
Besides if all people would be retained for 72 hours in mental asylum then that will be a great burden on the already overburdened mental health facilities, isn’t it?Unifying Europe’s military—through the back door
For decades Europe has relied on America for its defense. Now that the U.S. no longer wants the job, Europe has to improve its military at the same time that nations face pressure to cut their budgets.
The solution: Join forces. Nations like France and Poland have suggested this for years, but the movement for a combined European military now has a new champion: Germany.
Berlin put forward a plan to rebuild nato around several core nations at a meeting of nato defense ministers on Oct. 22, 2013. It received broad support and could be adopted at a nato meeting in 2014.
In some ways, the biggest news here is simply that Germany is pushing nato to reform. “Perhaps the strangest thing about the proposal is its origin,” wrote the Atlantic Council of Canada, an independent think tank focusing on nato. Germany has never really been a leader within nato. The think tank concluded, “This may just be the dawn of a new era for Germany in nato, which, were it to commit itself more fully to the alliance, would go a long way toward reinvigorating the alliance.”
The plan itself is also significant. It would divide Europe’s military into clusters. Individual nations would no longer have to maintain all parts of a balanced military, but would be free to specialize. Yet each combined cluster would possess all the necessary resources for a complete military.
Each cluster would be built around a “framework nation”—one of Europe’s larger militaries—which would lead the cluster and provide a broad, balanced military as a foundation for other nations to build on. These framework nations would probably include France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy.
A similar system already works in Afghanistan. Germany runs the northern command and leads other nations, like the Netherlands. Germany’s plan would take such cooperation to the next level, with nations pooling their military resources and jointly developing new weapons and technology.
The plan is strikingly similar to one put forward earlier in October by the Konrad Adenaur Foundation (kaf), a think tank closely associated with Germany’s Christian Democratic Union. It called for Europe to form “islands” of defense cooperation. The Trumpet also reported on Germany’s push for similar structures back in August 2013.
Rather than cede control of their militaries to the EU, nations could instead share aspects of the military with two or three neighboring nations, gradually getting accustomed to the loss of sovereignty until they later give it over to a larger European entity, suggested the kaf.
The report made several specific recommendations, the most striking being that Germany should act as the “lead nation of a common air force with the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.” It also suggested working with France and Poland to buy two joint-support ships, as well as working with the Netherlands and Denmark to upgrade some frigates.
For years, Germany has tried to stay away from anything that could look like military leadership. Now, pushed by the United States, Berlin is beginning to take the lead to improve Europe’s military, both abroad and at home.
Germany invades Obsidia!
While Germany is pushing for a European military with new enthusiasm, it is also improving its own military. In early October 2013, 3,500 Bundeswehr soldiers using 700 air and ground military vehicles, with the aid of surveillance drones and elite special forces units, successfully invaded Obsidia.
Obsidia is a fictitious name of the city that served as a target for German forces during their most recent military exercise. German-Foreign-Policy.com wrote that the exercise “was aimed at training prospective general and admiral staff officers from the German Armed Forces Staff College and Army officer cadets” (Oct. 17, 2013).
The scope of Operation Obsidia was vast and complex, and went beyond just the “house by house” invasion by Bundeswehr soldiers. Prior to the invasion, human spies, various surveillance vehicles and even drones gathered vital strategic intelligence, which was then used to coordinate the ground assault. During the invasion, troops also practiced exercises in crowd and riot control.
Lt. Gen. Bruno Kasdord, inspector general of the Bundeswehr and a participant in Operation Obsidia, said German officers must be educated in the full “spectrum” of warfare so they can “be prepared for the challenges of the future.”
North Africa’s policeman
Europe is increasing its control over the Mediterranean Sea through a new “big brother” surveillance program. The European Parliament approved the program for the Mediterranean Sea on Oct. 10, 2013, after an overcrowded boat full of migrants sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa, killing 359. The new program, eurosur, was marketed as the solution to the tragedy, but it has actually been in planning for several years.
The program establishes drones and satellites to watch the Mediterranean, aided by offshore sensors and other intelligence equipment. Spiegel Online called it “precisely the kind of monitoring apparatus America’s nsa intelligence service might dream up.” Spiegel titled its article, “EU Plans Big Brother System in Mediterranean” (Oct. 11, 2013).
Officials estimate the program will cost €244 million (us$311 million), but the Heinrich Böll Foundation claims this is hugely underestimated: It puts the figure at €874 million ($1.19 billion). Given the EU’s history of massively underestimating the cost of important projects, the latter figure is more likely to be correct. The lower figure, however, makes the scheme easier to sell to the public.
Mass immigration from Africa has also been used to sell the project to the public. But immigration is not truly what this is about. The EU is extending its control over the Mediterranean Sea and into North Africa.
Another program, thinly disguised as an anti-immigration effort, is eubam Libya. This group’s stated aim is to help Libya manage its border and train its customs officials. When up to full strength, it will have 111 EU staff, 54 local staff members and 54 bodyguards. While it will help prevent would-be emigrants from leaving Libya illegally, the EU Observer says its real purpose is to serve as “an EU intelligence asset.”
In April 2011, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry warned that Iran was trying to gain power over the Mediterranean and Red seas. In that article, he wrote that “Germany and the Vatican probably see Iran’s strategy better than any power outside the Middle East.” He warned that Europe would prepare to confront Iran. Two years later, he warned that “Northern Africa is turning into a battleground with enormously important prophetic implications.” He described how Europe and Iran were quietly vying for control of the region and the resources it contains.
Now we see the EU creating a new surveillance plan for the Mediterranean and EU intelligence-gathering initiatives sprouting in Libya. We see France fighting in Mali and preparing to deploy more troops to the Central African Republic (sidebar). Europe is awake to the threat radical Islam poses to the vital trade networks and resources in and around the Mediterranean. It also sees that it can no longer depend on the U.S. to contain that threat, so the EU is dealing with it personally. Expect such initiatives to grow in number and in scope.
Securing the Central African Republic
As the Central African Republic (car) faces an Islamic takeover, France plans to send more troops in and is pushing for UN intervention in its former colony.
Since the Islamic Seleka rebels took over car in March, conditions have deteriorated rapidly, with Muslims and Christians fighting each other. Only 15 percent of the country’s population is Muslim, but Seleka took control in March, putting President Michel Djotodia into power. (The man he replaced, François Bozizé, came to power in a coup in 2003, but went on to win presidential elections and even received military support from France.)
The Seleka rebels include many fighters from Chad and Sudan. Sudan has links to Chad’s rebel groups, making it the major foreign power behind the takeover. President Djotodia ordered the disbanding of the Seleka groups in September, but only after absorbing many of their fighters into the army.
France now fears that the Central African Republic could become a terrorist breeding ground, allowing radical Islam a safe haven in the heart of Africa. Sudan is currently Iran’s most important African partner. Iran’s Islamists could easily cross the border into the car and set up shop there, giving them easy access to oil and other resource-rich parts of Central Africa and the Gulf of Guinea.
France wants to turn the African Union mission in the country into a UN peacekeeping force, supported by French troops. With troops deployed in Mali, France doesn’t want another war on its hands, so it is trying to get its African allies to do as much of the work as possible. It already has 450 soldiers in the country to protect the airport, and reports indicate Paris plans to nearly double this number.
Is the president purging the military of dissenters?
When President Obama entered the Oval Office, he immediately fired Gen. David McKiernan. The president wanted “fresh thinking” and “fresh eyes” on Afghanistan. It was the first time a top general had been fired during wartime in more than 50 years.
McKiernan’s replacement, Stanley McChrystal, lasted a bit more than a year. He was fired for making disparaging comments, including that President Obama wasn’t really that interested or “engaged” in the war in Afghanistan.
Since then, President Obama has terminated close to 200 high-ranking military officers. This year alone, nine generals and flag officers have been fired or have been pressured to resign. World Net Daily calls this purge of top military brass an “extraordinary number.” This amounts to a major eradication of the leadership of the U.S. military.
In the North Africa region, three top commanders at the time of the Benghazi attack have been dismissed: U.S. Army Gen. Carter Ham, who headed the United States African Command; Rear Adm. Charles Gaouette, commander of the aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea; and Maj. Gen. Ralph Baker, who commanded the Joint Task Force-Horn in Djibouti, Africa.
Several of the other six generals and flag officers fired were allegedly critical of other Obama policies such as military cuts, the removal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and America’s new policy on Iran. Others were allegedly fired for sexual misconduct, or adultery—dismissal for which has been increasingly rare since President Bill Clinton’s affair.
What angers many observers even more is that while so many of America’s military leaders are being fired, the Obama administration has failed to hold a single Obama administration official accountable for a string of scandals: the Benghazi cover-up; the Fast and Furious scandal; the fbi admitting it uses surveillance drones over U.S. soil; the Justice Department secretly seizing the records of more than 20 Associated Press phone lines; the Justice Department illegally monitoring the phone lines and e-mails of Fox News reporter James Rosen; the Internal Revenue Service targeting the president’s political adversaries; the National Security Agency conducting illegal, covert telephone and online surveillance programs on U.S. citizens, violating the Fourth Amendment; the nsa spying on America’s allies to the point of tapping the phones of heads of state. Additional revelations that the irs targeted President Obama’s political adversaries add credence to the charges that a military purge could be occurring.
The atmosphere within the senior ranks is becoming so bad that retired Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady says members no longer feel prepared to fight or have the desire to win.
The National Journal reported November 1 that low morale isn’t the only problem. Resentment is so high that some soldiers have reportedly considered—but dismissed—trying to “take out the president” and stage a coup.
Something deadly dangerous is happening in America. The Obama administration is showing itself extremely intolerant of dissent. And the president has made it clear that he will use the full force of government to attack opposition groups that defy his agenda.
In this poisonous climate, the United States military is being gutted and reshaped. To learn the full breadth of the conspiracy underway against the U.S., request your free copy of America Under Attack.
Why is Saudi Arabia getting so bold?
On Oct. 17, 2013, Saudi Arabia was offered a highly coveted seat on the United Nations Security Council for the first time in its history. But the next day the Saudis rejected the offer. It was widely viewed as a slap at the United States, considered one of its strongest Western allies. What was Saudi Arabia so upset about, and why was it suddenly so bold?
The rise of Iran is Saudi Arabia’s most pressing concern. The Saudis have watched anxiously as Iran, a bitter enemy, has evaded punishment even while continuing to forge its nuclear program, fund terrorism and aggressively expand its influence throughout the region.
Now, they fear the United States is giving its blessing to the whole appalling process. There are signs America is giving in to Iran—its weakening resolve, its declining interest in the Middle East, its fading sense of responsibility to protect Israel.
An American reconciliation with Iran truly is a game-changer for Saudi Arabia. It absolutely shreds the U.S.-Saudi alliance. You can be sure the Saudis have been seeking other options. But what options do they have? This is a compelling question when viewed in light of biblical prophecy.
As the Trumpet has tracked for some time, Germany is preparing itself to confront Iran. An alliance with Saudi Arabia is a key component in these preparations.
In a recent article, Gerald Flurry revealed Germany’s “whirlwind” strategy for attacking Iran. “Germany has surrounded Iran and radical Islam,” he wrote. “Soon that whirlwind is going to start rotating and whirling against the king of the south [an Iranian-led, radical Islamic alliance] like a well-armed—probably nuclear-armed—vortex!” (July 2013).
Bible prophecy also specifically forecasts a German-Saudi alliance. The Trumpet has forecast this union for years. You can read about it in Mr. Flurry’s article “A Mysterious Alliance” (thetrumpet.com/go/784).
Nations throughout the Middle East are having to recalibrate their thinking based on the probability of a U.S.-Iran reconciliation. This represents a transformative alienation of “moderate” Arab states like Saudi Arabia that are united against Iran. And it is exactly these states that Germany is going after.
This development aligns remarkably with the prophecy of Psalm 83.
Saudi Arabia’s very public rebuke of America is likely a strong indication of the confidence it has gained in its new European ally. It is hard to imagine the Saudis being so bold—if not for the support they are receiving from Germany.
Don’t underrate al Shabaab
Ever since the four-day siege of Kenya’s Westgate Mall in September, Iranian-backed and al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab has continued making disturbing headlines internationally.
On Oct. 5, 2013, the terrorist group proved formidable enough to repel an elite team of U.S. Navy seals. In an attempt to capture the terrorist Ikrima—the go-between for al Shabaab commanders and various al Qaeda terrorist cells—the seals invaded al Shabaab’s fortification in Barawe, a Somali port city that the group controls almost entirely and from which it earns annual trade revenue of about $25 million. The seals underestimated al Shabaab’s capabilities and were overwhelmed by the militants’ counteroffensive.
Al Shabaab is believed to be tied to the explosion that went off in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on October 13. This was a premature detonation of what would have been a makeshift, yet deadly, suicide bomb. It only killed its operators—two Somali men who were in Ethiopia illegally. Al Shabaab claimed responsibility and claimed that the intended target was the soccer World Cup qualifier between Ethiopia and Nigeria, held the next day.
In the |
otted the meeting in part over the absence of the Governor General and pressured then-AFN Chief Shawn Atleo to do the same, claiming he had no mandate to discuss treaty rights without treaty chiefs present. Meanwhile, protesters tried blocking the entrance to the building where the meeting was to take place, and Indigenous women linked arms to prevent the chiefs from entering. CSIS records reveal an intelligence meeting held three days earlier, on January 8, in which security experts condescendingly predicted that less than one third of the 1,200 who indicated attendance on a Facebook event page “will actually show up.” But they were wrong: according to RCMP email records, the “immense protests” that coincided with the meeting – with approximately 3,000 participants, according to an RCMP situation report – created a “fluid and volatile” situation for the government.
The ministers’ education
Ahead of the meeting, AANDC prepared a presentation called Historic Treaties in Canada: Overview for Ministers. These presentation slides describe historic treaties as the roughly 70 agreements signed before 1975, covering nearly 60 per cent of the territory of Canada. The slides characterized the historic treaties as “largely fulfilled.”
Excerpted files from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (now Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada) accessed via the Access to Information Act.
The AANDC files explicitly state the goals of settler-colonial treaty making as the settlement of the land and establishment of Canadian sovereignty. Canada’s position is that “historic treaties extinguished Aboriginal rights and title in return for the promise of specific rights and benefits for those First Nations who were signatories to the treaties.” Prior to Confederation, treaties were, according to the government, concluded to “defend the colonies and open the lands of the Great Lakes to settlement.” After 1867, “treaties were concluded to secure Canada’s sovereignty over the West” and “open the lands for settlement.”
The meeting would be considered successful if the treaty relationship could be used to the government’s advantage, “particularly in the context of removing obstacles to major economic development opportunities.”
AANDC identified that Canada’s key objective for the meeting was the negotiation of economic development in Canada’s interest: “the agenda will also address key federal priorities related to resource development, addressing barriers to First Nations participation in the economy, and a results-based approach to treaty and self-government negotiations.” The meeting would be considered successful if the treaty relationship could be used to the government’s advantage, “particularly in the context of removing obstacles to major economic development opportunities.”
In its slides, AANDC admits that “the treaties were concluded to share the wealth of the land to the benefit of both parties, guarantee assistance in times of need and secure their economic well-being.” It remains to be seen how this point can be reconciled with a report produced by INAC’s Strategic Research Directorate that compares “community well-being” (which measures education, income, housing, and labour force activity) between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. The report finds that Indigenous community signatories to historic treaties rank the lowest: “Among the ‘bottom 100’ Canadian communities, 96 were First Nations. At the same time, only one First Nation community ranked among the ‘top 100’.”
Zoe Todd, who is Red River Métis (otipemisiw) from Amiskwaciwâskahikan/Edmonton, Treaty 6, and assistant professor of anthropology at Carleton University, points out the problem with the state’s treaty distortions: “A treaty can’t be fulfilled if Canada doesn’t consider it a living, ongoing set of relationships and responsibilities that have to be renewed continuously between the people that are bound up within them or who are party to them.”
Todd understands Treaty 6 as “an agreement across legal traditions between two sovereign nations or peoples.” The underlying principles of reciprocity that guided treaty making, she explains, have been “abandoned quite completely, especially with things like the Indian Act and forced removals of people from their lands and the ongoing destruction of Indigenous land in the name of extraction, and oil and gas, and mining and pipelines.”
Susana Deranger, who lives in Regina and is an experienced Indigenous activist from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, explains, “It was never about ceding land and in fact all the rights that came with treaty making were to be over and above everything that we already had.” She adds, “Treaties in no way, shape, or form have ever been recognized or dealt with properly [by the Canadian government].”
Internally, AANDC was quite plain about why that is: the “primary intent was to secure Crown title over lands and resources.” The department goes on to say, “consequently, the Crown holds that it has: unfettered access for settlement and development; full ownership of all resources and benefits; only needs to consult in cases relating to defined treaty rights,” and that Crown “rights and obligations are limited by the text of the treaties.”
The AANDC slides ultimately conclude that “Canada’s policy on Treaties remains in opposition to First Nations perspectives,” and that “the fundamental issues regarding the intent, interpretation and implementation of treaties have been the primary roadblock to establishing a more workable relationship with Treaty First Nations.”
The slides also amount to a stark admission that treaties represent to Canada the outright ownership of Indigenous lands for the purposes of extracting resources and wealth. Prepared for a discussion about treaty rights at the height of Idle No More, the slides revealed that from the government’s perspective, treaties were not, and are not, an agreement between two sovereign nations, but rather a deceitful exercise in expropriation of land for the benefit of the settler state.
The deceit trajectory
What does the revelation about Canada’s interpretation of historic treaties mean in light of the government’s current modern-day treaty negotations with First Nations? Almost five years after the inception of Idle No More, a new prime minister is at the helm, but the state’s underlying position on treaties has remained constant, evidenced by Trudeau’s approval of several energy projects on Indigenous land without Indigenous consent.
Recently, at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in May 2016, INAC Minister Carolyn Bennett declared, “We intend nothing less than to adopt and implement the [United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – UNDRIP] in accordance with the Canadian Constitution.” However, she continued, “Canada believes that our constitutional obligations serve to fulfil all of the principles of the declaration, including ‘free, prior and informed consent.’ We see modern treaties and self-government agreements as the ultimate expression of free, prior and informed consent among partners.”
First Nations policy analyst and consultant Russ Diabo sees the government’s modern treaty negotiation process as a “termination plan.”
What does the revelation about Canada’s interpretation of historic treaties mean in light of the government’s modern-day treaty negotiations with First Nations?
According to Diabo, “In exchange for roughly $25,000 per person and 10–15 hectares of land under the modern treaty framework, signatory communities must accept the 1867 constitutional framework, which means federal and provincial laws apply.” He explains, “Basically, that means you only have local or municipal-type powers left over to negotiate; they call that ‘harmonizing of laws’.”
Indigenous rights and title are basically converted “from pre-existing sovereign rights into post-treaty defined rights,” he says.
Diabo explains that other modern treaty framework preconditions include releasing Crown liability for past violations, eliminating reserves by accepting lands as private property, removing on-reserve tax exemptions, and respecting existing third-party (industry) interests.
There are currently around 100 such modern treaty negotiation tables open in Canada; the negotiations cover geographic areas where historic treaties were never signed and Indigenous title was not extinguished.
For Todd, settler anxieties surrounding UNDRIP and upholding the terms of the treaties demonstrate the fragility of Canada’s claim to sovereignty over Indigenous lands (this likewise applies to the other three states that originally voted against UNDRIP – the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand).
Security personnel in the Langevin Block, which houses the Prime Minister’s Office, watch demonstrators gathering on the morning of January 11, 2013.
“They need to keep denying Indigenous sovereignty and they have to ignore the weight of the treaties in order to keep enacting the fiction that is Canadian sovereignty over Indigenous lands.”
Deranger argues, “People deep, deep, deep in their consciousness know that these lands are Indigenous lands and they are really, really afraid that if they ever give an inch, everything will be taken back.”
The existence and prosperity of Canada is and has always been dependent on the theft of Indigenous land and resources, which requires obfuscating the spirit and intent of the original treaties, dismissing current international frameworks such as UNDRIP, and promoting a modern treaty framework that eliminates Indigenous rights. Treaty making defines Canadian-Indigenous relations and, from the perspective of the colonizers, no matter which administration is in power, treaties assert Canadian sovereign authority over Indigenous peoples and land. The AANDC documents expose the Canadian state’s view of Indigenous peoples as obstacles rather than partners.
The prosperity of Canada has always been dependent on the theft of Indigenous land and resources, which requires obfuscating the spirit and intent of the original treaties.
The AANDC documents also reveal a firmly entrenched government position that the Canadian state enjoys full ownership over Indigenous land and resources through the treaties.Unpacking some of the Liberal rhetoric reveals the government’s steadfast determination to negotiate the ceding of Indigenous land under the auspices of “nation-building.” In June 2016, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould declared to an AFN audience that nation-building would be supported in the context of the historic treaties. In light of the government’s interpretation of historic treaties, this framing portends control and exploitation of Indigenous lands and communities well into the future.
While Indigenous histories, legal traditions, and activists push back, and as treaties are publicly recognized as nation-to-nation agreements and not a ceding of Indigenous rights, colonial governments will have to contend with greater, and increasingly vigorous, resistance. Idle No More mobilized unprecedented power while revealing the nature of the government’s political position vis-a-vis its relationship with Indigenous peoples. Knowing with certainty that the government’s internal position contradicts its public declarations is valuable intel for anti-colonial movements building broad, informed resistance for the next 150 years.Why is the press remaining mostly silent about the so-called “hate crimes law” that passed in the House on April 29? The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed in a 249-175 vote (17 Republicans joined with 231 Democrats). These Democrats should have been tested on their knowledge of the First Amendment, equal protection of the laws (14th Amendment), and the prohibition of double jeopardy (no American can be prosecuted twice for the same crime or offense). If they had been, they would have known that this proposal, now headed for a Senate vote, violates all these constitutional provisions.
This bill would make it a federal crime to willfully cause bodily injury (or try to) because of the victim’s actual or perceived “race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability” - as explained on the White House Web site, signaling the president’s approval. A defendant convicted on these grounds would be charged with a “hate crime” in addition to the original crime, and would get extra prison time.
[T]he House “hate crime” bill allows defendants found innocent of that offense in a state court to be tried again in federal court because of insufficiently diligent prosecutors.
The extra punishment applies only to these “protected classes.” As Denver criminal defense lawyer Robert J Corry Jr. asked (Denver Post April 28): “Isn’t every criminal act that harms another person a ‘hate crime’?” Then, regarding a Colorado “hate crime” law, one of 45 such state laws, Corry wrote: “When a Colorado gang engaged in an initiation ritual of specifically seeking out a “white woman” to rape, the Boulder prosecutor declined to pursue ‘hate crime’ charges.” She was not enough of one of its protected classes.
Corey adds that the state “hate crime” law - like the newly expanded House of Representatives federal bill - “does not apply equally” (as the 14th Amendment requires), essentially instead “criminalizing only politically incorrect thoughts directed against politically incorrect victim categories.”
Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, think hard about what Corry adds: “A government powerful enough to pick and choose which thoughts to prosecute is a government too powerful.”
But James Madison, who initially introduced the First Amendment to the Constitution, had previously written to Thomas Jefferson on the passage of the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom: “We have in this country extinguished forever … making laws for the human mind.” No American, he emphasized later, would be punished for his “thoughts.”
However, doesn’t the House “Hate Crimes Bill” state that nothing in the legislation shall “prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition” - or speech “protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses in the First Amendment”?
Remember, however, as Kathleen Gilbert notes (LifeSiteNews.com) that “free speech advocates have pointed out that under current U.S. law, any action that ‘abets, counsels, commands (or) induces a perceived ‘hate crime’ shares in the guilt of that crime and is therefore punishable.”
But doesn’t this new bill slip in an insistence that “evidence or expression or association of the defendant may not be introduced as evidence at trail unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense”?
In the definitive constitutional analysis of James B. Jacobs and researcher Kimberly Potter (Oxford University Press 1998, still in print), it is documented in “Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics” that “In Grimm v. Churchill the arresting officer was permitted to testify that the defendant had a history of making racial remarks. Similarly, in People v. Lampkin, the prosecution presented as evidence racist statements the defendant had uttered six years before the crime for which he was on trial,” as specifically relating to the offense.
As for the 14th Amendment’s essential requirement that no person be denied “the equal protection of the laws,” there is carved above the entrance to the Supreme Court: “Equal Justice Under Law.”
This legislation, certain to be passed by the Senate, will come to the Supreme Court. I hope the Justices will look up at the carving as they go into the building.
They should also remember that the Fifth Amendment makes clear: “nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy.” But the House “hate crime” bill allows defendants found innocent of that offense in a state court to be tried again in federal court because of insufficiently diligent prosecutors; or, as Attorney General Eric Holder says, when state prosecutors claim lack of evidence. It must be tried again in federal court!
Imagine Holder as the state prosecutor in the long early stages of the Duke University Lacrosse rape case!
What also appalls me, as the new federal bill races toward a presidential signature, is that for years, and now, the American Civil Liberties Union approves “hate crimes” prosecutions!
I have long depended on the ACLU’s staff of constitutional warriors to act persistently against government abuses of our founding documents. And these attorneys and analysts have been especially valuable in exposing the results of executive-branch lunges against the separation of powers in the Bush-Cheney years, and still under Obama.
Is there no non-politically correct ACLU lawyer or other staff worker or anyone in the ACLU affiliates around the country or any dues-paying member outraged enough to demand of the ACLU’s ruling circle to at last disavow this corruption of the Constitution?
And the president, former senior lecturer in that document at the University of Chicago, should at least take it with him on Air Force One, where there are fewer necessary distractions, and familiarize himself with what the Constitution actually says.A recent enquiry on the ACCU mailing list asked which programming language would be most suitable for a beginner. The general response favoured Python. This should come as no surprise: elsewhere, Python’s benevolent dictator for life explains:
how his funky title came about, and how (somewhat to his surprise) Python has become increasingly popular for teaching and as a first language.
Hang on though! Back on the mailing list Mike Small voiced his dissent and spoke up for Perl.
… I also think the online Perl documentation blows away the online Python docs. One I can read for entertainment. The other has just the bare facts and is dull, although not as bad as the run of the mill doxygen-type tool generated, fill in the required fields docs you get for mainstream stuff like Java or.NET. Compare… http://perldoc.perl.org/perlbot.html … with … http://docs.python.org/ref/types.html (if that’s an unfair comparison someone feel free to find me an excerpt from the standard python docs that isn’t a complete snore-fest).
Well, this did surprise me, primarily because it seemed such an unusual charge. It’s hard — harder than generally acknowledged, I think — to write good documentation. In the case of a language reference manual or a standard library user guide, “good” would mean accurate, accessible and written as simply as possible. Surely entertainment value doesn’t get a look in?
What’s more, for a language up there with Perl and Python, many readers face text written by an author from a different culture and in a language which may not be their first. Irony and wit easily get mistranslated.
Most jokes in software and its documentation fall flat. If it’s hard to write clearly, it’s almost impossible to write clearly and entertainingly. Guido van Rossum may be a fan of Monty Python, but I imagine he’s happy leave the humour up to experts like Cleese et al.
Maybe.
On the other hand, even the driest reference in computer programming makes space for an amusing — and informative — limerick.
I happen to think the standard Python documentation is generally very good. I wouldn’t recommend Python as a language for learners if this wasn’t the case. But perhaps Mike Small has a point. The very best software writers can entertain and amuse as well as inform — Donald Knuth being the outstanding example. “The Art of Computer Programming” manages to be academic without being dry, a readable reference. Classics like Jon Bentley’s “Programming Pearls” and Abelson and Sussman’s “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs” also show what can be achieved. From what I’ve read of his, Larry Wall is up there too, and his wit and linguistic energy shine through Perl, even if he didn’t personally document all of it.
We mustn’t equate “entertaining” with “funny”. The Unix documentation (available at terminal near you via man or info ) is hardly a chuckle-fest, but its vigour and clarity make it a fine read. Although it never aims to amuse, sometimes its deadpan delivery makes me laugh. Here’s the BSD documentation for a handy but non-standard C string function:
Note that because strlcpy(3) is not defined in any standards, it should only be used when portability is not a concern.
Typing man gamma on a nearby Linux box generates the painfully funny story of the confusion surrounding the naming and usage of the Gamma function.
HISTORY 4.2BSD had a gamma() that computed ln(|Gamma(|x|)|), leaving the sign of Gamma(|x|) in the external integer signgam. In 4.3BSD the name was changed to lgamma(), and the man page promises “At some time in the future the name gamma will be rehabilitated and used for the Gamma function” This did indeed happen in 4.4BSD, where gamma() computes the Gamma function (with no effect on signgam). However, this came too late, and we now have tgamma(), the “true gamma” function. CONFORMING TO 4.2BSD. Compatible with previous mistakes.
In the main, though, the Unix documentation is plain, understated and accurate. It sets the standard for written software reference documentation.
Maybe this is why Mike enjoys the Perl documentation? I’ve heard Perl described as “shell on steroids”; and while the Perl documentation does have the look and feel of a man page, there’s also something a bit more pumped up and manic about it.
What about the standard Python documentation? Certainly, it aims for a friendly, informal tone. Here’s an excerpt from the tutorial introduction:
By the way, the language is named after the BBC show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and has nothing to do with nasty reptiles. Making references to Monty Python skits in documentation is not only allowed, it is encouraged!
Later, this same tutorial makes good on that promise, taking us through the subtleties of keyword arguments with reference to the famous dead parrot sketch.
Functions can also be called using keyword arguments of the form “ keyword = value ”. For instance, the following function: def parrot(voltage, state='a stiff', action='voom', type='Norwegian Blue'): print "-- This parrot wouldn't", action, print "if you put", voltage, "volts through it." print "-- Lovely plumage, the", type print "-- It's", state, "!" could be called in any of the following ways: parrot(1000) parrot(action = 'VOOOOOM', voltage = 1000000) parrot('a thousand', state = 'pushing up the daisies') parrot('a million', 'bereft of life', 'jump')
Well, I guess it beats the weary employee database examples found in so many programming texts. Sadly, though, the parrot sketch has been repeated too often, and in this case the “snore-fest” epithet sticks.
Mike talks explicitly about “online documentation”, and these days online (for programmers, at least) implies:
a decent browser
plenty of pixels
a high bandwidth connection
javascript
excellent graphics
a means to collaborate and contribute
These factors, in combination, enable some novel possibilities for documentation. Hyperlinks provide basic navigation; mix in folding documentation and search facilities, and readers quickly find what they’re looking for. There’s ample space for examples and comments, for contributions, for diagrams, for audio and video content. Why bother reading how to create a graphical user interface using wxPython, for example, when you can effectively look over someone’s shoulder while they walk through its features?
I said earlier that the Unix documentation set the standard for written documentation. If you’re reading at a terminal 40 rows deep and 72 columns wide, with limited font rendering and graphical capabilities, you couldn’t do better. If you have a larger screen and more than one monitor, maybe you can.
Returning to Mike Small’s challenge:
… someone feel free to find me an excerpt from the standard python docs that isn’t a complete snore-fest.
I can see where he’s coming from, but I disagree. In my opinion the Python documentation is well-organised, accessible and accurate. The documentation for some modules may be rather thin, but that’s the strongest criticism I would make. I do struggle to single out an entertaining excerpt, though: the documentation aims to inform, and at that it does well.
If you’re prepared to venture away from docs.python.org, you’ll find the Python community is served by some talented and entertaining writers. I’ve mentioned the Python Cookbook before: the entire text can now be found online, but I recommend getting hold of hard-copy so you can sit down and read it from cover to cover — definite armchair material. Many programmers contributed recipes to the book but it’s pulled together by some skillful editing and by the fine essays which introduce each chapter.
Tim Peters introduces the chapter on Searching and Sorting and if you scratch at Python a little harder you’ll find plenty more written by him. Here are his notes on Python’s hybrid sort algorithm. Here’s the implementation. Enjoy!A Solution to: Crypto Currency Reserves are Centralizing and are at Risk Daniel Dabek Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 13, 2017 This discussion was sparked by a recent post in the Safe Exchange forum when a user had inquired how they could store their Safe Exchange Coins (SAFEX) offline. The following text regards something that many long time users of crypto currency already know about. And if you are reading this and don’t know about the centralization of crypto currencies in exchanges then read on. Today more and more crypto currencies are shoring up in the wallets of centrally operated exchanges. This is a huge issue that is not being addressed and it is about time to read on and understand why you should not actively store your crypto currencies in the coffers of exchanges beyond the duration of your exchanging needs. This is by no means an article against the services of centralized exchanges. This is an article to raise awareness of users so that they can minimize their risk to loss while using the good services of centralized providers. Why is this a problem you may ask? What for is the point of presenting these data? Let’s pursue the point further. Over time the crypto currency realm has been a witness to many instances of violence acted upon the cryptos through centrally operated services. Hackers and Outright theft plague a great deal of activity in the crypto realm, amounts of many magnitudes have been lost and tainted due to hacks, negligence, and fraud. Here are just some of the examples highlighting the problems of centralized exchanges and some of the risks associated with them when storing long term:
Users of the Kraken Bitcoin/Altcoin exchange risked losing funds because their accounts were compromised. However, there is a claim that because their 2 Factor Authentication was not enabled thus the accounts were able to be hacked. However, this does not save you because vulnerabilities in 2FA also do exist:
In a further example a now defunct Altcoin exchange was hacked and they had lost users funds of VeriCoin at the time VeriCoin’s marketcap was $6 million dollars. Just a few months later, MintPal customers were outright robbed by the exchange operators:
In the Summer of 2016 an amazing hacking took place where Bitfinex.com had lost 119,756 Bitcoins in a single hack. The $value today is $149,207,593.08. The follow up to this was the users had to face a loss of deposit across the entire exchange. And in return people were given a proxy token in hopes of repaying customers.
A smaller sum was lost here, yet the article submission site similar to reddit with a built in rewards distribution system was hacked and the reason was that the web server was compromised.
And yes even Poloniex.com was hacked directly at its Hot wallet where it had lost Bitcoins. Nobly the exchange only lost a smaller amount of coins and it was able to repay everyone in a fairly quick time frame. Such a hack if repeated would not be so simple like in the case of Bitfinex.PALO ALTO — Minimum wage workers can look forward to a pay raise come Jan. 1, after the City Council approved a wage hike Monday for the first time in the city’s history.
City leaders also expect the Policy and Services Committee to spend the coming months studying possible exceptions to minimum wage requirements after hearing from local restaurant owners about how the policy could hurt employees who do not get tips.
The council unanimously set the city’s minimum wage at $11 per hour, agreeing to exceed the state threshold because of Palo Alto’s high cost of living.
The state minimum wage is $9 per hour and will go up to $10 per hour on Jan. 1.
The council did not commit to a future $15 per hour minimum wage by 2018 but identified that as a goal needing further study.
Councilman Marc Berman and others on the council said it is important for Palo Alto to be on the same page as other Peninsula cities, but there is no need to rush the process.
“I think we all want to end up in the same place … but we shouldn’t all rush to be in the same place,” Berman said. “We didn’t all start in the same place at the same time.” The city plans to align its minimum wage by 2018 with cities such as Mountain View and Sunnyvale, which set wages at $10.30 per hour last year with annual adjustments for inflation.
Paul George, director of the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, said a regional approach toward increasing the minimum wage is one way to protect businesses and ensure that not just one city bears the brunt of being a “guinea pig.”
Members of the center sat in the audience with yellow signs that promoted a $15 minimum wage by 2018 “everywhere.”
“It’s part of our overall priority to address economic inequality,” George said. “No one wants to hurt the employers but we want to help the employees.”
The council also heard personal stories from residents about how earning a minimum wage affects their lives.
Carol Lamont said that when she first moved to Palo Alto, she worked multiple jobs in day care, as a waitress and cleaning houses, to survive.
“Often we didn’t have electricity. Often I had to hitchhike or walk. We were homeless and hungry,” Lamont said. “It’s not right. We need to do better for ourselves and the people who work for us. We need to pay a $15 an hour minimum now. Why not $20 an hour? Let’s be realistic.”
East Palo Alto Councilman Larry Moody said the Palo Alto council’s leadership in raising the minimum wage should be celebrated.
Moody said many residents of his city work minimum wage jobs in Palo Alto and just want the opportunity to hope, to have the chance to raise children where there is access to good schools and quality of life.
“Many of them are at work right now, servicing your customers and helping in areas that help build the economy here in Palo Alto,” Moody said to those gathered for the evening council meeting. “We welcome and thank you for the opportunity to work so closely by … will they have the opportunity to continue to be your neighbors two to three years from now?”
Restaurant owners who attended the meeting said they want their workers to live well too. But these owner-operators believe local standards do little to actually improve the quality of life for minimum wage workers and instead hurt businesses.
Nancy Coupal, of Coupa Café, said the majority of workers in Palo Alto already earn more than the $11 the city approved for 2016.
To stay competitive with surrounding cities, Coupal pays her employees more than minimum wage. She said she believes there are more benefits to letting the market determine wages.
With the wage increase, businesses will have to pay higher employer and workers’ compensation taxes, and bump up pay for workers up the chain of command, Coupal said. And higher labor costs will result in higher prices of goods for consumers.
Michael Ekwall, of La Bodeguita del Medio, a full-service restaurant, asked the council to consider a total compensation approach, which he believes would more fairly impact workers who earn tips and those who do not.
Ekwall has 40 employees, 15 who make minimum wage.
With tips, the lowest minimum wage worker earns $23 per hour and the highest earns $50 per hour — giving them a higher wage than non-minimum wage workers.
Raising the minimum wage only bumps the pay for these 15 workers and not the others, Ekwall said.
“It’s a dysfunction of the system; They have to pay taxes on tips, so why doesn’t it count as income?” Ekwall said. “The more money we have to pay our minimum wagers, the less money we have to give staff who don’t get tips.”
Palo Alto’s ordinance is similar to one adopted last week by the city of Santa Clara, which increased its local wage to $11.
Mountain View and Sunnyvale have asked Palo Alto to commit to a shared phasing schedule that targets a minimum wage of $12 by July 2016, $13.50 by July 2017 and $15 by July 2018.
The Cities Association of Santa Clara County wants the 15 cities in the county to be consistent in their approach, stating that a lack of consistency would create unnecessary confusion for residents and competitiveness among cities and businesses.
Email Jacqueline Lee at jlee1@dailynewsgroup.com or call her at 650-391-1334; follow her at twitter.com/jleenews.By Luis A. Fernandez, co-author of Shutting Down the Streets: Political Violence and Social Control in the Global Era
Recently we saw police react to the Occupy Movement in several, seemingly contradictory, ways. For instance, the Mayor of Albany ordered the police to physically remove protesters occupying Academy Park for violating the 11 p.m. park curfew. However, the police defied orders and refused to arrest occupiers, stating that protesters were not “causing trouble.” According to the Albany Times Union, they added that it was best to leave policing to them, since “the bottom line is the police know policing.” In sharp contrast, the Mayor of Oakland, California, ordered their police to clear Occupy Oakland, resulting in several days of brutal law enforcement that ended in a serious head injury to Scott Olsen, a protestor and military veteran. Why did the police act differently in these two cases?
One possible answer is that Albany Police defied orders out of conscience, feeling solidarity with protesters. Or, perhaps Oakland Police are inherently brutal and unable to calibrate an appropriate response. However, neither of these is correct. Rather, the police in both Albany and Oakland “know policing” equally well, but are implementing strategies based on different racial and economic context. That is, they are following strategies to maintain order in specific circumstances, each requiring different tactics. To understand these seemingly contradictory police reactions, we must keep in mind a) the role of police in society and b) the social/racial context.
Generally, the role of police is to maintain the existing social order. In contrast, the role of mass mobilizations is to disrupt the social order. In the case of the Occupy Movement, then, the role of protesters is to take over public space to highlight economic inequalities. In turn, the police function to minimize the disruption so that “order” continues. These are opposing forces that can lead to strong clashes like in Oakland. However, they can also lead to police tolerance of unthreatening demonstrations. As we argue in our book, Shutting Down the Streets, law enforcement adopt policing tactic (i.e., containment, isolation, preemptive arrests, etc.) to either minimize the impact of the disruption or to suppress the threat of future and larger demonstrations.
The racial context also matters in explain why police select one tactic over another. For example, 65% of the population in Oakland is people of color, while Albany has the inverse with 63% of the population identifying as white. Taking into consideration that unemployment in Latino and African American communities is approximately 40%, then we can see why Oakland has a much higher potential for generalized disruption. That is, the occupy movement could go from the parks to the neighborhoods to the entire city in a way that is more explosive than is the case in Albany. We know from research that police are friendlier to crowds they deem non-threatening, which can include whites, perhaps older, middle class formations.
As we look to the future, what will determine if police will be more or less aggressive will have everything to do with the make up and location of the specific occupation. The more “threatening” the group to police, the more repressive the response.Euless Trinity’s Mack Beggs, left, wrestles Grand Prairie’s Kailyn Clay during the finals of the UIL Region 2-6A wrestling tournament at Allen High School in Allen, Tex., on Feb. 18,. (Nathan Hunsinger/Dallas Morning News via AP)
On Friday, Mack Beggs, an undefeated high school wrestler from Texas, will compete at the girls’ state tournament in suburban Houston.
But unlike the rest of the teen’s female competitors, Beggs, 17, is a boy.
For more than a year, the teen, who was born a girl, has been transitioning from female to male with the help of testosterone therapy.
Beggs’s participation — and dominance — in the girls’ league has spurred consternation among some in the Dallas region, including a lawsuit filed by an unhappy parent, who argued that if Beggs identifies as a boy he should have to wrestle other boys.
And Beggs would, his family told the Dallas Morning News, if he could, but the rules won’t allow it.
That’s because last year, some 95 percent of Texas superintendents voted in favor of an amendment to the constitution of the University Interscholastic League, the state’s governing body for public school athletics, that requires student athletes to compete as the gender listed on their birth certificate, the Dallas Morning News reported at the time.
When the referendum ballot was approved (586-32, with 2 non-responses), critics called it “horrible policy” that would discriminate against transgender athletes who were unable to afford the complicated maneuvering that goes into legally changing one’s birth certificate through the state.
Now, as word of Beggs’s case has gained increased publicity, experts say the policy’s likely intention — to keep transgender female athletes transitioning from male to female from having a hormonal leg up on competitors — is backfiring.
Some of Beggs’s female competitors forfeited their matches in the regional meet, reported the Associated Press, out of apparent fear of injury because the 17-year-old is taking testosterone that could create a physical disadvantage.
That was the main argument laid out in a lawsuit filed in early February against the UIL by Jim Baudhuin, a local attorney and wrestling parent at a competing high school who sought to have Beggs barred from competing against girls at the state tournament and against other boys as long as he is taking testosterone, reported the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
But Texas Education Code and UIL rules allow the use of steroids if “dispensed, prescribed, delivered and administered by a medical practitioner for a valid medical purpose,” reported the AP. Nancy Beggs, the teen’s grandmother and legal guardian, has said that the UIL reviewed Mack Beggs’s medical records and approved him for competition before the last two seasons.
After two wrestlers forfeited their matches at the regional competition last weekend, Nancy Beggs told the Morning News those actions were about “bias, hatred and ignorance,” and that her grandson and at least one of the other wrestlers “know each other and they are not happy about this.”
Beggs wrestles in the 110 pound class, where his record is 52-0.
It was the parents and coaches, Mack Beggs wrote on social media, that were making waves, not the students.
“The thing is, we want to wrestle each other. I feel so sick and disgusted by the discrimination not by the kids, the PARENTS AND COACHES,” the teen wrote on Facebook. “These kids don’t care who you put in front of them to wrestle. We just want to WRESTLE. THEY are taking that away from me and from the people I’m competing with.”
Since then, Baudhuin (whose daughter is friends with Beggs, wrestles in a different weight class and disapproved of his lawsuit) has altered his position on the conflict.
He told the AP that he is amending his lawsuit to ask the UIL to make its gender policies mirror that of the NCAA, which allows athletes transitioning |
__. __name__ [ _____ : ________ ] )( _, ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( lambda _, __, ___ : chr ( ___ % __ ) + _ ( _, __, ___ // __ ) if ___ else ( lambda : _ ). func_code. co_lnotab, _ << ________, ((( _____ << ____ ) + _ ) << (( ___ << _____ ) - ___ )) + ((((( ___ << __ ) - _ ) << ___ ) + _ ) << (( _____ << ____ ) + ( _ << _ ))) + ((( _______ << __ ) - _ ) << ((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << ___ ) + ( _ << _ ))) + ((( _______ << ___ ) + _ ) << (( _ << ______ ) + _ )) + ((( _______ << ____ ) - _ ) << (( _______ << ___ ))) + ((( _ << ____ ) - _ ) << (((( ___ << __ ) + _ ) << __ ) - _ )) - ( _______ << (((( ___ << __ ) - _ ) << __ ) + _ )) + ( _______ << ((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << __ ))) - (((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << __ ) + _ ) << (((( ___ << __ ) + _ ) << _ ))) + ((( _______ << __ ) - _ ) << ((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << _ ))) + ((( ___ << ___ ) + _ ) << (( _____ << _ ))) + ( _____ << ______ ) + ( _ << ___ ) ) ) )( * ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( ( lambda _, __, ___ : [ __ ( ___ [( lambda : _ ). func_code. co_nlocals ])] + _ ( _, __, ___ [( lambda _ : _ ). func_code. co_nlocals :]) if ___ else [] ), lambda _ : _. func_code. co_argcount, ( lambda _ : _, lambda _, __ : _, lambda _, __, ___ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______, ________ : _ ) ) )
String literals weren’t allowed, but I set some other restrictions for fun: it had to be a single expression (so no print statement) with minimal builtin usage and no integer literals.
Getting started
Since we can’t use print, we can write to the stdout file object:
import sys sys. stdout. write ( "Hello world!
" )
But let’s use something lower-level: os.write(). We need stdout ’s file descriptor, which is 1 (you can check with print sys.stdout.fileno() ).
import os os. write ( 1, "Hello world!
" )
We want a single expression, so we’ll use __import__() :
__import__ ( "os" ). write ( 1, "Hello world!
" )
We also want to be able to obfuscate the write(), so we’ll throw in a getattr() :
getattr ( __import__ ( "os" ), "write" )( 1, "Hello world!
" )
This is the starting point. Everything from now on will be obfuscating the three strings and the int.
Stringing together strings
"os" and "write" are fairly simple, so we’ll create them by joining parts of the names of various built-in classes. There are many different ways to do this, but I chose the following:
"o" from the second letter of bool : True.__class__.__name__[1]
from the second letter of : "s" from the third letter of list : [].__class__.__name__[2]
from the third letter of : "wr" from the first two letters of wrapper_descriptor, an implementation detail in CPython found as the type of some builtin classes’ methods (more on that here): ().__class__.__eq__.__class__.__name__[:2]
from the first two letters of, an implementation detail in CPython found as the type of some builtin classes’ methods (more on that here): "ite" from the sixth through eighth letters of tupleiterator, the type of object returned by calling iter() on a tuple: ().__iter__().__class__.__name__[5:8]
We’re starting to make some progress!
1 2 3 4 5 getattr ( __import__ ( True. __class__. __name__ [ 1 ] + []. __class__. __name__ [ 2 ]), (). __class__. __eq__. __class__. __name__ [: 2 ] + (). __iter__ (). __class__. __name__ [ 5 : 8 ] )( 1, "Hello world!
" )
"Hello world!
" is more complicated. We’re going to encode it as a big integer, which will be formed of the ASCII code of each character multiplied by 256 to the power of the character’s index in the string. In other words, the following sum:
$$\sum_{n=0}^{L-1} c_n(256^n)$$
where \(L\) is the length of the string and \(c_n\) is the ASCII code of the \(n\)th character in the string. To create the number:
>>> codes = [ord(c) for c in "Hello world!
"] >>> num = sum(codes[i] * 256 ** i for i in xrange(len(codes))) >>> print num 802616035175250124568770929992
Now we need the code to convert this number back into a string. We use a simple recursive algorithm:
>>> def convert(num):... if num:... return chr(num % 256) + convert(num // 256)... else:... return ""... >>> convert(802616035175250124568770929992) 'Hello world!
'
Rewriting in one line with lambda :
convert = lambda num : chr ( num % 256 ) + convert ( num // 256 ) if num else ""
Now we use anonymous recursion to turn this into a single expression. This requires a combinator. Start with this:
>>> comb = lambda f, n: f(f, n) >>> convert = lambda f, n: chr(n % 256) + f(f, n // 256) if n else "" >>> comb(convert, 802616035175250124568770929992) 'Hello world!
'
Now we just substitute the two definitions into the expression, and we have our function:
>>> (lambda f, n: f(f, n))(... lambda f, n: chr(n % 256) + f(f, n // 256) if n else "",... 802616035175250124568770929992) 'Hello world!
'
Now we can stick this into our code from before, replacing some variable names along the way ( f → _, n → __ ):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 getattr ( __import__ ( True. __class__. __name__ [ 1 ] + []. __class__. __name__ [ 2 ]), (). __class__. __eq__. __class__. __name__ [: 2 ] + (). __iter__ (). __class__. __name__ [ 5 : 8 ] )( 1, ( lambda _, __ : _ ( _, __ ))( lambda _, __ : chr ( __ % 256 ) + _ ( _, __ // 256 ) if __ else "", 802616035175250124568770929992 ) )
Function internals
We’re left with a "" in the body of our convert function (remember: no string literals!), and a large number that we’ll have to hide somehow. Let’s start with the empty string. We can make one on the fly by examining the internals of some random function:
>>> (lambda: 0).func_code.co_lnotab ''
What we’re really doing here is looking at the line number table of the code object contained within the function. Since it’s anonymous, there are no line numbers, so the string is empty. Replace the 0 with _ to make it more confusing (it doesn’t matter, since the function’s not being called), and stick it in. We’ll also refactor out the 256 into an argument that gets passed to our obfuscated convert() along with the number. This requires adding an argument to the combinator:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 getattr ( __import__ ( True. __class__. __name__ [ 1 ] + []. __class__. __name__ [ 2 ]), (). __class__. __eq__. __class__. __name__ [: 2 ] + (). __iter__ (). __class__. __name__ [ 5 : 8 ] )( 1, ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( lambda _, __, ___ : chr ( ___ % __ ) + _ ( _, __, ___ // __ ) if ___ else ( lambda : _ ). func_code. co_lnotab, 256, 802616035175250124568770929992 ) )
A detour
Let’s tackle a different problem for a bit. We want a way to obfuscate the numbers in our code, but it’ll be cumbersome (and not particularly interesting) to recreate them each time they’re used. If we can implement, say, range(1, 9) == [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8], then we can wrap our current work in a function that takes variables containing the numbers from 1 to 8, and replace occurrences of integer literals in the body with these variables:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ( lambda n1, n2, n3, n4, n5, n6, n7, n8 : getattr ( __import__ ( True. __class__. __name__ [ n1 ] + []. __class__. __name__ [ n2 ]),... )(... ) )( * range ( 1, 9 ))
Even though we need to form 256 and 802616035175250124568770929992 as well, these can be created using arithmetic operations on these eight “fundamental” numbers. The choice of 1–8 is arbitrary, but seems to be a good middle ground.
We can get the number of arguments a function takes via its code object:
>>> (lambda a, b, c: 0).func_code.co_argcount 3
Build a tuple of functions with argcounts between 1 and 8:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 funcs = ( lambda _ : _, lambda _, __ : _, lambda _, __, ___ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______, ________ : _ )
Using a recursive algorithm, we can turn this into the output of range(1, 9) :
>>> def convert(L):... if L:... return [L[0].func_code.co_argcount] + convert(L[1:])... else:... return []... >>> convert(funcs) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
As before, we convert this into lambda form:
convert = lambda L : [ L [ 0 ]. func_code. co_argcount ] + convert ( L [ 1 :]) if L else []
Then, into anonymous-recursive form:
>>> (lambda f, L: f(f, L))(... lambda f, L: [L[0].func_code.co_argcount] + f(f, L[1:]) if L else [],... funcs) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
For fun, we’ll factor out the argcount operation into an additional function argument, and obfuscate some variable names:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( ( lambda _, __, ___ : [ __ ( ___ [ 0 ])] + _ ( _, __, ___ [ 1 :]) if ___ else [] ), lambda _ : _. func_code. co_argcount, funcs )
There’s a new problem now: we still need a way to hide 0 and 1. We can get these by examining the number of local variables within arbitrary functions:
>>> (lambda: _).func_code.co_nlocals 0 >>> (lambda _: _).func_code.co_nlocals 1
Even though the function bodies look the same, _ in the first function is not an argument, nor is it defined in the function, so Python interprets it as a global variable:
>>> import dis >>> dis.dis(lambda: _) 1 0 LOAD_GLOBAL 0 (_) 3 RETURN_VALUE >>> dis.dis(lambda _: _) 1 0 LOAD_FAST 0 (_) 3 RETURN_VALUE
This happens regardless of whether _ is actually defined in the global scope.
Putting this into practice:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( ( lambda _, __, ___ : [ __ ( ___ [( lambda : _ ). func_code. co_nlocals ])] + _ ( _, __, ___ [( lambda _ : _ ). func_code. co_nlocals :]) if ___ else [] ), lambda _ : _. func_code. co_argcount, funcs )
Now we can substitute the value of funcs in, and then using * to pass the resulting list of integers as eight separate variables, we get this:
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 ( lambda n1, n2, n3, n4, n5, n6, n7, n8 : getattr ( __import__ ( True. __class__. __name__ [ n1 ] + []. __class__. __name__ [ n2 ]), (). __class__. __eq__. __class__. __name__ [: n2 ] + (). __iter__ (). __class__. __name__ [ n5 : n8 ] )( n1, ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( lambda _, __, ___ : chr ( ___ % __ ) + _ ( _, __, ___ // __ ) if ___ else ( lambda : _ ). func_code. co_lnotab, 256, 802616035175250124568770929992 ) ) )( * ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( ( lambda _, __, ___ : [ __ ( ___ [( lambda : _ ). func_code. co_nlocals ])] + _ ( _, __, ___ [( lambda _ : _ ). func_code. co_nlocals :]) if ___ else [] ), lambda _ : _. func_code. co_argcount, ( lambda _ : _, lambda _, __ : _, lambda _, __, ___ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______, ________ : _ ) ) )
Shifting bits
Almost there! We’ll replace the n{1..8} variables with _, __, ___, ____, etc., since it creates confusion with the variables used in our inner functions. This doesn’t cause actual problems, since scoping rules mean the right ones will be used. This is also one of the reasons why we refactored 256 out to where _ refers to 1 instead of our obfuscated convert() function. It’s getting long, so I’ll paste only the first half:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ( lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______, ________ : getattr ( __import__ ( True. __class__. __name__ [ _ ] + []. __class__. __name__ [ __ ]), (). __class__. __eq__. __class__. __name__ [: __ ] + (). __iter__ (). __class__. __name__ [ _____ : ________ ] )( _, ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( lambda _, __, ___ : chr ( ___ % __ ) + _ ( _, __, ___ // __ ) if ___ else ( lambda : _ ). func_code. co_lnotab, 256, 802616035175250124568770929992 ) ) )
Only two more things are left. We’ll start with the easy one: 256. \(256 = 2^8\), so we can rewrite it as 1 << 8 (using a left bit shift), or _ << ________ with our obfuscated variables.
We’ll use the same idea with 802616035175250124568770929992. A simple divide-and-conquer algorithm can break it up into sums of numbers which are themselves sums of numbers that are shifted together, and so on. For example, if we had 112, we could break it up into 96 + 16 and then (3 << 5) + (2 << 3). I like using bit shifts because the << reminds me of std::cout << "foo" in C++, or print chevron ( print >> ) in Python, both of which are red herrings involving other ways of doing I/O.
The number can be decomposed in a variety of ways; no one method is correct (after all, we could just break it up into (1 << 0) + (1 << 0) +..., but that’s not interesting). We should have some substantial amount of nesting, but still use most of our numerical variables. Obviously, doing this by hand isn’t fun, so we’ll come up with an algorithm. In pseudocode:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 func encode(num): if num <= 8: return "_" * num else: return "(" + convert(num) + ")" func convert(num): base = shift = 0 diff = num span =... for test_base in range(span): for test_shift in range(span): test_diff = |num| - (test_base << test_shift) if |test_diff| < |diff|: diff = test_diff base = test_base shift = test_shift encoded = "(" + encode(base) + " << " + encode(shift) + ")" if diff == 0: return encoded else: return encoded + " + " + convert(diff) convert(802616035175250124568770929992)
The basic idea here is that we test various combinations of numbers in a certain range until we come up with two numbers, base and shift, such that base << shift is as closest to num as possible (i.e. we minimize their absolute difference, diff ). We then use our divide-and-conquer algorithm to break up best_base and best_shift, and then repeat the procedure on diff until it reaches zero, summing the terms along the way.
The argument to range(), span, represents the width of the search space. This can’t be too large, or we’ll end getting num as our base and 0 as our shift (because diff is zero), and since base can’t be represented as a single variable, it’ll repeat, recursing infinitely. If it’s too small, we’ll end up with something like the (1 << 0) + (1 << 0) +... mentioned above. In practice, we want span to get smaller as the recursion depth increases. Through trial and error, I found this equation to work well:
$$\mathit{span} = \lceil\log_{1.5} \lvert{\mathit{num}}\lvert\rceil + \lfloor2^{4-\mathit{depth}}\rfloor$$
Translating the pseudocode into Python and making some tweaks (support for the depth argument, and some caveats involving negative numbers), we get this:
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 from math import ceil, log def encode ( num, depth ): if num == 0 : return "_ - _" if num <= 8 : return "_" * num return "(" + convert ( num, depth + 1 ) + ")" def convert ( num, depth = 0 ): result = "" while num : base = shift = 0 diff = num span = int ( ceil ( log ( abs ( num ), 1.5 ))) + ( 16 >> depth ) for test_base in xrange ( span ): for test_shift in xrange ( span ): test_diff = abs ( num ) - ( test_base << test_shift ) if abs ( test_diff ) < abs ( diff ): diff = test_diff base = test_base shift = test_shift if result : result += " + " if num > 0 else " - " elif num < 0 : base = - base if shift == 0 : result += encode ( base, depth ) else : result += "( % s << % s)" % ( encode ( base, depth ), encode ( shift, depth )) num = diff if num > 0 else - diff return result
Now, when we call convert(802616035175250124568770929992), we get a nice decomposition:
>>> convert(802616035175250124568770929992) (((_____ << ____) + _) << ((___ << _____) - ___)) + (((((___ << __) - _) << ___) + _) << ((_____ << ____) + (_ << _))) + (((_______ << __) - _) << (((((_ << ___) + _)) << ___) + (_ << _))) + (((_______ << ___) + _) << ((_ << ______) + _)) + (((_______ << ____) - _) << ((_______ << ___))) + (((_ << ____) - _) << ((((___ << __) + _) << __) - _)) - (_______ << ((((___ << __) - _) << __) + _)) + (_______ << (((((_ << ___) + _)) << __))) - ((((((_ << ___) + _)) << __) + _) << ((((___ << __) + _) << _))) + (((_______ << __) - _) << (((((_ << ___) + _)) << _))) + (((___ << ___) + _) << ((_____ << _))) + (_____ << ______) + (_ << ___)
Stick this in as a replacement for 802616035175250124568770929992, and put all the parts together:
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 42 ( lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______, ________ : getattr ( __import__ ( True. __class__. __name__ [ _ ] + []. __class__. __name__ [ __ ]), (). __class__. __eq__. __class__. __name__ [: __ ] + (). __iter__ (). __class__. __name__ [ _____ : ________ ] )( _, ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( lambda _, __, ___ : chr ( ___ % __ ) + _ ( _, __, ___ // __ ) if ___ else ( lambda : _ ). func_code. co_lnotab, _ << ________, ((( _____ << ____ ) + _ ) << (( ___ << _____ ) - ___ )) + ((((( ___ << __ ) - _ ) << ___ ) + _ ) << (( _____ << ____ ) + ( _ << _ ))) + ((( _______ << __ ) - _ ) << ((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << ___ ) + ( _ << _ ))) + ((( _______ << ___ ) + _ ) << (( _ << ______ ) + _ )) + ((( _______ << ____ ) - _ ) << (( _______ << ___ ))) + ((( _ << ____ ) - _ ) << (((( ___ << __ ) + _ ) << __ ) - _ )) - ( _______ << (((( ___ << __ ) - _ ) << __ ) + _ )) + ( _______ << ((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << __ ))) - (((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << __ ) + _ ) << (((( ___ << __ ) + _ ) << _ ))) + ((( _______ << __ ) - _ ) << ((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << _ ))) + ((( ___ << ___ ) + _ ) << (( _____ << _ ))) + ( _____ << ______ ) + ( _ << ___ ) ) ) )( * ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( ( lambda _, __, ___ : [ __ ( ___ [( lambda : _ ). func_code. co_nlocals ])] + _ ( _, __, ___ [( lambda _ : _ ). func_code. co_nlocals :]) if ___ else [] ), lambda _ : _. func_code. co_argcount, ( lambda _ : _, lambda _, __ : _, lambda _, __, ___ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______, ________ : _ ) ) )
And there you have it.
Addendum: Python 3 support
Since writing this post, several people have asked about Python 3 support. I didn’t think of it at the time, but as Python 3 continues to gain traction (and thank you for that!), this post is clearly long overdue for an update.
Fortunately, Python 3 (as of writing, 3.6) doesn’t require us to change much:
The func_code function object attribute has been renamed to __code__. Easy fix with a find-and-replace.
function object attribute has been renamed to. Easy fix with a find-and-replace. The tupleiterator type name has been changed to tuple_iterator. Since we use this to extract the substring "ite", we can get around this by changing our indexing in ().__iter__().__class__.__name__ from [_____:________] to [_:][_____:________].
type name has been changed to. Since we use this to extract the substring, we can get around this by changing our indexing in from to. os.write() requires bytes now instead of a str, so chr(...) needs to be changed to bytes([...]).
Here is the full Python 3 version:
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 42 ( lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______, ________ : getattr ( __import__ ( True. __class__. __name__ [ _ ] + []. __class__. __name__ [ __ ]), (). __class__. __eq__. __class__. __name__ [: __ ] + (). __iter__ (). __class__. __name__ [ _ :][ _____ : ________ ] )( _, ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( lambda _, __, ___ : bytes ([ ___ % __ ]) + _ ( _, __, ___ // __ ) if ___ else ( lambda : _ ). __code__. co_lnotab, _ << ________, ((( _____ << ____ ) + _ ) << (( ___ << _____ ) - ___ )) + ((((( ___ << __ ) - _ ) << ___ ) + _ ) << (( _____ << ____ ) + ( _ << _ ))) + ((( _______ << __ ) - _ ) << ((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << ___ ) + ( _ << _ ))) + ((( _______ << ___ ) + _ ) << (( _ << ______ ) + _ )) + ((( _______ << ____ ) - _ ) << (( _______ << ___ ))) + ((( _ << ____ ) - _ ) << (((( ___ << __ ) + _ ) << __ ) - _ )) - ( _______ << (((( ___ << __ ) - _ ) << __ ) + _ )) + ( _______ << ((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << __ ))) - (((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << __ ) + _ ) << (((( ___ << __ ) + _ ) << _ ))) + ((( _______ << __ ) - _ ) << ((((( _ << ___ ) + _ )) << _ ))) + ((( ___ << ___ ) + _ ) << (( _____ << _ ))) + ( _____ << ______ ) + ( _ << ___ ) ) ) )( * ( lambda _, __, ___ : _ ( _, __, ___ ))( ( lambda _, __, ___ : [ __ ( ___ [( lambda : _ ). __code__. co_nlocals ])] + _ ( _, __, ___ [( lambda _ : _ ). __code__. co_nlocals :]) if ___ else [] ), lambda _ : _. __code__. co_argcount, ( lambda _ : _, lambda _, __ : _, lambda _, __, ___ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______ : _, lambda _, __, ___, ____, _____, ______, _______, ________ : _ ) ) )
Thank you for reading! I continue to be amazed by this post’s popularity.You don’t find many designers thinking about creative ways for you to leave this world in an eco-friendly way. But in reality biodegradable urns represent a growing segment in the cremation urn industry where environmentally friendly urns are in demand. Spanish designer Martin Azua has combined the romantic notion of life after death with an Eco solution to the dirty business of the actual, you know, transition.
His Bios Urn is a biodegradable urn made from coconut shell, compacted peat and cellulose and inside it contains the seed of a tree. Once your remains have been placed into the urn, it can be planted and then the seed germinates and begins to grow. You even have the choice to pick the type of plant you would like to become, depending on what kind of planting space you prefer.
So, would you rather leave a tomb stone behind or a tree?Texas state Rep. Matt Rinaldi proclaimed he was calling Immigrations and Customs Enforcement on people who had showed up to the state capitol to peacefully protest Texas's anti-immigrant show-your-papers law.
On Monday, a massive protest of immigrant activists, civil rights, and labor unions at the Texas state capitol in Austin made national news after a fight broke out between state Rep. Matt Rinaldi (R-Irving) and his colleagues, during which Rinaldi threatened to shoot a Democratic lawmaker.
While Rinaldi’s threat was horrifying, the context of the fight makes it even worse. The argument was precipitated by Rinaldi’s announcement he had called ICE on the protestors — a brazen attempt to suppress their right to peaceful assembly.
For years, Republicans have tried to eliminate the rights of immigrants. They stood in the way of legislation to allow young people brought here as children to apply for citizenship. They have attacked so-called “sanctuary cities” that require federal agents to have a warrant for immigrants in their custody. They have even played with the idea of stripping the U.S.-born children of immigrants of birthright citizenship.
Texas is at the forefront of this battle. The reason activists gathered at the capitol in the first place was to protest Senate Bill 4, a “show-your-papers” law just signed by Gov. Greg Abbott. The law gives local police broad powers to ask suspects their immigration status. It also makes it an imprisonable offense for sheriffs to restrict cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, even if ICE asks them to use their own resources or violate civil liberties.
This low-grade campaign of legalized terror, combined with sweeping ICE raids under Donald Trump, have made some immigrant families in some parts of the country terrified to venture out in public. Even people with green cards are scared of deportation.
And in some households, people here legally are refusing to apply for food stamps because they fear ICE will follow the paper trail to relatives who might not have legal status. Even before Trump was elected, President Barack Obama felt he had to assure Hispanic citizens that if they register to vote, the government will not use that info to go after their noncitizen relatives.
By announcing he was calling ICE on protestors, Rinaldi sent a clear message, not only to undocumented immigrants but to all brown-skinned Texans who might “look illegal.” He was saying: do not protest us, or we will try to have you arrested and deported.
The fact that Texas is stripping the civil liberties of Hispanic people is horrible enough. That lawmakers now feel emboldened to deny freedom of speech and petition for those who disagree makes it infinitely worse.Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Actress Joanna Lumley is leading a host of celebrities and MPs in demanding a Brexit ban on foie gras.
Production of the delicacy, made from the livers of ducks and geese which have been cruelly force-fed, is illegal in Britain.
But Brussels rules mean it can still be imported and served in upmarket gastropubs and restaurants, and sold in some of the most expensive grocery stores in the land.
About 200 tonnes comes in from mainland Europe every year - and campaigners want the UK’s withdrawal from the EU to mark an end to the food being sold in Britain.
Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna said: “Foie gras production was banned in the UK because it is so cruel.
(Image: Getty Images Europe)
“Why then do we still import tonnes of it every year? This must be banned as soon as possible following our exit from the EU.”
Demanding the UK go “foie gras free”, Downton Abbey’s Peter Egan highlighted the cruel method used to pump up the birds’ livers before they are slaughtered.
“The cruel and horrible way foie gras is produced by literally stuffing a poor duck or goose with grain until its liver becomes diseased and swells to bursting is disgusting to contemplate,” he said.
“We banned its production in the UK because it’s cruel. Now let’s ban the importation of this cruel product.”
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Veteran actor Steven Berkoff, who appeared in James Bond film Octopussy, urged: “We must ban the importation of foie gras to cut off this disgusting and obscene abuse of birds to satisfy this disgusting and obscene decadence.”
A YouGov poll last month showed just 7% of Britons had eaten foie gras in the past year.
(Image: Getty Images Europe)
Nearly four out of five voters who expressed an opinion backed a ban.
The Animal Equality charity is spearheading the latest battle to outlaw the foodstuff.
Executive director Dr Toni Shephard said: “Leaving the EU gives us a unique opportunity to rid Britain of this extraordinarily cruel product.
“Our national laws rightly declare foie gras production too inhumane to take place on our shores, yet we still allow it to be imported and sold.
“For the sake of the thousands of ducks and geese still suffering on European foie gras farms, this hypocrisy has got to end.”
MPs from across the political divide have already pledged to support moves to strip the UK of the delicacy.
Labour’s Chris Williamson insisted: “We are a nation of animal lovers and have rightly already banned the production of foie gras on our shores because of the extreme suffering it causes to ducks and geese.
“If exiting the EU will provide us the opportunity to ban the importation of this cruel product then the Government should do so.”
Conservative backbencher Henry Smith believed quitting the bloc provided “a real animal welfare opportunity to impose a ban on this cruel practice”.
And Remain-supporting Green Party leader Caroline Lucas said: “We have rightly already banned the production of foie gras in Britain because of the extreme suffering it causes to ducks and geese.
“Exiting the EU gives us the opportunity to ban the importation of this cruel product and make Britain foie |
of Bond, but Bond’s refined tastes, style, choice of beverage and food all very closely resembled those of Fleming himself. It has become widely accepted that Fleming most likely created the character as an escapist fantasy allowing Fleming to experience the kind of danger and adventure that he could only imagine from behind his desk during the war.
Although his success as a novelist brought him acclaim, Fleming had very much desired for Bond to make a transition into film. Film was entirely different medium for the character and Fleming must have recognized the lucrative opportunity there was in a successful film series. The character of Bond, however, was considered to be a risky venture for film studios. The adventures contained sex and violence and the character of Bond himself as depicted by Fleming was nothing more than “a blunt instrument wielded by the government.” Some feared the character would be unlikeable and that audiences would refuse to embrace a man who had a “license to kill” in cold blood if need be. Most of all, however, the fact that this character worked for the British Secret Service instead of the American CIA or FBI meant to many that American audiences would remain indifferent to the character. In 1954, Fleming reluctantly sold the rights to Casino Royale to CBS resulting in TV broadcast adaptation of the story with American actor Barry Nelson starring as “Jimmy Bond,” an American agent. The broadcast went mostly unnoticed and today the film can be viewed on youtube, but needless to say this early attempt at adapting Bond to the screen had been a failure.
Fleming then agreed in 1958 to allow for comic strip adaptations of his Bond stories, which he hoped would garner more attention for his character despite his initial reservations. The James Bond comic strip would have an impressive run until 1983 and remains highly regarded among Bond fans.
Still, in the late 1950s Fleming was still seeking out a way for a Bond film to be produced. The question only remained as to whom Fleming would sell the rights to the Bond films. Unfortunately, it was during this period when he was trying to catapult Bond to the next level that Fleming began to lose his initial inspiration for the character. In one letter Fleming wrote:
“Terribly stuck with James Bond. What was easy at 40 is very difficult at 50. I used to believe- sufficiently- in Bonds and blondes and bombs. Now the keys creak as I type and I fear the zest may have gone”... “Though I may be able to think up some episodes for him in the future, I shall never be able to give him 70,000 words again.”[1]
It is with this mindset that Fleming entered into a partnership with producer Kevin McClory. They had met through a mutual friend, Ivar Bryce, who had helped McClory finance his first film as a producer called The Boy and the Bridge. McClory had previously worked on various films in low-level capacities and recently decided to become a film producer in his own right. McClory insisted that James Bond’s first film should be an original story instead of adapting one of Fleming’s previous novels. McClory had become enamored with the idea of filming an underwater adventure prior to encountering Fleming and felt that the character of James Bond would be the perfect vehicle for his filmmaking ambitions. Fleming was initially very impressed with McClory and his friendship with Ivar Bryce further solidified his desire to let McClory make an attempt at the first Bond film. Fleming wrote, “After seeing your work on The Boy and the Bridge, there is no one who I would prefer to produce James Bond for the screen. I think you would have fun doing it and a great success.”[2]
Bryce and McClory had previously began a production company as partners called Xanadu Productions. It would be through this production studio that MClory would attempt to make the first Bond film, but McClory’s attempts met with several obstacles. McClory despite his previous credentials was still an inexperienced filmmaker when it came to large productions. He had ambitions of also directing the Bond film as he had with The Boy and the Bridge despite the fact that he lacked much of the technical knowledge and experience required for filmmaking on a larger scale. The fact that he wanted to do a James Bond story featuring an unprecedented amount of underwater scenes also meant that the film was bound to be expensive placing an enormous risk upon any financial investors. Finally, although Fleming was a naturally gifted novelist, his attempts at screenwriting often failed to take advantage of the visual medium of film. His initial film treatments for the proposed project relied heavily on dialogue and internal monologue explaining the story. Rather than depicting action scenes so that audiences can view the action on screen, Fleming would write long dialogues where Bond was told what had happened.
McClory, Fleming, and Bryce decided to hire professional screenwriter Jack Whittingham to take the initial premise of a Bond film with underwater action scenes and complete a usable screenplay. Whittingham was unimpressed by Fleming’s screenwriting attempts and saw that he had a challenging task in front of him. Whittingham wrote, “In my view Fleming’s film treatment was terribly bad, was tripe, and completely inappropriate for film development.” [3] Sylvan Mason (Whittingham’s daughter) later said, “Film is visual, you can tell an awful lot by just visuals. You don’t need streams of dialogue explaining things. And that was the difference. Fleming was a wonderful writer in his written descriptions, but that didn’t work on film.”[4]
Whittingham worked independently on a screenplay using some of the previous screen treatments but largely creating his own original Bond story. Initially, Fleming wanted to use the mafia as the main villains who would steal atomic bombs and essentially demand a ransom. After feeling as if he had overused the Soviet spy organization SMERSH, Fleming decided that he would invent a new villainous organization and he decided to call it SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion). It would comprise of members of SMERSH, the Gustapo, the mafia, and Chinese Tong. At the head of the fictional organization would be a man called Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Fleming also changed the title of Whittingham’s screenplay from Longitude 78 West to Thunderball.
When McClory fell through on delivering the financial backing necessary to produce a film, Fleming decided to use the screenplay that had been commissioned from Whittingham as the basis for his next James Bond novel, Thunderball. Once advanced copies of the novel reached Kevin McClory, however, McClory filed an injunction to stop publication on the grounds of plagiarism on behalf of Fleming. While McClory couldn’t stop publication of the novel, he would continue to pursue the matter in court despite the fact that his partner Ivar Bryce refused to support him. Bryce ultimately supported Fleming while Whittingham, despite his ill health, testified on behalf of McClory.
In November 1963, the plagiarism trial would begin. The case would last a mere 9 days before Fleming relented and decided to settle with McClory. Fleming had already sold the film rights to his Bond novels to producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, who formed EON in 1961 and produced the first Bond film Dr. No in 1962 starring Sean Connery. Whittingham, who later regretted his support of McClory, revealed in a letter that Fleming had suffered 2 heart attacks during the court case. Fleming’s ill health became the primary reason for settling the case after three years of fighting McClory through various legal actions. Indeed, Fleming would suffer a fatal heart attack nine months after the conclusion of the trial.
The settlement gave Ian Fleming the rights to the novel provided that the author credit be changed to “based on a screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and the Author.” The film rights, however, were relinquished completely to Kevin McClory. This meant that McClory could produce a Bond film without the sanction of EON. Broccoli and Saltzman, leery that McClory would produce a rival Bond decided to enter into a one-time only partnership with McClory allowing McClory sole producer credit for 1965’s Thunderball. With Connery as Bond, Thunderball went on to become the highest earning Bond film until 1973’s Live and Let Die.
Unfortunately for EON, the legal agreement between EON and McClory regarding Thunderball gave McClory the right to remake Thunderball after a period of 10 years. Furthermore, EON was legally prohibited from using SPECTRE or the character of Blofeld in their films because it was considered to be intellectual property of McClory that was won in the settlement. The EON films had already featured Blofeld and SPECTRE in several Bond films, but this would prevent EON from using SPECTRE or Blofeld again until just recently.
McClory wooed back Sean Connery to play the role of James Bond for 1983’s Never Say Never Again. Connery had previously quit the role and had been openly disgruntled with Cubby Broccoli, who was now the sole owner of EON. McClory’s film competed with EON’s Bond film Octopussy starring Roger Moore as James Bond. While EON’s film ultimately out performed Never Say Never again at the box office, it didn’t prevent McClory from further pursuing his film rights with Thunderball. McClory attempted to make a 3rd remake of Thunderball in the late 90s and early 2000s called Warhead 2000 A.D. At one point it was rumored to star ousted Bond actor Timothy Dalton as James Bond, but the film never materialized. McClory had partnered with Sony for the proposed project, who had obtained the rights to Casino Royale and were threatening at one point to package both McClory’s “Warhead” film and Casino Royale as a package to launch their own James Bond franchise. MGM who had previously partnered with EON fought this and the two parties settled. Once Sony acquired MGM in 2004, EON was able to obtain the rights to Casino Royale and promptly released their adaptation of Fleming’s first Bond novel starring Daniel Craig as James Bond in 2006.
Kevin McClory died in 2006, but his estate maintained his rights to Thunderball including SPECTRE and Blofeld. Finally in November 2013, a settlement was reached between MGM, Danjaq (EON’s parent company) and the McClory estate to resolve the legal disputes that had been ongoing for 50 years. EON now has the rights to Thunderball, SPECTRE, and Blofeld. Just as in 2006 when they wasted no time producing Casino Royale after having recently obtained the rights, it would appear as if EON is eager to do the same by christening the upcoming 2015 film SPECTRE.
Ian Fleming, however, seems to have paid the ultimate price in this whole saga. Having recently read his Thunderball novel, I was reminded of what a brilliant writer he was. Even though he may have taken the premise of the story from Whittingham’s screenplay, his use of language and his descriptions of events, places, and characters are uniquely his. While Whittingham deserves his credit for the plot of the story, I think Thunderball ironically proves just how good a writer Ian Fleming was despite the controversy. Fiction writing and screenwriting are quite different in terms of the skill sets that writers must use. Screenwriting is all about providing the audience with the necessary visuals to comprehend the plot and the characters involved in the story. Fiction writing requires a rich use of descriptive language to bring the reader into the story. In a novel a reader can access the sensations of the protagonist through language. In a film, it’s up to the actor to convey to the audience what the character is feeling.
The novel ends with Bond recovering in the hospital after a near death underwater duel with the villain Emilio Largo. Domino Vitalli, after having learned that Largo had killed her brother decides to betray her guardian and help Bond. After having been tortured on board the Disco Volante, Domino escaped just in time to save Bond when it appeared that Largo was about to kill him in underwater combat. Domino shoots Largo with a spear gun saving Bond. Back in the hospital, Bond is determined to find Domino’s hospital room despite his injuries and the fact that he had been recently given a sedative. What follows is the end of Ian Fleming’s novel:
“Inside the small room, the jalousies threw bands of light and shadow over the bed. Bond staggered over to the bed and knelt down beside it. The small head on the pillow turned towards him. A hand came out and grasped his hair, pulling his head closer to her. Her voice said huskily, ‘You are to stay here. Do you understand? You are not to go away.’
When Bond didn’t answer, she feebly shook his head to and fro. ‘Do you hear me, James? Do you understand?’ She felt Bond’s body slipping to the floor. When she let go his hair, he slumped down on the rug beside her bed. She carefully shifted her position and looked down at him. He was already asleep with his head cradled on the inside of his forearm.
The girl watched the dark, rather cruel face for a moment. Then she gave a small sigh, pulled the pillow to the edge of the bed so that it was just above him, laid her head down so that she could see him whenever she wanted to, and closed her eyes.”[5]
At the end of this story Bond was physically and mentally exhausted to the point of collapse. Ironically, the subsequent fallout and legal disputes resulting in Fleming’s settlement with McClory would fatally do the same to Bond’s creator. Ian Fleming only saw the first two EON produced Bond films starring Sean Connery. The 3rd Eon film, Goldfinger, would propel the Bond franchise to an entirely new level of success. Ian Fleming died of heart disease on August 12th 1964 at age 56. Had he lived longer, perhaps he would have been able to enjoy the fruits of his success. It is widely believed that the stress and the fatigue of the plagiarism case versus Kevin McClory contributed to his ill health. Thunderball may very well likely be the James Bond story that killed its very creator.
Author’s note: Much of the research and quotes for this blog post came from reading Robert Sellers’ book The Battle for Bond as well as from listening to James Bond Radio’s podcast interviews with Sellers and with Sylvan Mason, the daughter of Jack Whittingham. If anyone is interested in finding out more facts concerning this topic I strongly encourage you to check out those incredibly thorough resources. I just wanted to see if I can put together a more concise account of these details for the purposes of this page. All the credit for the research that appears here should go to them.
Sources:
Footnotes for quotes 1-4 are from: Sellers, Robert The Battle for Bond. Tomahawk Press, 2007 Footnote for quote 5 is from: Fleming, Ian Thunderball. Jonathan Cape, 1961
James Bond Radio podcast interview with Robert Sellers : http://jamesbondradio.com/the-battle-for-bond-robert-sellers-interview-podcast-12/
James Bond Radio Podcast interview with Sylvan Mason: http://jamesbondradio.com/jack-whittinghams-thunderball-podcast-013/
[1] Sellers, Robert The Battle for Bond. Tomahawk Press, 2007
[2] Sellers, Robert The Battle for Bond. Tomahawk Press, 2007
[3] Sellers, Robert The Battle for Bond. Tomahawk Press, 2007
[4] Sellers, Robert The Battle for Bond. Tomahawk Press, 2007
[5] Fleming,Ian Thunderball. Jonathan Cape 1961
AdvertisementsFinal Round 20, the Wii U version's one-year anniversary tournament, attracted over 100 players for Pokkén Tournament. The tournament had excellent matches, multiple different events, and many upsets. Yesterday, the final 8 players faced off to determine who would take home the trophy.
Read on for a recap of the Top 8 matches, followed by the full results for every Pokkén bracket at Final Round 20.
Winners Bracket:
Liam "Twixxie" Nelson vs. Justin "Savvy" Daghita
Andrew "Zyflair" Harn vs. Zach "Zyril" Barclay
Losers Bracket:
Andrew "HBA | WhiteyWhite" Zaleski vs. Willie "Swillo" Barr
Christian "Suicune Master" Patierno vs. Devin "Ouroboro" Lu
It is astonishing how many top players were eliminated before Top 8 - some even during pools. Fan favorites such as Thomas "Thulius" McLaurin, Wesley "Cat Fight" Garland, Allister "STDx | ALLISTER" Singh, Wesley "Bim?" Murray were all eliminated before the Sunday finals.
Losers Eighths:
Top 8 starts with Hitbox Arena's WhiteyWhite vs. the immaculate Mewtwo player, Swillo. Despite WhiteyWhite keeping it close, Swillo takes Game 1 two Rounds to zero. WhiteyWhite takes the time to change his Support Pokémon to Dragonite & Victini, and starts off Game 2 by taking half of Swillo's HP without taking a hit. Swillo makes the Round close, but WhiteyWhite wins with 37 HP remaining. Swillo retaliates with a near-perfect win in Round 2 of Game 2. In Round 3, Swillo activates Synergy Burst, and defeats WhiteyWhite 2-0.
On the other side of Losers Eighths, Ouroboro prepares to take on Suicune Master. Game 1 is a convincing win for Ouroboro, and it's clear that Suicune Master will need to make some adjustments to keep his tournament run alive. Suicune Master takes a moment before selecting "Next Battle", but Ouroboro takes Round 1 of Game 2 convincingly with Gardevoir's Fairy Tempest. Despite being one round away from being eliminated, Suicune Master is able to win Round 2. In Round 3, Ouroboro stuffs Suicune Master's Aura Blast with a perfectly positioned midair counter attack, but Suicune Master is able to secure Game 2. Suicune Master's Mega Lucario is then able to secure the win in Game 3 after some beautiful corner pressure.
Swillo and Suicune Master move on to Losers Quarters. HBA | WhiteyWhite and Ouroboro finish the tournament in 7th place.
Winners Semis:
Next up, Twixxie takes on Savvy in the first Winners Semis match. Twixxie starts the match with a Perfect, in part thanks to a Critical Hit Overheat obliterating Shadow Mewtwo's HP. In Round 2, a successful Final Flicker lowers Savvy to half HP. Savvy is able to keep the Round close (pulling off a beautiful Teleport to punish an Overheat attempt), but Twixxie manages to close out Game 1. Twixxie takes Round 1 of Game 2 as well, but Savvy manages to secure Round 2 using Shadow Mewtwo's Dark Nova. Round 3 comes down to the wire, but Twixxie is able to close it out after a misspaced midair strong attack.
For the final match in the first round of Top 8, Zyflair goes up against Zyril. Despite Final Round being Zyril's first ever offline tournament, the Charizard player had made it to Top 8 by defeating the likes of Simon "Adelvos" Bellemare-Savage, Alex "NGI | AngelDarksong" Stopher, and more. Zyflair takes the first Round convincingly and wins the second Round with roughly half of his HP remaining. Zyflair also wins Round 1 of Game 2, but Zyril shows a breath of life with a strong response in Round 2. Zyril goes on to take Round 3, and the players go into the final Game of the Set. Both players show a strong effort in Game 3, but in the end Zyflair secures the win.
Twixxie and Zyflair move on to Winners Finals. Savvy and Zyril are sent to Losers Quarters.
Losers Quarters:
In a matchup that looks like it came straight from an anime, Mewtwo takes on Shadow Mewtwo in the first Losers Quarters match. Despite Mewtwo having the competitive advantage in the matchup, Swillo has struggled with fighting Shadow Mewtwo in the past, meaning this match against Savvy is sure to be interesting. Both players are in the red HP range to end Round 1, but Swillo is able to take it. In Round 2, Swillo is showing extreme dominance - even Mega Evolving his Mewtwo - but Savvy shows no fear and makes a very impressive comeback. Round 3 ends with both players in the red HP range again, but Swillo closes out the first game with a midair weak attack. Round 1 of Game 2 ends with both players in the red HP range and Swillo winning yet again, but Swillo takes Round 2 much more convincingly - winning the Set.
On the other side of Losers Quarters, Suicune Master decides to pull out his former main against Zyril. The players trade the first two Rounds before Suicune Master closes out Game 1 with a Perfect. In Round 1 of Game 2, Zyril is down by a considerable margin, but manages to get a very nice combo to gain the percent lead in the final seconds. Suicune Master activates Synergy Burst in order to regain the percent lead, but time has already ran out. The Synergy Burst animation plays, but Suicune does not gain any HP - meaning the Round goes to Zyril. Suicune Master appears completely unfazed, responding by back-to-back Perfects to eliminate Zyril.
Swillo and Suicune Master move on to face each other in Losers Semis. Savvy and Zyril finish the tournament in 5th place.
Losers Semis:
Coming off of back-to-back Perfects against Zyril, Suicune Master takes on Swillo with his Lucario in Losers Semis. Swillo takes the first Round thanks in part to a phenomenal Psystrike against Suicune Master's Mega Lucario. Swillo dominates Suicune Master in Round 2, finishing Game 1 with three incredible grabs in a row. With some more well-timed grab attacks, Swillo takes the first Round of Game 2. Another excellent display in Round 2, and Swillo wins the Set - defeating Suicune Master four Rounds in a row in the process.
Swillo moves on to Losers Finals. Suicune Master finishes the tournament in 4th place.
Winners Finals:
Winners Finals features two players who were far from favorites to win the tournament: Twixxie and Zyflair. With so many established top players in attendance, few people could have predicted this Winners Finals matchup. Twixxie wins Round 1 and most of Round 2 convincingly, but Zyflair manages to bring the Chandelure player down to 1 HP in Round 2. Zyflair wins Round 1 of Game 2, showing incredible adaptation. Twixxie wins Round 2 by percent lead, but Zyflair takes Round 3 with a fantastic reset. Game 3 features solid play from both players, but Twixxie seals the Game with a Final Flicker punish. Zyflair wins Game 4 by gaining the percent lead in the last few seconds of the Round, sending the Set to Game 5. Twixxie wins Round 1 and is close to winning Round 2, forcing Zyflair to activate Synergy Burst. Zyflair attempts an Aura Blast, but Twixxie is able to use Minimize to avoid the Burst Attack. He wins the Set with the first hit of Chandelure's Homing Attack.
Twixxie moves on to Grand Finals on Winners side. Zyflair prepares to face off against Swillo in Losers Finals.
Losers Finals:
Even though Swillo is not a big fan of the Lucario matchup, he is going into Losers Finals hot off his win against Suicune Master. Round 1 ends with both players in the red HP range, but Zyflair wins the Round after a questionable Psystrike by Swillo. Swillo takes Round 2, and both Pokémon go into their Mega Evolved forms in Round 3. After some careful neutral play from both players, Swillo lands a midair weak attack to secure Game 1. Round 1 of Game 2 ends with a trade while both players are at low HP, but Zyflair has enough HP to win the Round. Zyflair then goes on to get a Perfect in Round 2, entering Game 3 with momentum on his side. Zyflair shows some excellent awareness by intentionally whiffing Lucario's Force Palm to gain enough Synergy to Mega Evolve. Zyflair then closes out the Round by landing Mega Lucario's Aura Blast. Zyflair wins Game 3 with less than 100 HP remaining, and Swillo decides to change to Sceptile for Game 4. Zyflair wins Round 1 of Game 4, but Swillo shows signs of life and takes Round 2. Both Pokémon are Mega Evolved halfway through Game 4, but the Sceptile switch proves not enough as Zyflair comes out on top.
Zyflair moves on to face Twixxie in Grand Finals. Swillo finishes the tournament in 3rd place.
Grand Finals:
Twixxie and Zyflair face off once again to close out Final Round 20 in, again, a matchup few expected to see in Grand Finals. Game 1 features some solid play from both players, and Twixxie closes out the third Round with some smart stalling tactics. Twixxie looks more commanding in Game 2, nearly getting a Perfect in Round 1 and finishing Round 2 with an Overheat. After winning Round 1 of Game 3, Twixxie lands Final Flicker, bringing Zyflair down to 55 HP in what might be the final Round of the tournament. Zyflair Mega Evolves and goes for Aura Blast in Field Phase, but Twixxie blocks the Burst Attack successfully. Zyflair uses Mega Lucario's Homing Attack, but Twixxie uses Chandelure's Smog at the perfect time, securing a 3-0 win in Grand Finals.
Twixxie wins Pokkén Tournament at Final Round 20 without dropping a set.
You can congratulate Twixxie on his win over on his Twitter, and consider following his Twitch channel for more Chandelure gameplay. Click the spoiler below for the full results for all of the Pokkén events at Final Round 20.Why Amazon's cloud Titanic went down
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- This was never supposed to happen.
Amazon Web Services is the Titanic of cloud hosting, designed with backups to the backups' backups that prevent hosted websites and applications from failing.
Yet, like the famous ocean liner, Amazon's cloud crashed this week, taking with it Reddit, Quora, FourSquare, Hootsuite, parts of the New York Times, ProPublica and about 70 other sites. The massive outage raised questions about the reliability of AWS and the cloud itself.
It was supposed to work like this: Thousands of companies use AWS to run their websites through a service called Elastic Compute Cloud, or EC2. Rather than hosting their sites on their own servers, these customers turn to Amazon, which essentially rents out its unused -- and highly intricate -- server capacity.
EC2 is hosted in five regions across the globe: Northern Virginia, Northern California, Ireland, Tokyo and Singapore. Within each region are multiple "availability zones," and within each availability zone are multiple "locations" or data centers.
In its AWS marketing pitch, Amazon touts the way it links together many different data centers to protect customers from isolated failures. It promises to keep customers' sites up and running 99.95% of the year, or it will shave 10% off customers' monthly bills.
That allows for downtime of just 4.4 hours. Some sites have been down for nearly 36 hours now.
So what went wrong exactly?
Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) has been tight-lipped about the incident, and the company said it won't be able to fully comment on the situation until it does a "post-mortem." So it's not clear yet exactly how the problem occurred.
But bits and pieces of information from Amazon, its customers and cloud experts help to explain what happened.
Thursday's crash happened at Amazon's northern Virginia data center, located in one of its East Coast availability zones. In its status log, Amazon said that a "networking event" caused a domino effect across other availability zones in that region, in which many of its storage volumes created new backups of themselves. That filled up Amazon's available storage capacity and prevented some sites from accessing their data.
Amazon didn't say what that "networking event" was.
Doug Willoughby, director of cloud strategy at Compuware, theorized that it could be a wiring problem or a connectivity issue that brought down AWS' so-called "Elastic Block Store." EBS is essentially a network-based hard drive that allows customers to store between 1 gigabyte to 1 terabyte of data per volume.
Reddit, one of the better-known sites to go down due to the error, said it has 700 EBS volumes with Amazon. Both Reddit and Amazon are working to "re-mirror" or copy the volumes to a data center in another availability zone. But both the painstaking process of moving the data and the sheer number of volumes is making the fix a very lengthy process.
"We always store data in multiple zones to avoid this problem," said Jeremy Edberg, senior product developer at Reddit. "The reason it went down is that it failed in multiple zones."
Sites like Quora and Reddit were able to come back online in "read-only" mode, but users couldn't post new content for many hours. Reddit only recently began inviting handfuls of random users to create new posts again.
Many experts blamed the sites themselves for crashing, saying they should have been spread out among multiple geographical regions to take full advantage of Amazon's backup systems.
"Amazon's products are only as good as the people putting the architecture up," said Michael Kirven, co-founder of cloud services provider Bluewolf. "If you put all of your eggs in one basket, you put yourself at risk."
EC2 is so simple to use -- a credit card and a few keystrokes literally gets your business into the cloud -- that some experts say can give a false sense of security. They see in Amazon customers a certain level of naivety that nothing could possibly go wrong.
Of course, things go wrong and systems fail. Other cloud-hosted products like Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Gmail have gone down from time to time.
But sites like Reddit and others that crashed were simply following the instructions Amazon laid out in its service agreement, which says hosting in one region should be sufficient. Some smaller sites simply can't afford the engineering and financial resources it takes to duplicate their infrastructure in data centers all over the world.
Some sites like FourSquare took the outage in stride. The check-in service blogged that its "usually-amazing data center hosts, Amazon EC2, are having a few hiccups."
But others weren't as forgiving. BigDoor CEO Keith Smith wrote in a blog post: "If Amazon had been more forthcoming with what they are experiencing, we would have been able to restore our systems sooner."
Reddit encountered a similar hiccup for about six hours last month, forcing the company to decide to start the process of migrating away from the particular product that went down on Thursday. Reddit's Edberg said the company is sticking with Amazon for now, but "we always have our eyes open for something that's superior."The Skeleton King. An icon from the Diablo franchise and much like in the Diablo games, Leoric is a hero who never stays down. His spectral presence will literally haunt his enemies, dead or undead. Played well, he can dominate fights, control the battlefield, and spooky scary skeleton your opponents into submission. Are you prepared to wear the crown?
Roles that Hero Can Fill:
Leoric is not a suitable tank for a composition that requires hard CC, such as pick comps, but in general he can tank so long as you are careful about his relatively low health pool. He’s much stronger as an anti-tank bruiser because of his ability to safely solo lane and do significant damage to high health targets in team fights. He also has acceptable wave clear in the tank slot, which is always worth considering, especially with the minion changes.
Kit Rundown
Q; Skeletal Swing: A moderate damage, large frontal arc ability that slows by 40% for 2.5 seconds and deals double damage to all non-heroic units: Minions, mercenaries, and monsters. This is all of Leoric’s wave clear potential and, since he lacks hard CC, it is also most of his peel and control in team fights outside of his Heroics.
W; Drain Hope: A medium range skillshot that only hits heroes. If you land it, it creates a tether between you and the hero that deals 25% of their maximum HP, and heals you for 25% of your maximum HP, over 4 seconds. While the tether is active, you are slowed by 20%. If the enemy hero moves out of range, the ability is cancelled. This is essentially all of Leoric’s sustain in teamfights and during laning. It is the reason he is considered an “anti-tank” bruiser: the threat of the damage is often his best zoning tool, and most of his strongest talents improve Drain Hope in some way. In most cases, any fight where you miss your W is a fight you are out of until it comes back off CD. It is critical for everything about Leoric, be it in lane or all out team fights. Ensure maximum value by using W in combination with your Q-slow, Entomb, or other CC from your team.
E; Wraith Walk: Leoric gains Unstoppable as a ghost form and accelerates to +50% movement speed over 2.5 seconds. When Wraith Walk is canceled, his body jumps to his ghost. This functions as an all around engage, escape, and repositioning tool for him. Unlike most escape mechanics, the fact the he leaves his body behind means he can still be focused, so using it as an escape is something you have to decide very quickly. Often the best escape will be W-ing a target for the sustain and then immediately E-ing away. The range it can travel by default is roughly 3/5 of a screen width.
Trait; Undying: When Leoric dies he becomes a ghost and regens a certain amount of health per second based on his total health and the length of his death timer. Any abilities that heal him in this form heal for half, but reduce the length of his death timer allowing him to “Cheat Death” and come back faster. While dead, Leoric becomes the ultimate scout: he can keep tabs on the enemy team, spot rotations, and check bushes and camps. His Q still slows and his W regens at half effectiveness, shortening his death timer, though he does no damage as a ghost. You have to judge when you want to come back quickly, however; sometimes if no objectives are spawning it is more valuable to stay dead and be a free invulnerable scout for your team. If you are going to resurrect in a bad spot, it is possible to use Hearthstone (B) while dead to return your ghost to your base.
Maps:
Leoric’s wave clear and ability to sustain and be far forward to scout and zone for his team’s rotation make him very strong in lane, so he shines on maps that favor a four-man rotation, where two lanes are close together or there are only two lanes: Dragon Shire, Tomb, Towers, Shrines, Braxis, and Blackheart’s. He can also be a reasonable solo laner on most maps if he is drafted as the bruiser so long as he is matched against a melee solo laner and not a ranged one, as his sustain depends largely on his W. On Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror, his W applying to the Terror and Dragon Knight gives his team a defensive advantage. The way terrain is arranged around the temples on Sky Temple makes it his strongest map because of the strength of Entomb on temple fights, particularly the top and bottom temples.
Team Playstyle
If Leoric is with his team, he should focus on using his Q on the wave and then immediately mount up to be a mobile ward while his team finishes the wave. On rotation maps, which are his strongest, he should focus on breaking the enemy team’s rotation by dismounting them and then using his E to get back to his team. If he dies, Leoric becomes a scout. If he is the solo laner he should focus on keeping his W up to trade damage with his laning opponent and save his E in case he gets rotated on. Solo laning as Leoric is very simple because his escape is so good, the only hard part is landing the W consistently.
In team fights Leoric should usually position very aggressively and throw his W on the highest health or lowest mobility frontline target. Lacking hard CC, the best way Leoric can create space for his team is to always know where the enemy team is coming from and slow them with his Q so his team has a chance to position well for any potential flanks or engagements. If he gets into trouble, he can E out.
If there are heavy dive heroes on the enemy team, such as Greymane or The Butcher, he wants to position above or below and in front of his backline so that he can use Entomb as a wall when the engagement happens. This either splits the enemy team or catches the diver outright, allowing an easy pick off for his ranged damage. If Leoric dies, he can still peel for his team by slowing with his Q, a unique advantage among tanks. In terms of tempo, on an objective his trait means it is always worthwhile to trade your life for a higher value target because you will come back faster, and if you can ever save an ally by sacrificing yourself, it is always the right decision. It can be very difficult to judge that situation, however, and comes with practice.
Strong With:
Leoric’s strong positioning and “catch” mechanics but lack of hard CC make him pair very well with heroes who have hard CC but a hard time safely engaging. Xul, Rexxar, The Butcher, Anub’Arak, Kerrigan, and Dehaka are some of the more obvious examples. Entomb counting as terrain for Diablo’s Shadow Charge is a very |
constitutes necessary, invigorating, change.There is a phrase I like to use when talking about virtual reality, toddler wonder. It is that sense of childlike wonder you experience in the best virtual reality experiences available, the ones that grip you and never let you go as they pull you into the scene. The ones that make your mouth drop open, that make you laugh and cry, the ones that truly engage you emotionally. That is what Henry is. Toddler wonder brought to life.
It wasn’t just the animation, which was on par with Pixar’s best work. It was the sense of innate connection that Oculus Story Studio was able to achieve with the character. That level empathy was incredibly powerful.
Famed college basketball coach Jim Valvano once described a ‘full day’ during a moving speech given prior to his death, “To me there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think — spend some time time in thought. Number three, you should have your emotions move you to tears. If you laugh, think and cry, that’s a heck of a day.”
In the ten minutes I spent with Henry, I had a heck of a day.
The experience we were shown opens with a ‘trailer’ where we are introduced to Henry. The scene is set in a fully black void with Henry positioned in front of you as Elijah Wood begins to narrate the scene and introduce you to Henry’s story, which is tragically comic. Wood tells us all about how Henry is a hedgehog who has no friends because he loves a little too hard and wants to hug everyone he meets.
As Wood walks us through Henry’s story, Henry responds expressively and you feel the twinges of joy and despair as he moves along his emotional spectrum between the two. As this is all going on, as a viewer, you are able to move around Henry (although the setup I experienced this on was fairly tight in terms of space) and he follows you with his head as you do, always maintaining eye contact (unless you actively look away). This moment, according to Edward Saatchi, one of the producers of the experience, was meant to help establish a sense of “character presence,” as he called it. “When we built Lost we realized that you needed a moment to look around the environment to help establish a sense of presence in the scene,” he says, “but with a piece like Henry we need to establish that same sense of presence with the character.” Which is why the team included this intro for the demo, it helps you to establish a connection with Henry that carries into the feature.
As the trailer ended the attendant cues up the full experience. Once again, Elijah Wood’s voice engulfs the user, as he tells us again about Henry’s tragic origins, this time told through a series of paintings that appear around the viewer as the scene continues. As Wood finishes his narration the scene fades to black again, before fading into Henry’s home. The transition employed here is interesting, as the scene first brings in the center focus on the “Happy Birthday” sign hanging from the second floor of the hut, before opening, like an eyeball to the full scene. This was a purposeful way of exploring transitions, says Saschka Unseld Oculus Story Studio’s director.
I glance around the environment, behind me is a bowl of blueberries the size of grapefruits, along with giant acorns and pinecones. Right away a sense of miniature scale is established. I am given a brief moment to breathe in the environment, before a start hearing a faint buzzing behind me. I turn around to see a ladybug flying around the scene, pulling my gaze around the room as I followed it. This is that moment of establishing a sense of environmental presence that Unseld spoke about recently in a blog post on Story Studio’s website.
I spent this moment soaking in every detail I could. From the little quills left in Henry’s bed below to the hole poked in the living room chair to my left, the environment is filled with elements that tell more about the character’s story. This is something that virtual reality uniquely brings, that ability for you to discover more about the characters by simply exploring the environment at your own discretion.
After about 30 seconds, I can hear a rustling coming from the Kitchen as Henry makes his first appearance slightly off camera. Were there more space in the room I would have been able to walk over to the kitchen door and peer in a bit more to see him making his birthday cake.
The ladybug settles, and Henry trots out proudly carrying his birthday cake, which is a giant strawberry surrounded by cream with a lone candle on top. As Henry is making his first appearance in the scene, he makes eye contact briefly with the viewer, a moment that helps to establish that sense of connection.
As a viewer, we are not actually in the scene, there is no body below me nor do I have the ability to physically interact with the scene but the moments where Henry stares expressively into the camera are among the most emotionally impactful I have had in VR. It proves you don’t need a physical presence in the scene to feel truly Present.
At this point in the narrative, it becomes difficult to write more without spoiling the experience, so if you want to enter the experience fresh feel free to skip past here and read my concluding thoughts at the end.
[Warning the next bit contains spoilers of the full experience]
Henry places his cake on the table in front of us and begins squeaking a bit to himself, before pulling out a pile of confetti, throwing it in the air and smiling as he blows into one of those party favors that everyone has at their stereotypical birthday party.
This moment of joy however is very short lived as the first moment that tugged on my heartstrings settled in. Henry looks over into the camera with a look of sadness that says a thousand words. You feel his loneliness as you stare back into his eyes. I felt mine begin to water as I went to dab them under the headset in the manliest of ways. (A brief tangent – it will be interesting to see the sociocultural effect VR has on the whole ‘men don’t cry’ cliche. When your eyes are hidden under a headset, you feel more safe to allow yourself to be vulnerable.)
Henry sighs, bringing me back into the scene, as he lights the candle on his cake and closes his eyes to make a wish. At this point we hear the only spoken dialogue in the whole piece, “I wish I had friends.” (The reason behind the dialogue in this case, according to Max Plank one of the producers at Oculus Story Studio, is that they wanted to ensure users knew exactly what the wish was, as some people in early tests had been confused.)
Suddenly, the flame on the candle glows as sparkles of blue light fly off it and the light in the room dims. The blue light dances beautifully around the room and you as Henry stares in amazement, before finally landing on a set of animal balloons, which twitch to life.
The balloon animals begin floating around the space dancing and moving around the viewer as the smile on Henry’s face grows lager by the moment. I connected with his joy in that moment and felt the smile spread wide across my face. But the joy was short lived.
A balloon floats close to Henry, who reaches out to give it one of his trademark hugs. But, of course, being that these are balloons and Henry is a hedgehog, it pops in scene shattering fashion. In an instant, the magical dim blue lighting disappears as we are snapped back into daylight. The balloon animals pause for a moment before freaking out, darting all around the room, bumping the walls and windows looking for a way out as Henry chases them apologetically.
The balloons lead him upstairs and over and edge, as he pratfalls into the cake on the table below sending pieces of cake spewing all over the room. As Henry lifts his now cream covered face and spits out the candle, I couldn’t help but laugh. It was a moment of comedy buried in the lighthearted tragedy, but it was a short lived comedic beat.
Henry shakes it off and looking into his eyes you can see he is defeated. As he picks himself up and sulks over to the front door to let the balloons out, I once again felt the tears begin to well up in my eyes. There was something immensely sad about this moment, and I truly felt for the poor little guy. The balloons gather by the door and appear to converse with one another before zooming out, slamming the door behind them. Henry looks into the camera with a devastating expression of complete sadness.
This is the lowest moment for Henry and us as a viewer. In the moment the film feels like a dark, but brutally realistic, look at loneliness. We breathe in the moment with Henry as he mopes back to the table. After a short beat however, there is a knock at the door causing Henry and I to whip around towards it (the positional audio was particularly effective in this beat).
He gets up and walks tentatively over to the door and opens it. In rushes the balloons, this time carrying with them a turtle shell. Again they sweep through the room directing my gaze as I followed the shell before they gently set it down next to Henry.
As he leans in to examine it, the turtle pops his head out of the shell causing Henry to step back. As the turtle gets up you can see the levels of excitement rise as Henry realizes the balloons have brought him a friend. He looks down at his quills which are covered in cake and plucks a piece from them, handing it to the turtle.
Henry’s eyes widen with increasing joy as the turtle takes a bite and immediately perks up. Overcome by happiness, he quickly goes in and hugs Henry – who is shocked at first by the gesture. Henry finally got the hug he wanted, and best of all he didn’t hurt the one who gave it to him.
The look of shock is only temporary as it is quickly replaced with him looking directly at me with exuberance painted all over his face. I have watched countless films, TV shows, and seen many many VR experiences and I can’t remember ever feeling a stronger sense of empathetic happiness with a character as I did in that moment. I felt every ounce of jubilant relief that emanated from Henry’s character. It was authentic, it was transformative.
The scene fades white around the two as Henry embraces the turtle again, and Elijah Wood’s narration once again trickles in, putting a happily ever after close to the wonderful experience.
[End of spoilers]
Henry demonstrates everything that is brilliant about what this medium can be. While the level of interactivity was lacking (you had no physical presence to interact with the environment beyond watching) it was more than made up for by the expressiveness of the characters, and the empathetic beats where Henry looks into the camera.
These moments were very important to the feel of the film. According to Unseld, there were “earlier versions of Henry where he didn’t look at us, that felt artificial, because you’re there. I was there….I think he has to acknowledge us in order for it to feel natural because there is no 4th wall.” After seeing the film, I completely agree. What made Henry so incredible wasn’t necessarily the ability to look around the gorgeously rendered environment, but rather the strong empathetic connections the medium allows you to achieve with the characters.
Planck described it nicely to me, rather than being present in the scene you get the sense that you are Henry’s Id, the reflecting pool for his soul and emotions. That sense of connection places you deeply in the character’s mind allowing you to feel true empathy with the character’s emotions. I have felt this before with longer formed content like TV shows where I spend hours getting to know the characters and love them, but Henry managed to make me truly care in a short ten minute span.
Henry will be released with the CV1 as a piece of bundled content, along with the rest of the Oculus Story Studio content. But those attending Oculus Connect this year will have a chance to view Henry themselves as it will be one of the showcase pieces of content at the event.When President Obama said he intended to strike Syria last year after the Assad regime launched a chemical weapons attack, anti-war sentiment surged in the U.S. Phone calls and e-mails poured into Congressional offices with one message: don’t bomb Syria. The president eventually backed off from his plan after agreeing to a Russian proposal that saw President Bashar al-Assad get rid of his chemical weapons.
One year later, the administration declared war on the Islamic State, the Sunni extremist group that has taken over territory in Syria and Iraq. Warplanes have repeatedly hit targets in Iraq and Syria, and the U.S. is reportedly considering a no-fly zone over Syria. But this U.S. war is commencing with no serious opposition to slow the president down.
The anti-war movement is struggling to gain traction in the face of headwinds that include fear over the Islamic State, or ISIS, a media incessantly broadcasting news of ISIS atrocities and the loss of one obvious leverage point: Congress. Last year, Obama tossed the ball to Congress on the question of whether to attack the Assad regime. This time, though, there has been no Congressional vote on whether the U.S. should bomb Syria and Iraq. The president did it anyway in a move criticized by some legal analysts.
There has been no big demonstration to call attention to anti-war sentiment, though groups have held dozens of small actions.
For now, polls show that the American people are backing U.S. intervention, though they don’t want U.S. troops to be sent to Syria or Iraq. (At least 1,600 soldiers are already in Iraq in what the administration says is an “advisory” role.)
Anti-war organizers say that the beheadings of two American journalists–James Foley and Steven Sotloff–by ISIS are the principal reason why there’s widespread support for the intervention.
“It’s always hard in the beginning of a war when you have all of the hype about how awful the enemy is, and the enemy is always awful. and certainly ISIS is no different–it’s horrible just like Saddam Hussein was horrible, just like Al Qaeda is horrible and the Taliban is horrible,” said Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of CODEPINK, a group that has been visibly active against the new U.S. bombing campaigns. “The beheadings are particularly impactful on people’s sense of outrage.”
Adding to the anti-war movement’s difficulties is that “this is a different fight than the ones we’ve had before…it’s a much more complicated situation, it requires much more public education, much more understanding the issue,” said Stephen Miles, the advocacy director of Win Without War, a coalition of about 40 progressive groups.
Organizers also say that media outlets have played a big role in encouraging support for war. Some prominent figures like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews have voiced skepticism and opposition about American intervention. But that’s more the exception than the rule. “War time is when TV screens are full of former generals and hawkish politicians, and reporters are busy transmitting official claims,” wrote Peter Hart, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’s activism director, in a September blog post criticizing media coverage of the intervention against ISIS.
Compounding these obstacles for the anti-war movement is that the election of President Obama in 2008 deflated activism in opposition to Middle Eastern wars. CODEPINK’s Benjamin said that the decrease in peace activism can be attributed to a focus on domestic issues, frustration at the inability to change U.S. foreign policy, Democratic support for the president and Obama’s opaque drone wars. “We’ve never been able to have a big demonstration, anti-war demonstration, ever since Obama came into office. So that’s number one–the whole peace movement is really a shadow of what it was under Bush,” she said.
But even though organizers acknowledge the uphill battle, some say there’s cause for optimism. There was some Congressional opposition to arming Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State. The authorization to help rebels passed the House by a 273-156 vote; the Senate opposition amounted to only 22 votes.
“This war is far less popular than either the Afghanistan or Iraq War at their outset at this time period. And it’s worth remembering that inevitably what happens, no matter where these wars start, they always end at the same place, which is incredibly unpopular,” Win Without War’s Miles told me.
So where does the anti-war movement go from here? Ali Issa, the national field organizer with War Resisters League, says the key is connecting struggles against militarism to other movements. War Resisters League has been linking police militarization in the U.S. and war-making worldwide. He cited the “multi-racial, cross-movement coalition” that opposed Urban Shield, an annual international weapons expo featuring SWAT training. The event also sees arms vendors showing off their wares to police departments around the country and globe. After protests were held, the mayor of Oakland announced that Urban Shield would no longer be held in the city.
“If we take this experience as a lesson for how to address the recent U.S. military escalation, that can provide a model for how the anti-war movement builds across communities,” he said. “Without strategic organizing centered on relationship building, it’s going to be hard to break through the pro-war media noise which exists to shock and awe us.”These overalls might look harmless, but what if they exploded? LOC/LC-USF33- 001805-M5 [P&P]/Public Domain
Few professionals ask more of their trousers than farmers. Their rugged, often dirty work no doubt taxes the cleanliness and durability of any garment. Perhaps the least a farmer can ask of his pants is that they don’t spontaneously burst into flames. But in the case of a number of agricultural workers in 1930s New Zealand, it turns out, that was indeed too much to ask.
Fans of Discovery’s long-running science-and-explosions show, Mythbusters, might be familiar with the strange spate of self-immolating trousers that briefly plagued New Zealand farmers in the 1930s. What’s less commonly known about this unusual saga is that it all began with a weed called ragwort.
Native to Europe, Jacobaea vulgaris, commonly known by the unattractive nickname ragwort, made its way to New Zealand in the 19th century, and quickly became more than a nuisance. Mature ragwort looks sort of like a taller dandelion, producing a bright yellow flower with long, thin petals. But the weed is also poisonous to horses and cows, making it a serious problem if it begins to gain a foothold in grazing pastures. Sheep and goats are more readily able to stomach ragwort, and often the development and spread of the weed is kept in check simply by allowing sheep to eat it. But in early 20th-century New Zealand, the ragwort situation began to get out of control.
Ragwort is kind of pretty, but also kind of poison. Biodiversity Heritage Library/Public Domain
As the scholar James Watson writes in a 2004 essay, The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley’s Exploding Trousers: Reflections on an Aspect of Technological Change in New Zealand Dairy Farming Between the World Wars, dairy farming became more widespread in New Zealand in the first few decades of the 20th century. As this shift unfolded, more and more pasture space began to be given over to cows, and less to sheep. Since cows generally avoid ragwort (see: poison), this allowed the weed to begin spreading like, well, a weed, pushing out other beneficial grasses and plants as it did so. The growth of ragwort was so rapid and widespread that by 1930, some farmers began looking to the Department of Agriculture for answers. One of their early solutions was to use a chemical herbicide, sodium chlorate.
Inspired by a 1930 article that extolled the virtues of the toxic compound as an effective ragwort killer, the government began encouraging farmers to spray down affected areas. And sure enough, they managed to kill a ton of ragwort. But in addition to being a highly effective herbicide, sodium chlorate is also highly caustic when dry, a fact that many farmers found out only as their pants began to explode.
One of the earliest cases of exploding pants, and the one most closely associated with the phenomenon, involved a farmer named Richard Buckley, who made the local news after some of his pants exploded in his house. After wearing them to spray the sodium chlorate, he hung them in front of the fire to dry out. Out of nowhere, his trousers exploded with a bang. According to a news report from the day, he was able to snag his now flaming pants and throw them out onto the grass where small explosions continued to erupt in the garment. Buckley was alarmed, but unharmed.
Around the same time, similar reports of spontaneously combusting pants began to appear, and not all of them were as harmless as Buckley’s. One report claimed that a farmer was riding his horse when the friction caused his pants to begin to smolder right there in the saddle. Another pair of pants were hanging out to dry when they suddenly burst into flames. Then there were the unfortunate souls who happened to be wearing their pants when the chemical reaction got started. Some survived with serious burns, while at least a handful of farmers died from the ignitions. One person, referenced in Watson’s paper, died after lighting a match in his electricity-free home, just trying to check on his baby.
The problem was that in order to apply the sodium chlorate, the chemical was mixed with water to create a solution, which was then sprayed and spread, getting all over the pants of the farmers using it. As the clothing dried, the water was removed, leaving nothing but volatile sodium chlorate crystals bonded to the fibers. In essence, it created explosive cloth that could be set off by flames, heat, or even just a strong impact.
Luckily New Zealand’s exploding pants epidemic didn’t last long, quickly becoming an odd historical footnote after use of the dangerous chemical slowed. It remained in the cultural consciousness thanks to local legend and records like Watson’s essays, and that episode of Mythbusters. It even became the titular case for New Scientist’s 2011 collection of odd tales of accidental science, Farmer Buckley’s Exploding Trousers and Other Odd Events On the Way to Scientific Discovery.
Ragwort remains a noxious weed found all across New Zealand. A number of other attempts have been made to control the plant, including the use of further herbicides, as well as introducing biological controls such as the ragwort flea beetle and the cinnabar moth (which was actually introduced in 1926). Thankfully, none of these have caused anyone’s pants to explode.It was the next day, and Norah and I were back in Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. I was somewhat surprised that the place opened so soon after the spring lock failure.
Norah rushed over to me, an excited look on her face. She shoved her notepad in my face. "Alec, look!" I pushed the notepad away so that I could read it, and I muttered what I read aloud.
"'6/24/85... victim name Eric Carson... siblings Dominic and Christopher Carson... day shift guard and spring lock suit operator...'" I looked up at Norah's grinning face. "Norah, how did you find all of this?!"
"Scott was willing to give me more details! Isn't it great when people cooperate?"
"I guess. Alright, let's get to work. Let's split up and talk t-"
"Actually, Alec," Norah cut in, "place is closing down in a few minutes. How about we talk to one of the owners?"
"That's... a good idea."
"Which one, then?"
"Hmm..." I pulled out William's business card, and Norah flipped through her notepad to find the page she used the previous evening. "Contacting Mr. Afton so soon after his daughter was maimed would probably be... disrespectful. You have Mr. Belton's number, don't you?"
Norah nodded her head and rattled off a series of numbers. "Alright, now where's the phone?"
Norah looked around and waved a hand. Scott jogged over. He looked between the two of us. "Uh, what's up?"
"Do you guys have a phone?" Norah asked.
"Oh, yeah, it's, uh, next to the safe room across from the arcade." Norah rushed off, and I followed, looking back at Scott for a moment.
"Thanks, Scott," I called. He gave a quick nod, and I looked back at Norah, trying to match her pace. I nearly slammed into her when she quickly came to a halt. I followed her eyes, and saw a table of five children, eating pizza and chattering, the eldest one having a mixture of annoyance and exhaustion on her face.
"It's rude to stare, Norah," I whispered.
"I was just... thinking," she quietly replied. "They're the last customers of the night. Maybe you could entertain them or something."
"Oh, I totally could. I'm great with kids."
"Yeah, sure. I'll just... leave you to it and call Mr. Belton." She gave a short wave and went on her way, leaving me with the five children.
"So, uh... what are all of your names?" One of them, a boy with light brown hair, let his slice of pizza, oddly shaped like a portion of some cartoonish animal's face, drop and slap his plate.
"I'm Jack," he announced.
"Roy," a boy with jet-black hair murmured, avoiding eye contact.
"I'm Mandy," the short blonde girl said, "and this is my sister, Audrey!" She pointed to the tallest member of the table, who wore glasses and had Mandy's hair color, though Audrey's was tied back. Mandy's hair only reached her neck.
"Hey, mister police officer," the redheaded girl said, sticking her hand out. "My name's Alex, what's yours?"
I lightly took her hand and shook it, though her grip was surprisingly, and nearly alarmingly, strong. "...Alec. Detective Alec Dunn."
She almost looked offended. "Hey! That's like a cheap knock-off of my name!"
I chuckled. "Sassy kid, aren'tcha?"
Alex beamed. "That's me!"
"So," I stepped back and spoke to the entire group, "what brings all of you here so close to closing time?"
The eldest girl, Audrey, looked up and provided the answer. "My parents dropped me and Mandy off, and these three," she eyed Alex, Roy, and Jack, "...were dropped off by Jack's mom and left with me."
"Oh, okay. You all have a way home, right?"
"Yeah, I'll just call my dad. You might know him. Officer Wilkerson."
I tapped my chin thoughtfully, and searched my mind for the name. "...I don't know too many officers. Just the commissioner and my detective pal over there." I jerked my thumb in Norah's direction. She seemed to still be on the phone with Mr. Belton. "So, your dad's an officer? That's pretty cool."
"You said she's a detective..." Audrey glanced at Norah and back at me, "does that mean you're one, too?"
"Yep!"
"Oh my gosh, that's so cool!" I was surprised to see her shedding her standoffish, angsty facade. "I love mysteries and detective novels! Is it anything like that?"
I thought about the past two days for a moment. "Sort of, yeah." I heard quick footsteps and looked to my left. Norah was quickly making her way toward me. I looked back and forth between her and the table of children. As she reached me, she put a hand on my shoulder, quickly said an address, firmly tapped my shoulder once more, and gestured to follow her.
"C'mon, Alec," she said, already beginning to walk, "we don't want to keep him waiting, right?"
"...Right," I muttered. I looked at the children. "Well, I've got to get going. You five have a great rest of your day, okay?" They waved as I turned and walked away. I noticed Audrey and Alex waving with more enthusiasm, which brought a smile to my face.
After quickening my pace, I finally caught up to Norah, halfway to the exit of the restaurant. "So," I said, "in the suburbs, huh?"
Norah snickered. "Small-talk, Alec? That's new. Yeah, it's in the suburbs. I've been around that neighborhood, the houses are pretty big."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"You seemed pretty interested in the house."
"Alright, alright," I groaned, "remind me to never talk about anything not completely related to the case with you."
"That'd be a blessing." Norah grinned and held the door open for me.
"Oh, no, no, no," I walked to the door, held it, and lightly pushed Norah away. "You go first."
"I can already see where this could go. Let's get this over with before it becomes some dumb gag. Let's just go through... one after another."
I shrugged and followed her instructions. As we both exited the building, I brought the car key out from my pocket and jingled it. "I'm driving," I announced.
After what Norah considered a harrowing drive, due to my choice words relating to certain drivers who needed improvement, to say the least, as well as my somewhat unorthodox driving habits, we arrived at the Belton household. "I'm not letting you drive again," Norah said, exiting the passenger seat.
"That's probably fair." I, too, exited the car and locked it. I took a look at the house. It was two stories tall, and most of it was the color of caramel, save for the somewhat darker roof. The left side of the house had windows and the front door, while the right side simply contained the garage. In front of the left side was short green grass, and in front of the right side was a simple gray driveway. I walked across the length of the driveway, being careful not to tread on the grass, and made my way across a narrow walkway composed of oddly-shaped stones, interspersed with small tufts of grass, flattened against the stones. Norah followed closely behind. I reached the front door. It was painted a dark gray color, almost black. Most of it was glass, which the wood of the door ran through in an artistic, symmetrical pattern. I rang the doorbell. I waited for a few moments before I heard the door unlock and the creak of the door opening. A man, not much taller than me and seemingly not too much older than me, greeted me with a smile. His hair was of a dark blond color, went down just a bit below his neck, and was somewhat messy. He wore glasses, a dark blue casual shirt, and jeans of a slightly darker color. His shirt wasn't tucked in, and his face shone with sweat.
I greeted him. "Hello, Mr. Belton."
"Evening, detective," he said, his voice chipper despite his exhausted look. He looked behind me and saw Norah. "Sorry, detectives! Come in, come in!" He ushered us inside, and I stepped inside, Norah behind me. He looked back at me. "Oh, and please... call me Henry."
We followed Henry through a short hallway, and he turned left. We were walking on cream-colored tiles, the gray-carpeted dining area and lounge area to both of our sides. The dining area had six seats and a mahogany table in the shape of an oval. A vase of several colorful flowers was the table's centerpiece, and dark place mats were in front of each chair. The lounge area had two comfortable-looking chairs, a pile of thick books, and a stuffed rabbit that seemed extremely out of place. Henry led us further into the house, and we took a right. A large living room was directly in front of us, with that same gray carpet. A box in the corner was nearly overflowing with several toys. A long, L-shaped couch sat to the right side of the living room, with the shorter part of the "L" sitting against the wall across from us. Two people sat on the couch: a woman with light brown hair in a dark red cardigan and light blue jeans, and a little girl with darker hair in a purple sweater, who laid on her stomach and stared at a book.
"Nessie," Henry called, "these two are the detectives I was talking about!" The woman stood and rushed over, the little girl looking up from her book to watch. As the woman reached us, she stuck her hand out.
"Pleased to meet both of you," she said, her voice full of cheer, "I'm Vanessa. The little girl - our little girl - is Charlotte."
"Charlie," the little girl called out, seemingly offended. "I wanna be called Charlie!"
"Charlie seems like a sweet kid," I chuckled. I turned to Henry. "Now, Mr. Belton - sorry, Henry - shall we begin?"
Henry shrugged. "Well, I don't see why not. Where would you like to do the interview?"
"Do you have an office?" Norah asked.
"Yes, I do! It's upstairs, follow me." I looked back and saw Vanessa giving Henry a short wave. I noticed Charlie, still on the couch, mimicking her mother.
As Norah and I walked, side-by-side, behind Henry, she leaned over and whispered to me.
"They seem nice."
"Yeah," I quietly replied, "I'm sure they are. I just hope Henry'll be a lead or something."
"He's one of the owners, of course he'll be a lead!"
"I hope so." We made our way up the carpeted stairs, walls on either side of us and handrails to our right. Henry quickly took a left and I did the same, bumping into the wall to my right for a moment. A lone door stood at the end of the hallway, with a rectangular metal plate in the middle of it.
"OFFICE," it read. Henry pulled a key from his pocket and stuck it in the doorknob, twisting it. After I heard a quiet click, he pulled the door open. The office's light was already on, and a single rolling chair sat in front of a metal desk, several small objects and devices scattered upon it. Papers with sketched diagrams were pinned to the wall in front of it. The remainder of the room was bare.
"Lot less lively than I thought it was," Henry muttered. "Nonetheless, it'll do! Come on in!" He beckoned us as he stepped backward into the office. He spun the rolling chair around and sat down, facing us. He looked back and forth between the two of us, and adjusted his glasses.
"So," he said, "what's your first question?" I took a deep breath. Norah flipped through her notepad and clicked her pen.
I finally spoke. "Does the name 'Eric Carson' ring a bell?" Henry scratched his short beard and furrowed his brow.
"...I don't believe I've heard that name before."
"Day shift guard and spring lock suit operator," I said.
"Will does most of the hiring, actually. I help with the bots and some technical stuff. Why do you ask?"
"He died to a spring lock failure. His body was onstage. He was in... Fredbear, I believe its name was." Judging from Henry's look of shock, he had no idea.
"I had no idea," he breathed. I slowly nodded.
"It's not your fault, Henry." I softened my voice. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I just want to understand how Eric... passed. How the spring locks work."
Henry let out a sigh. "That makes sense. God, I wish I knew about the man's death. I wish I had used better materials. I-I considered that, you know, I-"
"Henry, please calm down. It's not your fault." It was too late, he was already in an anxious state, running his fingers through his hair over and over again and muttering incoherently. Norah bent down slightly and stared into his eyes.
"Henry, if you calm down, you can help us make sure that this never happens again. You know how the robots work, don't you?" Henry froze, took a few deep breaths, and slowly nodded.
"Y-yeah..." he muttered. He cleared his throat. "Yes. Yes, I do."
"There." Norah smiled. "Can you tell us about how they work, then?"
I cut in. "Hey, would you two mind if we continued this in the dining room? It's getting kinda stuffy in here."
"Sure, sure," Henry said, standing up. "I'll lock up behind you two, and then we can talk." Norah and I exited the cramped room. I watched Henry as he locked the door before making his way in front of us. We moved back down to the first floor.
The three of us sat around the mahogany table. Norah sat next to me and Henry across from the two of us. Henry folded his hands.
He finally spoke after a few seconds of silence. "So, what would you like to know first?" I thought about this for a moment before speaking.
"How do spring lock suits work?...And how did you get the idea to make them?" Norah readied her pen, holding it against the top left corner of the notepad's page. Henry almost instantaneously answered.
"A few years ago, I thought it would be a great idea to make a wearable animatronic. Not like a normal suit, an actual animatronic that could be worn and could perform on its own directly afterward. Then, I discovered spring locks. How... strong they were. I realized that I could use them to pull the animatronic parts, including the endoskeleton, back and against the 'inner walls' of the suit, so a person could wear it. All with one hand crank."
"The hand cranks," I muttered, remembering the one Fritz held two days ago. Henry continued.
"It was a huge success, and Fazbear Entertainment's spring lock suits were born!"
I raised an eyebrow. "'Fazbear Entertainment?'"
"Yes, the name of the company."
"I thought Freddy Fazbear's Pizza was... uh... moving on. How were the suits worn?"
"Well, an employee, usually a technician rather than a suit operator, would stick a hand crank in the middle of the suit's back. There's a hole with several wires connected to each spring lock. Rotating it clockwise tightens the locks and retracts the animatronic parts, and rotating it counterclockwise loosens the locks and puts the parts back in place. Once they're retracted, individual parts of the suit can just be worn. There are very small metal buttons all over the backside of the suit. Not too many, of course, it would take hours to wear or remove the suit if that |
to one of the Gulags on the East. On the way he managed to escape again, and started home on foot, for the third time. This time he was much more careful not to be caught, as they would have shot him dead. He walked throughout the whole winter, only during the night, slowly metre by metre. Finally, he arrived home in 1946."
"My mother lived the life of young women at the time. Her brothers were on the front, she knew nothing about her love for a long time. The war went through Székesfehérvár - my hometown - three times, all three times in the form of bloody battles. Young girls were camouflaged to escape from the Russian soldiers. Those must have been miserable years, living the in the hopeless. Then, my mother and father were somehow blown together by the wind again. They got married and built a house from ruins with their own hands, where the four of us were born."
© Christophe Favreau "My father only bothered about his own job, worked hard every day; he didn’t care about communism. My mother stayed at home, raising her four sons. They gave life to us, gave their wisdom and morals to us. I was about ten years old when my mother was asked in by the director of my school. When she was blamed for the religious raising of her children, she said to: “You, in this school, can teach my children anything you want. And I will teach them what I want in my home.” I’m incredibly proud of my parents, they were true, hard-working people, it feels great to remember them."Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Nigel Farage: "An extra £3bn a year for the NHS, funded out of the fact that we will not be paying daily membership fees to the European Union"
An MEP who has defected to the Conservatives had "reached the end of the road" with UKIP, party leader Nigel Farage has said.
Amjad Bashir was suspended by UKIP over various allegations - all of which he denies - shortly before announcing his defection on Saturday.
He quit after criticising UKIP's "ridiculous" lack of policies.
On the BBC's Andrew Marr show, Mr Farage also said UKIP would commit an extra £3bn per year in NHS funding.
The party said it would raise the cash by quitting the EU and through "middle management" cuts.
In his interview, Mr Farage also said:
UKIP would win "more than three or four" seats at the general election.
Comments by UKIP official Matthew Richardson that the party stood for "bigots" were a joke while he was having a drink in the pub.
Attempts to paint UKIP as a racist party were "dead".
UKIP were unlikely to join a post-election coalition, but that he could "potentially" do a deal with David Cameron over an EU referendum.
For agreement to be reached on a referendum, there would have to be equal spending limits and only British citizens would be allowed to vote.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Amjad Bashir: "UKIP don't want the defection to be seen as a major event"
Mr Bashir, a former Conservative, was elected as a UKIP MEP last year.
Before the defection was announced, UKIP suspended him and said he was being investigated for matters including "unanswered financial and employment questions" and "interference" with candidate selection processes.
Mr Bashir said he was taking legal advice in relation to UKIP's accusations, accusing his former party of trying to "muddy the waters and and accuse me of things that are totally wrong".
He added: "They don't want my defection to be seen as a major event, that's why they've done this."
Analysis
By Robin Brant, political correspondent
Image copyright Getty Images
Tucked away in that Marr appearance was a significant announcement on the NHS.
UKIP's new pledge to spend an extra £3bn a year is an about turn for Nigel Farage. Gone was his message that ring-fencing NHS spending after the general election is "ridiculous", replaced instead by support for what George Osborne has already promised, and then some.
This will please UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, who has said the party must pledge to spend more. It seems he's won the battle with the leader - and former policy chief Tim Aker - who both made it clear that cuts to NHS spending were not off the table.
Some will suspect a tactical move though, announced on a difficult weekend, to see them through the election campaign, but maybe not beyond.
And it's not clear where the extra £3bn will come from. The party's economic spokesman Patrick O'Flynn has suggested gains from leaving the EU and cutting the aid budget would help.
But he'spent' that money when he unveiled UKIP's plan to increase the personal allowance and cut income tax at the party conference.
Mr Farage said he had become "increasingly alarmed" by Mr Bashir's behaviour in recent months.
"Whichever way we look at this, he had reached the end of the road with us," he said, adding that his "only surprise" was that the Conservatives had accepted him.
'Desperate stuff'
And he said reports of the the comments by Mr Richardson, the party's secretary and a member of its national executive council, were an example of "tribal politics" involving the big two parties and "their friends in the media".
In footage released by the Labour Party from 2010, Mr Richardson also described the NHS as "the biggest waste of money in the whole United Kingdom".
Mr Farage said the speech had been given when Mr Richardson was a Conservative.
Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps described Mr Bashir's suspension by UKIP as "desperate stuff".
He told the Sunday Politics: "All of this stuff has been out there for a long time."
Mr Farage was "trying to muddy the waters" of Mr Bashir's defection, he said, describing the MEP as "mainstream".
NHS pledge
UKIP's health policy has come under scrutiny following the emergence of a 2012 recording in which Mr Farage advocated an "insurance-based system of healthcare".
He later said his idea had been rejected by his party, and recently told the BBC how to pay for the NHS was "a debate that we're all going to have to return to".
Mr Farage told the Andrew Marr show he wanted the NHS to be "better-run", saying it was in "crisis" because of a rise in the population.
UKIP said Mr Farage would set out how the money would be spent in a "major speech" on the NHS.It’s not about “the occupation.” It never was.
On August 12, 2017, a farewell gala event honoring Rasmea Odeh was held in Chicago by a coalition of anti-Israel groups, and attended by several hundred people.
This coming Thursday, August 17, 2017, Rasmea will be sentenced in federal court in Detroit after a guilty plea to immigration fraud. By her plea agreement, Rasmea will be deported and will lose her U.S. citizenship, but will not serve any further jail time.
Rasmea’s immigration plea resulted from her lies on immigration and naturalization forms in which she concealed a prior conviction and prison term for a 1969 supermarket bombing in Jerusalem that killed two Hebrew University students, Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner. Rasmea also concealed her conviction for the attempted bombing of the British Consulate that same year.
Rasmea and her supporters have thrown up phony defense after defense to both the underlying bombing and the immigration charges. Those defenses have been methodically debunked in numerous prior posts, including:
Rasmea has become a hero of the anti-Israel movement in the U.S., particularly with groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, as documented in our post, Jewish Voice for Peace’s long embrace of convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh.
JVP honored Rasmea at JVP’s 2017 annual meeting held in Chicago, including this warm introduction by JVP “Rabbi” Alissa Wise, who recently was barred entry to Israel:
Rasmea also received a warm embrace by Linda Sarsour, a co-panelist at the JVP meeting:
Not surprisingly, JVP joined in supporting and attending Rasmea’s farewell party.
Groups like JVP like to claim the conflict is about the 1967 “occupation” of the West Bank by Israel, and that the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement is only about removing that occupation. That argument is a canard — as numerous leaders of BDS have said quite clearly that they consider all of Israel occupied.
At Rasmea’s farewell party, the masked dropped once again.
In the introduction of Rasmea, Hatem Abudayyeh of the Rasmea Defense Committee and Arab American Action Network held out Rasmea as “an example to all of us, the absolute personification of our struggle, the worldwide struggle for the liberation of all of historical Palestine.”
When they say the liberation of “all of Palestine,” they mean Israel. That’s why the common BDS chant, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” is a call for the destruction of Israel, not an end to the “occupation.”
Rasmea repeated that call: “We are winning this battle with the Zionists, you are winning this battle and we will never stop organizing until all of Palestine is free.”
(You can view the entire introduction and speech at the Facebook page of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network. IsraellyCool has additional footage and analysis.)
So there’s no denying it anymore.
People who support Rasmea support the destruction of Israel. It’s not about the “occupation,” it never was.Sam “You can run, but you can’t” Hyde is one component of the iconic comedy group known as Million Dollar Extreme. Hyde rose to fame after a slew of stunts, including: Crashing a TED-talk to give a rant satirising how pretentious the talks are, and crashing a Japanese culture exhibition to give a gradually more offensive lecture on the wonders of anime and swastikas.
The edgy stunts pulled off by Hyde gained traction on 4chan’s /pol/ and /b/ boards, after which they took him on as a bit of a poster boy. He was emblematic of a fringe culture that mocked the sophistication and humourless nature of the top rungs of society.
Hitting it big, through stand-up routines and a booming YouTube channel, it was reported on several media outlets that Hyde had committed a number of school shootings; after an inside joke went too far, taking the web by storm.
Whenever a mass shooting was in progress, those from the dark corners of the net would contact their local news stations with the ‘identity’ of the shooter (stating that it was Hyde). Given that Hyde’s reputation was well beyond repair in the public eye, the only way that he could make something of himself was through taking up his comedy act professionally.
Comedy Central picked up a season of Sam’s show Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace.
World Peace, was comprised of skit shows which poked fun at topical or social trends, by using offbeat humour and quirky delivery, to bring about a hilarious comedy extravaganza in each episode. Although, his work was not to everyone’s liking.
Buzzfeed published articles by Joseph Bernstein entitled ‘The Alt-Right Has Its Very Own TV Show on Adult Swim’ and ‘The Underground Neo-Nazi Promo Campaign behind Adult Swim’s Alt-Right Comedy Show’; despite Hyde never having any declared affiliation to said groups.
Bernstein had picked up on Hyde’s, slightly right-leaning, activities on Twitter and ran with it, pushing out three articles detailing hyperbolic assertions; tacking those labels onto what was a rather apolitical show.
This resulted in some in-fighting within Adult Swim staff, and eventually the show was pulled.
It goes without saying that Bernstein’s literary lynch-mob was founded on a personal vendetta against Sam Hyde. Hyde recorded an interview that Bernstein conducted and uploaded it to YouTube; berating him as a source for laughter.
Buzzfeed decided to revive the lügenpresse: The Young Turks decided to throw in their own spin on the drama. Beginning with Ana Kasparian, a co-host on the show, mixing up the title of Hyde’s show (World Peace) with the name of the comedy group (Million Dollar Extreme).
This “hard hitting research” was then continued by displaying a clip from the comedy troupe’s YouTube channel (which was nearly half a decade old) rather than a clip from the show itself.
This only served to misrepresent the situation, and add to the confirmation bias of TYT’s bullet-proof echo-chamber.
Naturally, the libertarian position on this would be to side with the business in their termination of the program; given the fact that a private company should be able to act as they see fit.
This is a clean-cut example of how businesses should have their own sense of autonomy; but there is also a serious social aspect that needs to be addressed, namely censorship.
Despite libertarians having no qualms over the way in which a company is run; it is still important to address culture. The censorship of a right-wing comedian is ultimately a slippery slope; in which standard political positioning results in people being fired from their work place.
One cannot, and should not, operate a society on one collectivist ideology alone.
Kim Manning, the Senior Director of Programming for Adult Swim, stated the following in a Reddit discussion:
What can I say? MDE is a source of HOT, HOT debate around the office. To be fair, I don’t know of a single alt-right sympathizer at Williams St, most of us at least lean more extreme left. (I gleefully wore a pantsuit all day on Tuesday, champagne ready, and am still crying, wearing my safety pin, googling what to do next.)
So, even though Adult Swim and Turner Media were perfectly within their rights to do what they did, should they have caved in to the pressure of an agenda? Or should a free world also entail a freedom of expression without getting fired? Is Buzzfeed’s bigotry to the ideals of others crippling the public perception of other media outlets? Should media cave in to other media? Or should these corporations give World Peace a chance?Forward Sean Okoli, who was acquired in a draft-day trade with the Sounders last year, was waived by the Revolution on Tuesday.
Okoli, 23, landed in New England after the Revolution sent its second-round pick in the 2015 MLS SuperDraft to Seattle. He played in five games with the Revolution last season, all as a substitute, and garnered a total of 46 minutes. He started the club’s Fourth Round U.S. Open Cup tilt against Charlotte Independence on Jun. 17, going 64 minutes before he was subbed off.
The timing of Okoli’s departure is somewhat of a surprise. Despite the scant playing time, the club picked up his option for 2016 last November, and was part of a traveling contingent of teammates that trained with Revolution affiliate Sporting CP in December.
But with Charlie Davies and Juan Agudelo getting the majority of the minutes up top, and the team’s selection of Femi Hollinger-Janzen in the third round of this year’s draft, it appeared that Okoli’s path to more playing time was only getting narrower.
Okoli saw action in all three of the Revolution’s preseason contests in Casa Grande last week, but did not record any offensive statistics.
With Okoli no longer in camp, the Revolution currently have 20 players under contract.Since the UK voted to leave EU on 23 June 2016, we have been working to secure a successful Brexit that promotes the interests of Wales.
Our proposals for a sensible Brexit are based on evidence and putting the needs of the economy and protecting jobs first.
We have been clear and consistent in our 6 priorities:
Continued full and unfettered access to the Single Market and participation in a Customs Union to protect the 60% of Welsh exports that go to the EU and to retain and increase job-creating investment.
A new migration system that links migration more closely to employment so we can recruit the doctors, nurses, engineers and other workers we need, while protecting employees from exploitation.
Wales not to lose a penny of funding due to Brexit as promised during the referendum.
A fundamentally different constitutional relationship between the devolved governments and the UK government – based on mutual respect. No clawback of devolved powers to Whitehall.
Maintaining the current social and environmental protections, including workers’ rights.
The vital importance of a transition period to avoid a ‘cliff edge’.
Through our White Paper – Securing Wales’ Future published in January 2017, and subsequent policy papers on finance, trade, migration, regional investment and devolution, we have published evidence, analysis and detailed proposals for a Brexit works for Wales and the UK. The full documents can be found below.
If you require further information please email: europeantransition@wales.gsi.gov.ukYour browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Tesla, the little American car company every other automaker loves to hate, recently lent a Model X to Fortune for a review. The car was not what one might expect of a $150,000 luxury car, unless something like an old Jaguar has been in your ownership history.
Fortune adored the Model X for its speed, its infotainment system, and its semi-autonomous mode. Fortune was less enamored with the seat controls that conspired to squish a baby.
“The theory is,” veteran auto tester Sue Callaway says as she places an occupied baby seat in the middle row, “the seats move together so the baby doesn’t get squished.”
“Oh! Nope,” she says, watching the baby seat immediately get pressed up against the back of the fronts. “Baby’s getting squished. That’s not good. It’s not supposed to hit the back of the driver’s seat.”
Indeed it is not.
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Quality issues extended past baby-squishing, with weatherstripping peeling off one of the falcon doors that Tesla itself admitted were more ambitious than advisable. The carpet, as well, was coming off in places.
If this was an isolated issue with the Model X, one might figure that this was just a rare preproduction glitch or two. But the Model X has repeatedly been in the news for quality issues. There have been complaints about the car’s windshield, with its doors, its rear seat latches, and assorted other fit and finish problems.
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Again, these issues once were the norm (decades ago) for ultra-luxury cars as expensive and as exclusive as the top-of-the-line Model X and the Model S. But this doesn’t bode well for people buying low-cost Teslas, or for the people who are expecting a mass produced product from the upcoming Model 3.
Jalopnik has reached out to Tesla for comment but has not yet heard back.Last night, the council heard from Garfield residents about the hardships they have faced ever since the weekend service was cut in 2011. Annie McGowan shared how she and her mother are unable to go to church events on the weekends. Myval Johnson expressed dismay that she cannot go shopping at the new Aldi grocery store on Saturdays, and Donna Terry shared her difficulties getting up to her mother’s home at N Aiken Court to take care of her. Aggie Brose, an advocate for the community and Deputy Director of the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation, asked the councilmembers to just imagine what their lives would be like without a car and Molly Nichols, from Pittsburghers for Public Transit, discussed the community campaign for service that has generated over 400 requests for service—all submitted to Port Authority.
During their meeting on Feb 16, Allegheny County Council unanimously approved a motion (sponsored by Councilwoman Denise Ranalli-Russell) urging the Port Authority to reinstate weekend service on the 89 Garfield bus. (for full text of motion, see below) Residents began a robust campaign for service this fall, with support from the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation and Pittsburghers for Public Transit.
Many councilmembers spoke in support. Mr. Ellenbogen shared how he walked that hill every day for 4 years to get to high school at Peabody. Mr. Futules said “people’s lives depend on the bus.” Mr. Palmiere expressed the value of advocating for extended bus service, and Mr. Walton highlighted the importance of fixing the “prior damage” that was done to communities during the cuts.
The Garfield bus campaign applauds the council for unanimously passing this motion. More support from elected officials gets us closer to ensuring that all communities get the transit service they need.
photo by Casy Stelitano
Aggie Brose, Denise Ranalli-Russell, Annie McGowan, Donna Terry, Molly Nichols, and Myval Johnson celebrating the unanimous support from county council for weekend service in Garfield.
Bill No. ___9478-16_________________
MOTION OF THE COUNCIL OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY
Urging the Port Authority of Allegheny County to reinstate at least some weekend service on the 89 – Garfield Commons bus route in order to adequately address the service needs of the population of the Garfield area of the City of Pittsburgh.
Whereas, as part of the Port Authority of Allegheny County’s 2011 service reductions, weekend service on the 89 – Garfield Commons bus route was discontinued; and
Whereas, losing this service has negatively impacted the neighborhood, and most particularly has disadvantaged a large number of its residents who rely on public transit to get to their jobs (many of which require working on weekends), the grocery store, shopping, community events, places of worship, medical appointments, and more; and
Whereas, currently, 400 people utilize the Garfield Commons route each weekday, while 73.5% of renters in this community do not have access to a vehicle, 93.4% of these residents are African American, and 55.4% of the families in the area live in poverty and are disproportionately disadvantaged by the 2011 service reductions; and
Whereas, many of these transit-dependent riders are now forced to walk up and down steep hills on the weekend for a distance of over half a mile, to get to Penn Ave and Negley Ave in order to access other buses or reach destinations in Garfield, Friendship, Bloomfield, and East Liberty; and
Whereas, residents who are not able to make the lengthy walk must rely on other individuals to give them rides, or must resort to jitneys or taxis, which are comparatively extremely expensive but, for these individuals, they are often the only alternative to remaining stuck in their homes; and
Whereas, many of these residents are senior citizens and eligible for free passes but they cannot use them on the weekend as a result of the service reduction;
Whereas, other Garfield residents who buy weekly, monthly, or yearly passes also are unable to use them on weekends, which account for over 25% of the days in a calendar year, and are thus deprived of a substantial portion of the benefit of having bus passes that span weekends; and
Whereas, even those residents who are eligible for Access must still pay for this service, and, depending upon the nature of their travel needs, may not be able to furnish the 24 hour advance notice necessary to arrange for Access service; and
Whereas, these residents have united to call for reinstatement of weekend bus service on the 89 – Garfield Commons route – an action that would not entail the creation of a new bus route, but, rather, would only require the extension of existing service hours – and have canvassed the neighborhood, attended community meetings, spoken at Port Authority board meetings, met with elected officials, and submitted over 400 requests to the Port Authority as the Authority considers numerous requests for service according to their service guidelines criteria;
Whereas, it is the judgment of Council that the hardships incurred by the termination of weekend service on the 89 – Garfield Commons bus route are significant, have a deleterious effect on the health, safety and well-being of the residents of that area of the City, and are disproportionately borne by minority, elderly, and economically disadvantaged populations.
NOW THEREFORE, IT IS MOVED THAT THE COUNCIL OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY
Hereby urges the Port Authority of Allegheny County to reinstate at least some weekend service on the 89 – Garfield Commons bus route in order to adequately address the service needs of the population of the Garfield area of the City of Pittsburgh.
PRIMARY SPONSOR: COUNCIL MEMBER RANALLI-RUSSELLThe United States government cannot get enough of war. With Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s regime falling to a rebelling population, CNN reports that a Pentagon spokesman said that the U.S. is looking at all options from the military side.
Allegedly, the Pentagon, which is responsible for one million dead Iraqis and an unknown number of dead Afghans and Pakistanis, is concerned about the deaths of 1,000 Libyan protesters.
While the Pentagon tries to figure out how to get involved in the Libyan revolt, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific is developing new battle plans to take on China in her home territory. Four-star Admiral Robert Willard thinks the U.S. should be able to whip China in its own coastal waters.
The admiral thinks one way to do this is to add U.S. Marines to his force structure so that the U.S. can eject Chinese forces from disputed islands in the East and South China seas.
It is not the U.S. who is disputing the islands, but if there is a chance for war anywhere, the admiral wants to make sure we are not left out.
The admiral also hopes to develop military ties with India and add that country to his clout. India, the admiral says, "is a natural partner of the United States" and "is crucial to America’s 21st-century strategy of balancing China." The U.S. is going to seduce the Indians by selling them advanced aircraft.
If the plan works out, we will have India in NATO helping us to occupy Pakistan and presenting China with the possibility of a two-front war.
The Pentagon needs some more wars so there can be some more "reconstruction." Reconstruction is very lucrative, especially as Washington has privatized so many of the projects, thus turning over to well-placed friends many opportunities to loot. Considering all the money that has been spent, one searches hard to find completed projects. The just released report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting can’t say exactly how much of the $200 billion in Afghan "reconstruction" disappeared in criminal behavior and blatant corruption, but $12 billion alone was lost to "overt fraud."
War makes money for the politically connected. While the flag-waving population remains proud of the service of their sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, cousins, wives, mothers and daughters, the smart boys who got the fireworks started are rolling in the mega-millions.
As General Smedley Butler told the jingoistic American population, to no avail, "war is a racket." As long as the American population remains proud that their relatives serve as cannon fodder for the military/security complex, war will remain a racket.
Read more by Paul Craig RobertsOne of the most significant concepts that the advent of bitcoin brought to the world, was that of detaching people from the need for banking services. With cryptocurrencies, people can be their own banks, but if anyone aspires to be their own bank then they must understand that they must take some measures to secure their deposits. Banks use increasingly sophisticated vaults to secure their deposits in cash and other types of reserves, such as gold. Bitcoin users should also have access to the same kind of infrastructure to secure their own wealth, so SatoshiLabs took on the challenge of creating it. SatoshiLabs developed the Trezor hardware wallet, to give bitcoin users an alternative to paper wallets, to store their bitcoin safely with a vault-like mechanism.
The Trezor Hardware Wallet is like a Vault
The idea of offline bitcoin storage was built into the network through paper wallets. The idea of the paper wallet works to a certain extent, but it has disadvantages. Those disadvantages can be conceptualized in a simple manner, by comparing bitcoin and its users to traditional cash and its users. There are few parallels between cash and a paper wallet. The amount of bitcoin that can be loaded onto a wallet as compared to the denomination of a bank note, is one critical point at which both differ, yet the mechanism has some similarities. Bank notes go up to a certain value, while bitcoin users can load their paper wallets with as much bitcoin as they like. Nevertheless, it is quite unsafe for people to carry loads of bills in their wallets, as much as it would be unsafe to carry a paper wallet loaded with a lot of coins.
That is why people who hold large amounts of cash are likely to have a vault somewhere to put their cash away. Bitcoin paper wallets might just be stored away safely in the same manner. However, bitcoin belongs to the next generation of money: it is completely digital. There is no reason to put it on a paper wallet and treat it like cash, when digitalization offers so many advantages. It is much better to make a digital vault, and this is exactly where Trezor hardware wallet comes in.
The Advantages of Trezor
Trezor hardware wallets offer the advantage of storing bitcoin offline, with the security features of a vault. Furthermore, Trezor takes full advantage of the digital nature of bitcoin to revolutionize the very concept of a vault. The following are some of the advantages that a Trezor wallet has over other storage methods:
Bitcoin and other digital assets can be stored in a Trezor hardware wallet.
The storage mechanism allows for encryption.
Users who want to make transactions or otherwise use the digital assets they stored in their Trezor, can do so through a user friendly interface on any computer.
Trezor users can use their wallets on any computer, even if it is compromised, given that SatoshiLabs created a wide variety of mechanisms to protect those assets while the device is connected to the computer.
As a result, users will have to enter a pin number to access their assets on a number pad that will only appear on the screen of the device.
Trezor devices have a built in mechanism to prevent anyone from figuring out the pin number through trial and error: every time an erroneous pin number is entered, the device delays its response to the next input. That means that once a mistake is made on a pin number input, the device will progressively delay the opportunity afforded to a person to try another pin number.
Furthermore, confirmation of any transaction must go through an input on the device, via the confirmation button, or the transaction will not take place.
Trezor has a built in recovery mechanism or seed, which can be used to restore digital assets stored in the hardware wallet should the device itself fall into the wrong hands or be otherwise compromised.
Comparing Trezor with other storage mechanisms and vaults
Given the clever way in which SatoshiLabs used the characteristics of digital assets to create Trezor, it is easy to see why this device has so many advantages over other storage mechanisms and vaults. This is how Trezor compares to vaults, paper wallets and other software wallets:
Trezor Vault Paper Wallet Conventional Online Wallets Allows for the secure storage of various digital assets. Allows for the secure storage of various assets, digital and physical alike. Allows for the storage of a specific digital asset like bitcoin, offline. Allow for the storage of various digital assets, online or offline through cold storage options that depend on a trusted third party. Offers encryption and high levels of security on compromised computers. Offers mostly physical obstacles to secure assets. No encryption. Security depends on where the paper wallet is, since all it does is it takes digital assets offline. Varying levels of encryption and conventional internet security – server based. Security may falter on compromised computers. Highly reliable recovery mechanism in case the device is compromised in any way. No recovery mechanisms. If the vault is compromised, stolen assets may never be recovered. Insurance claims are the only way to restore some value to asset holders. No recovery mechanism. The digital assets stored on the paper belong to the holder in practical terms. No recovery mechanisms. Digital assets stolen cannot be recovered. Insurance is the only option. Portable device with the capability of holding millions or even billions worth of digital assets. Cumbersome, fixed devices or infrastructure. Can potentially hold billions or even trillions worth in assets, depending on the size. Portable and exchangeable, capable of holding millions or billions worth of specific digital assets like bitcoin. Assets remain in the cloud, so they can be accessed from anywhere. Have the capability of holding millions or even billions worth of digital assets. Relatively inexpensive and durable. Relatively expensive and durable. Inexpensive and fragile. Inexpensive. Durability depends on a trusted third party.
Trezor Customization
Apart from the obvious advantages that Trezor has over all the other alternatives on almost every parameter in the comparison above, this hardware wallet also offers a high degree of customization. Trezor supports many other wallets, so users have a wide variety of choice when it comes to their interface with their device. Trezor also offers more advanced customization and encryption options for advanced users.
A Vault and a Wallet
Customization also allows the users to separate the functions of Trezor, making the device function as a vault while the type of software installed on it gives it the characteristics of a wallet. A Trezor device can be simply viewed as a pocket sized vault. This gives its users the advantage of gaining more functionality as more digital assets and blockchain-powered cryptocurrencies develop. One day a Trezor hardware wallet might be able to hold many different kinds of currencies, expanding even to government-backed digital currencies. The device itself might not change a lot, which means that buying the hardware now can give users a wide variety of opportunities in the future without facing obsolescence.
Additional Security Features
Despite all these advantages, some might choose not to buy a Trezor hardware wallet. One of the possible reasons for this has to do with trust. SatoshiLabs, the company that created Trezor, is a long standing bitcoin and blockchain company based in Prague, Czech Republic. This company is completely reliable in terms of security and their products are trust worthy. Trezor devices are also built in a manner in which the user doesn’t necessarily have to trust SatoshiLabs in order to understand that using one is completely safe. That is why the device needs a physical transaction confirmation on the device before it sends bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency out to another address.
Others might fear that during the shipping process, the Trezor hardware wallet that they ordered might have been tampered with. SatoshiLabs took this into account and it seals its boxes with two pieces of holographic tape. It is impossible to open the box without damaging the tape or the box itself. Clients will notice if their Trezor device was opened before they got it, and SatoshiLabs encourages its clients to report this to them if it happens.
Seed Mechanism
Furthermore, new Trezor devices will “reboot” the first time they are connected to a computer. This process allows the user to set a new pin and a recovery mechanism called a “seed”. The seed consists of 24 different words that users must record on a separate piece of paper. Trezor hardware wallets come with a small piece of paper to write the words on. Those 24 seed words must be recorded in order, and will serve as a fallback recovery mechanism in case the device is compromised.
Easy to use Despite all the Advanced Security Mechanisms
Probably one of the most impressive features of the Trezor hardware wallet is that it is very easy to use despite all the advanced security measures. SatoshiLabs clearly designed this device with the user at its core. The only thing a new user has to do in order to be able to use a Trezor device, is to follow the instructions inside the box carefully. The instructions are simple and very easy to follow, even for people who are new to bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
Trezor Passes the Beginner’s Test with Flying Colors
Basically the only type of skills needed to use one of these devices are: the ability to understand the most basic operations required to operate a computer, and the ability to follow instructions. This means that Trezor wallets also make it possible for assets like bitcoin to reach the masses. Thanks to the device and its default configuration, making bitcoin transactions, or transactions with any of the other cryptocurrencies that Trezor currently supports, is easy as pie.
Bitcoin Chaser staff set out to prove how user friendly a Trezor wallet is. In order to do so, we gave the device to our newest employee. This employee had never done a bitcoin transaction before, so it was his first interaction with both a Trezor device and a cryptocurrency. We let him set the device up on his own. It took him about 5 minutes to set it up and record the seed words properly on the designated piece of paper that comes with the device. Then we asked him to receive a 0.05 BTC transaction and to send it back to a different address. He was able to complete the task without even asking for help.
Are you ready to get your very own Pocket Sized Vault?
After reading about Trezor and all of its great features, you might want to take a leap and become your own bank, with a vault of your own and everything you need to provide financial services to yourself or your business safely. The only thing you need to do then is to go ahead and buy your first Trezor wallet.
Get A Trezor Wallet
If you are still on the fence and want to read more about SatoshiLabs and the Trezor device, just go ahead. The official page has a comprehensive FAQ with all the information you need.
Find Out More About TrezorBitcoin is designed as a global currency that already solves many problems that the banks have not been able to. Banks still take days to transfer money even domestically. Bitcoin can clear in 10 minutes world wide!
Treat Bitcoin as what it is - a global currency. Tax it as a digital currency. Invent a new category where no GST applies to the buying and selling of bitcoins. Capital gains and losses would still apply, putting it on equal footing with sovereign currencies.
If GST is levied on the full value of Bitcoin purchases at the exchange level, it will drive Bitcoin adoption out of the Australian economy.
Bitcoin has numerous advantages over using banks including no fees for merchants to accept it, finality of payment and reduced identity theft for the customers.
Further, Australians should have the same rights as the citizens of these other countries to use Bitcoin as a means of exchange without being penalised 10%.
The Goods and Services tax is a form of consumption tax levied on goods and services. Bitcoin is designed to function as money.
By taxing Bitcoin as a good the under-banked will be even more disadvantaged, entrepreneurs will go overseas and competition in the financial industry will diminish.
Ultimately this decision decides how economically free we are. I like to think that Australia is a place where |
signature” drone strikes, which run a higher risk of hitting innocents.
Weinstein and Lo Porto died in a signature strike. The attacks involve American drone operators firing missiles at a target based on the movements of military-aged males observed in suspicious activities on the ground below. The CIA officials ordering the attacks have no information about a specific, wanted person inside the target area.
The George W. Bush administration initially created the signature drone attack in 2008 to strike al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who hid in Pakistan’s tribal areas and carried out cross-border attacks on U.S. military forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Senior American officials argue that the signature strikes are particularly effective at killing al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, who are difficult to identify in Pakistan’s tribal areas due to a lack of intelligence sources on the ground.
Yet the CIA signature strikes, which remain officially covert and shrouded in secrecy, are believed to have killed scores, if not hundreds, of civilians in Pakistan and Yemen.
With the strikes fueling anti-American sentiment, Obama promised, in a 2013 speech at the National Defense University, to make U.S. drone strikes more transparent and subject to stricter review. Senior members of his administration told Reuters that some drone strikes would be shifted from the CIA to the Pentagon, where longstanding U.S. law requires greater transparency and scrutiny of American air attacks.
Yet Obama issued a waiver that exempted strikes in Pakistan from the stricter requirement, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The number of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan has fallen by four-fifths from a peak of 122 in 2010 to 22 in 2014. Yet the rules on approving strikes remain looser in Pakistan than in any other nation.
U.S. officials told the Journal that they used heat sensors to confirm the number of people inside the house where Weinstein and Lo Porto died. The sensors showed the presence of four suspected militants, they said, including one believed to be a senior commander based on his pattern of behavior. The senior militant was apparently Ahmed Farouq, an American citizen who had joined al-Qaeda and was on a list of wanted operatives. U.S. officials added that they believed Weinstein and Lo Porto may have been held in a basement or escape tunnel and were not identified by the heat sensors.
During my seven months in captivity, I saw both the accuracy and limits of drones. When drones flew overhead, my captors ordered me to go inside buildings so I would not be seen. My kidnappers seemed delusional, convinced both that I was an extraordinarily valuable captive and that the U.S. government was trying to kill me in a drone strike.BTW
For a second when I got onto Donald Trump’s website, it looked like he’d stepped away from his presidential run to break into the lazy T-shirt Halloween costume industry. But, no, he is just selling a shirt about “Crooked Hillary.”
Screengrab via DonaldTrump.com
The shirt features an illustration of a striped uniform, which weirdly suggests the wearer is the one in prison, not Hillary Clinton. But the sales pitch in the description reads: “The only pantsuit she should be wearing, show you’re in the know when it comes to Hillary.”
It’s far from the only anti-Hillary product on Trump’s site. There are pins, bumper stickers, yard signs, and other T-shirts, many of which seem overly focused on Hillary’s pantsuits.
Trump and running mate Mike Pence have long accused Clinton of running a negative campaign. And Clinton’s store isn’t free of anti-Trump merch either, like “Love Trumps Hate” shirts and “Never Trump” buttons.
The nice thing is Trump’s shirt is listed as a “men’s tee,” yet is modeled by a woman, proving that Trump understands gender presentation is not the same as gender identity. There’s no word, however, on whether Trump would grab the model.An “able bodied” person is, technically, defined as someone who is strong and healthy with no physical disability.
Spend a few minutes getting to know Gabe Ferron-Bouius, and you’ll want to amend the definition.
The 14-year-old Grade 9 student is certainly strong and healthy, but he has no right foot or ankle and a shortened fibula.
Watch Gabe on the ice for 10 minutes, though, and you will discover he is more able bodied than many boys his age.
Gabriel Ferron-Bouius stretched out at the Minto Recreation Complex in Barrhaven this week.
Just ask his teammates on the Major Bantam AA Cumberland Grads, and they’ll tell you they wouldn’t want anyone other than Gabe and teammate Nick Chabot patrolling the crease and stopping pucks for them.
A current 17-game winning streak doesn’t hurt the argument either.
How about being named MVP of the forward pack for the league champion Barrhaven Scottish? Or what about playing up an age group with the Ottawa Golden Knights last season because he was able to compete at the higher level?
Able. There’s that word again.
As a baby, Gabe was diagnosed with fibular hemimelia, the shortening or absence of a fibula at birth. It is a rare condition that didn’t allow his foot and ankle to form properly.
At nine months old, Gabe had his foot removed, his heel pad attached to his tibia and was fitted for a prosthetic leg. It didn’t slow him down. He was water skiing by the age of two.
“You find out what (fibular hemimelia) is when you’re in the situation but otherwise you’d never hear about it,” Gabe’s mother, Aimee Ferron, explained.
“He was super active from the get go. After he had his surgery, he was trying to pull up to stand and he’s never looked back. His goalie coach always says someone is going to write a book about him. He’s broken a lot of barriers for kids with disabilities.
It seems the only thing that slows Gabe down is biking. When riding home from school a few weeks ago, he clipped tires with a friend, who was riding in front of him. Gabe went down, lost two teeth and a couple of weeks on the ice. The second half of the Grads goaltending tandem, Chabot, was there for the Grads like he has been all season, but Gabe was still with his team during that time and although he couldn’t play he was there with support in another form.
“He could hardly talk and he was there giving a speech and the guys rallied around him, and that’s the true sign of a leader,” Grads coach Terry Lemieux said.
“A leader within a team doesn’t necessarily mean a C or an A; it’s the other guys, the unsung guys in the background, and Gabe is one of those. People like Gabe step up. It’s amazing.”
For Gabe, wearing a prosthetic is something he’s always known, so other than some adjustments he’s just doing what his friends are doing.
“It’s been different and you have to adapt to certain things, but for the most part I’ve had lots of support so it’s been fine,” he said.
“I just love playing the game and play whenever I can. When I’m playing, there are certain moves that are more challenging, so I have to adapt those moves to fit my mobility. I just push myself to go to the highest level possible.”
Gabe is able to play at the highest level possible because of the support of The War Amps, who pay for his recreational prosthetic device. It differs from his day-to-day prosthetic in that it’s more specialized for the crease and costs about $15,000 per year.
Gabe has been approached on several occasions by sledge hockey organizations but he feels he is too capable at regular hockey. There is however, the standing amputee hockey program and the national team that Gabe is a part of.
“The standing amputee is great, because he actually gets to be around and play hockey with people who live the life that he does,” Aimee explained.
A full and active life, to be sure.VICTORIA, BC –– All jurisdictions imposing blanket implementation of wireless
Smart Meters face citizen backlash. Many have placed a moratorium on the
installation of wireless Smart Meters pending further study. Others have
cancelled their programs.
BC Greens support development of a Smart Grid, of which Smart Meters may be one
small and expensive component. If we are to encourage conservation, many other
things need to be in place long before a decision is made to purchase a different
kind of meter. The type of meter should be the last part of the plan and only
implemented if they are proven cost effective and safe.
BC Greens believe feed-in-tariffs, time of day pricing, incentives for conservation,
programs and incentives to make homes and buildings more energy efficient, and
a distributed grid must all be in place before switching meters. A cost benefit
analysis needs to be presented to the public. BC should not follow Ontario down
the road to higher costs and no net benefit. As well, wireless technology poses
a potential risk to health and the environment and further research that is
independent of industry funding is needed.
Prior to implementation, all aspects of the plan must be placed before the
regulator. The Clean Energy Act has done the opposite and removed the ability
of the BC Utilities Commission to provide oversight on behalf of the citizens
of BC.
Magda Havas is Associate Professor of Environmental and Resource Studies at
Trent University where she teaches and does research on the biological effects
of environmental contaminants. Since the 1990s, Dr. Havas’s research has focused
on the biological effects of electromagnetic pollution including radio
frequency radiation, electromagnetic fields, dirty electricity, and ground
current. She works with diabetics as well as with individuals who have multiple
sclerosis, tinnitus, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and those who are electrically
hypersensitive.
Dr. Havas joins Jane Sterk, leader of the Green Party of BC in calling for
cancelling implementation of the wireless smart meters. Elizabeth May, leader
of the Green Party of Canada and MP for Saanich supports this change.
“The smart meter program is another example of unsupportable assumptions based
on industry lobbying rather than best practices,” says Jane Sterk, leader of
the Green Party of BC. “Greens believe all public policy should be evidence
based and founded in the Precautionary Principle.
“BC Hydro’s wireless smart meter program violates that principle. There are
environmental, privacy and security concerns as well as the potential for
adverse health risks. This is an issue that hits at the heart of democratic
rights. Individuals have no ability to opt out of a program that may impact the
health of those with electro-magnetic sensitivity,” says Sterk.
“I have great concern regarding the current levels of microwave radiation in
North America,” says Dr. Magda Havas. “Instead of promoting wireless
technology, we should be promoting wired technology and reserving wireless for
situations where wired in not possible.
“Shortly after X-rays were discovered, they were used in shoe stores to
determine shoe-size for young children. Fortunately, we recognized that X-rays
were harmful and we restricted their use to essential medical diagnoses.
“We need to recognize that microwaves are also harmful and we cannot use this
technology in a frivolous manner. With more frequencies being used, with the
levels of radiation increasing, and with so little research on the long-term,
low-level effects of this technology we are creating a potential time bomb. If
smart meters are placed on every home, they will increase our exposure to radio
frequency radiation–a potential human carcinogen–and this is both unwise and
unsafe,” says Havas.
"The Green Party of Canada, through a resolution of our entire membership,
has called for the current inadequate Health Canada regulations to be upgraded
to the equivalent of the EMF regulations in Germany,” says Elizabeth May,
leader of the Green Party of Canada. “We are entirely too complacent about the
growing evidence of health effects from wireless technology."
The Green Party of BC is calling on the provincial government to stop BC
Hydro's implementation of wireless smart meters, to call formal public hearings
on the program, to gather third party independent data on the health effects of
wireless, and to put all aspects of the process under the purview of the BC
Utilities Commission.
“BC Greens believe people should have a right to feel safe and secure in their
own homes,” says Sterk. “As it stands now, people cannot opt-out of the smart
meter program.
“We favour a well formulated long-term plan with conservation as the driver.
Most conservation goals could be achieved without replacing any meters. If it
is determined we need new meters, people still need to be able to say no. With
pricing and incentives and technology that has been demonstrated to be safe,
opting in can be made the more attractive option,” concludes Sterk.
-30-
Contacts:
Jane Sterk, leader Green Party of BC
(250) 507-1715
leader@greenparty.bc.ca
GPBC office
(250) 590-4537
office@greenparty.bc.ca
Dr. Magda Havas
(250) 478-7892 or
(705) 748-1011 ex
7882 after Thursday
drmagdahavas@gmail.com
Elizabeth May, O.C., M.P., leader Green Party of Canada
(250) 657-2000
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Can FAU Football fans manage to finish first and last at the same time?
New statistics from NBC’s Portland outlet, KGW news, say that the school’s supporters lead the state in getting arrested, but are last in getting kicked out.
KGW reached out to every Football Bowl Subdivision school to ask how many fans were ejected and arrested per game. FAU finished last out of all teams with no ejections, but had the most arrests among more established programs in the state.
University of Miami did not report their arrest or ejection numbers. They were the lone Football Bowl Subdivision team in the state not to do so. The University of South Carolina finished with the most ejections total out of all the teams, with 496 total among 538,441 fans.
Of the 128 programs, 122 in the subdivision reported some or all of their data.
Ryan Lynch is the business manager of the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @RyanLynchwriter.Twenty years ago, online education made higher ed exponentially more affordable and accessible. Today, MOOCs are poised to do the same.
MOOCs – or Massive Open Online Courses – are picking up momentum in popularity – at least in terms of initial enrollment.
Unlike regular college/ university courses, MOOCs can attract many thousands of enrollees around the world. They can come in the form of active course sessions with participant interaction, or as archived content for self-paced study. MOOCs can be free, or there can be a charge – either on a subscription basis or a one-time charge. Free MOOCs sometimes have a paid “verified certificate” option.
There are now thousands of MOOCs available worldwide from several hundred colleges, universities and other institutions of higher learning. For your convenience, we’ve compiled a list of 50 of the most popular MOOCs, based on enrollment figures for all sessions of a course. The ranking is based on filtering enrollment data for 185 free MOOCs on various elearning platforms.
NOTES:
All-time MOOC enrollment numbers are obviously a moving target. Consider any figures here as merely a snapshot at time of writing, not as exact enrollment data.
Primarily English-language MOOCs – or those with English subtitles – have been considered.
The majority of top courses come from two platforms: Coursera and edX. The latter, in this case, amounts to MIT and Harvard courses, whereas top Coursera courses in this list come from several schools.
Of the 185 courses considered (unique, not including versions of the same course), 66 were on Coursera and 55 on edX.
There may be other MOOCs with higher enrollment figures than those presented here. Courses that require payment for full access were not considered.
Due to differing schedules for course offerings, enrollment data for some courses may be changed over time as reported (causing some MOOCs to change position in rankings). If you have information on updated enrollment data, feel free to report through OnlineCourseReport’s contact page.
Some of the courses listed here have had no recent active sessions, and some do not have archived content. If you cannot find what you are looking for on a learning provider’s platform, check out our list of 5400 free online courses.
The MOOC Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, from Stanford University on Coursera, aims to teach students how to think mathematically, to think “out of the box” and develop cognitive abilities — which deviates from typical math education that simply teaches “how to do math.” Subtitles for the video content is available in Portuguese. Total enrollment since the course’s launch in Mar 2013 is about 86.2K. The course, which had an open session at time of writing, is taught by Dr. Keith Devlin. Devlin is a co-founder of both the H-STAR Institute (also Executive Director) and Media X research network — both part of Stanford. He has held several “Fellow” titles and won a number of prizes/ awards, including the Pythagoras Prize, Peano Prize, and Carl Sagan Award. He is on NPR (National Public Radio) as “the Math Guy.” His writing output includes over 30 books and over 80 researched articles.
Additional info:
Platform : Coursera
: Coursera Institution homepage : Stanford University
: Stanford University Total enrollment : 86230
: 86230 Lecturers: Keith Devlin
The MOOC Introduction to Operations Management, from University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) Wharton School of Business (Wharton) on Coursera, is part of Coursera’s Wharton Business Foundation Specialization track. It focuses on analyzing and improving business processes (process analytics) in service or manufacturing, productivity and responsiveness increases, bottlenecks, flow rates, inventory levels and more. The course, which has multiple sessions scheduled for 2015, is taught by Christian Terwiesch. Terwiesch is a professor of The Wharton School’s Operations and Information Management department, the Andrew M. Heller Professor at Wharton, and a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics. He co-authored an Operations Management textbook and has won teaching awards for his efforts in the Wharton MBA program.
Additional info:
Platform : Coursera
: Coursera Institution homepage : University of Pennsylvania / Wharton
: University of Pennsylvania / Wharton Total enrollment : 87000
: 87000 Lecturers: Christian Terwiesch
The MOOC Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge, and Consciousness is currently in its second run on the edX platform, with a total enrollment of almost 90,000 students. The course provides a basic overview of some facets of philosophy, and is meant to introduce students to a range of debates that exemplify the types of things that philosophers talk about. Specifically, the course emphasizes the ability to analyze and construct philosophical arguments, theories of consciousness, arguments for or against the existence of God, theories of knowledge, free will and determinism, and theories of personal identity. The course is instructed by Caspar Hare, a longtime MIT professor of philosophy, and Ryan Doody, a PhD student in Philosophy & Linguistics at MIT.
Additional Information:
Platform : edX
: edX Institution homepage MIT
MIT Total Enrollment : 89183
: 89183 Lecturers: Caspar Hare, Ryan Doody
The MOOC SPU27x Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science, from Harvard University on edX / HarvardX, covers the intersection of physics and engineering principles with the chemistry of everyday cooking. Topics include emulsions, elasticity, diffusion through spherification and more. Total enrollment since the course’s launch in Oct 2013 is about 92K. The course, which has a session scheduled for Jun 2015, is taught by Michael Brenner, David Weitz, Pia Sörensen (PhD, chemical biology), and Daniel Rosenberg, all of Harvard. Brenner is a professor of Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics and developed this course with Weitz, Brenner and Chef Ferran Adrià. Weitz is a professor of Applied Physics. Sörensen is Preceptor of Science and Cooking. Rosenberg contributed to the science demos in this course.
Additional info:
Platform : edX
: edX Institution homepage : Harvard University
: Harvard University Total enrollment : 92045
: 92045 Lecturers: Michael Brenner, David Weitz, Pia Sörensen, Daniel Rosenberg
The MOOC The Future of Storytelling is presented by German MOOC platform iversity and the University of Applied Sciences of Potsdam (Fachhochschule Potsdam), and upon last count had a total enrollment of 92957 students. The course focuses on analyzing, creating, and contextualizing current media forms, and is presented by a series of media researchers, creators, and students. Subject matter in the course is multidisciplinary, including content from game designers, writers, transmedia producers, TV makers, executives and theorists from many different fields of study. In particular, the first storytelling MOOC centers around current fictional forms and storytelling mechanics. The course is taught by Christina Maria Schollerer, Prof. Winfried Gerling, Prof. Constanze Langer, and Julian van Dieken.
Additional info:
Platform : iversity
: iversity Institution homepage: University of Applied Sciences Potsdam
Institution homepage : n/a
: n/a Total enrollment: 92957
The MOOC 6.00.1x Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on edX / MITx, covers the basic principles of computer programming, including computation, algorithms, testing and debugging, data structures, and algorithmic complexity — all using the Python programming language. This plus a companion course (6.00.2x Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science, taught by the same team) are meant for anyone without prior computer programming experience.
Total enrollment since course’s launch in Oct 2013 is about 98.7K. The course, which is currently archived, is taught by Eric Grimson, PhD (mathematics), John Guttag, PhD (mathematics) and Ana Bell, PhD, all of MIT. Grimson is professor of computer science and engineering, the Chancellor of MIT (as of 2011), and the Bernard M. Gordon Professor of Medical Engineering. His area of specialty is computer vision for medical image analysis. Guttag is the Dugald C. Jackson Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at MIT and heads up the Data Driven Medical Research group of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His research includes medical-related predictions. Bell lectures in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department. Her research includes computational biology. Grimson and Guttag have both served as head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Additional info:
Platform : edX
: edX Institution homepage : MIT
: MIT Total enrollment : 98688
: 98688 Lecturers: Eric Grimson, John Guttag, Ana Bell
The MOOC Data Analysis, from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH), covers data analysis and applied statistical techniques, finding patterns in data, and communicating conclusions. The course is typically intended for first year graduate biostatistics students and uses the R statistical programming language. Total enrollment since the course’s launch in Jan 2013 is about 102K. The course, which is currently archived, is taught by Jeff Leek, PhD (biostatistics), and has won a teaching excellence award (student-voted) each year it was taught by him. Leek is an associate professor of Biostatistics at JHU. Leek’s research topics include genomic data analysis for personalized medicine. He has published work in several top journals and created the Data Analysis course
Additional info:
Platform : Coursera
: Coursera Institution homepage : Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Total enrollment : 102000
: 102000 Lecturers: Jeff Leek
The MOOC Modern & Contemporary American poetry is provided by the University of Pennsylvania on Coursera. The course centers around teaching participants how to read poems that are often purported to be “difficult,” including the work of modern and contemporary U.S. poets working in “experimental mode.” Often, sessions aren’t lectures, but rather recordings of close collaborative readings of texts (seminar style) with professor Al Filreis. Professor Filreis is Kelly Professor, founder, and faculty director of the Kelly Writers House, a writing and academic center at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing.
Additional Info:
Platform: : Coursera
: Coursera Institution Homepage : University of Pennsylvania
: University of Pennsylvania Total Enrollment : 140,000
: 140,000 Lecturers: Al Filreis
The MOOC Introduction to Financial Accounting, from University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) Wharton School of Business (Wharton) is part of Coursera’s Wharton Business Foundation Specialization track. It focuses on financial analysis, financial reporting process, and accounting standards — all of which will give participants the knowledge to read income statements, balance sheets and statements of cash flow. Total enrollment since the course’s launch is about 155.5K. The course, which has several sessions scheduled for 2015, is taught by Brian J. Bushee, PhD, of UPenn. Bushee is the Gilbert and Shelley Harrison Professor of Accounting at Wharton. He was previously affiliated with Harvard Business School and University of Chicago, and was a credit analyst. Bushee has taught various MBA-level courses and won two teaching awards.
Additional info:
Platform : Coursera
: Coursera Institution homepage : University of Pennsylvania / Wharton
: University of Pennsylvania / Wharton Total enrollment : 155516
: 155516 Lecturers: Brian J. Bushee
The MOOC 6.00x Introduction to Computer Science and Programming, from MIT and edX / MITx, covers the fundamental concepts of programming using Python, including the elements of a computer program, simple algorithms, functions, recursion, objects, debugging, efficiency, memory and search, classes, and object-oriented programming. Total enrollment since the course’s launch in Sep 2012 is about 157.4K. The course, which is currently only partially archived, is taught by Larry Rudolph, PhD (computer science) of MIT. Rudolph has spent time as a faculty member at several universities. Currently, he is a researcher at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His research includes contributing to the Ultracomputer architecture (1978), parallel processing, switching networks and more. His mobile virtualization project for VMWare is used on Verizon’s Android phones.
Additional info:
Platform : edX
: edX Institution homepage : MIT
: MIT Total enrollment : 157431
: 157431 Lecturers: Larry Rudolph
40. Introduction to Artificial Intelligence / Stanford University
The MOOC Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, from Stanford University on Udacity, is the course that is instrumental in the launch of Udacity itself. The course focuses on the basics of AI, including statistics/ uncertainty/ Bayes networks, machine learning, Markov chains (decision processes, reinforcement learning, hidden models and filters), image processing and computer vision, robotics and robot motion planning, NLP (Natural Language Processing) and information retrieval and more.
Total enrollment since the launch of the course in Oct 2011 is about 160K. The course, which is currently archived, is taught by Peter Norvig, PhD (computer science), and Sebastian Thrun, PhD (computer science), both of whom co-founded Udacity. Norvig is currently a Director of Research at Google, and previously an Assistant Professor at University of Southern California and Research Faculty member at UC Berkeley. He has written extensively (articles and books) about computer science topics including artificial intelligence and natural language processing. Thrun is a Research Professor of Computer Science at Stanford and a Google Fellow. His main areas of research are robotics and machine learning, including Google’s self-driving cars and before that Stanford’s Stanley autonomous car.
Additional info:
Platform : Udacity
: Udacity Institution homepage : Stanford University
: Stanford University Total enrollment : 160000
: 160000 Lecturers: Peter Norvig, Sebastian Thrun
The MOOC Financial Markets, from Yale University on Coursera, covers finance and risk management; efficient markets vs behavioral finance; debt vs equity; real estate, regulation and enterprise; forward futures and options markets; monetary policy; critical elements of the financial infrastructure and other topics. Content for the course is also available in Chinese. Total enrollment since the course’s launch is about 162K. The course, which is currently archived from a Fall 2014 session, is taught by Robert Shiller, PhD (economics) of Yale. Shiller is a professor of Finance at the Yale School of Management, and the Sterling Professor of Economics, Department of Economics and Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale. He won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, and has written extensively on economics, financial markets and related topics, including a number of books and a regular column for the NY Times.
Additional info:
Platform : Coursera
: Coursera Institution homepage : Yale University
: Yale University Total enrollment : 161959
: 161959 Lecturers: Robert Shiller
The MOOC Computational Investing, Part I, from Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech or GT) on Coursera, covers the basics of the electronic markets aspect of stock markets, including stock price behavior, and looks at building algorithms and visualizations that aid in investing. Total enrollment since the course’s launch in Oct 2012 is about 78.8K. The course, which is currently unavailable and unarchived, is taught by Dr. Tucker Balch. Balch is an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at GT, and a cofounder of Lucena Research, a provider of hedge fund software. His research includes machine learning and automated perception, and he has written two books and over a hundred technical articles.
Additional info:
Platform : Coursera
: Coursera Institution homepage : Georgia Institute of Technology
: Georgia Institute of Technology Total enrollment : 170000
: 170000 Lecturers: Tucker Balch
The MOOC Startup Engineering, from Stanford University on Coursera, covers the engineering skills and toolset that a technology startup needs. Topics include development tools, frontend Web development (HTML, CSS, JS, wireframing), backend (databases, frameworks), APIs, devops (testing, deployment, continuous integration, monitoring, performance), dev scaling, business scaling and more. Total enrollment since the course’s launch is about 170.3K. The course, which is currently archived, is taught by Balaji S. Srinivasan, PhD (electrical engineering) and Vijay S. Pande. Srinivasan is a co-founder of Counsyl, a genomics startup, and previously taught statistics and computational biology in the Statistics department of Stanford. Pande is a professor in the departments of Chemistry, Computer Science and Structural Biology, as well as the founder and director of Folding@Home, which for many years was the world’s most powerful distributed supercomputer, using the computing power of volunteers’ computers during idle times.
Additional info:
Platform : Coursera
: Coursera Institution homepage : Stanford University
: Stanford University Total enrollment : 170305
: 170305 Lecturers: Balaji S. Srinivasan, Vijay S. Pande
The MOOC Greek and Roman Mythology, from University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) on Coursera, covers, as the title suggests, the myths of ancient Rome and Greece, and the value of myth for us an individuals and societies. Total enrollment since the course’s launch in Sep 2012 is about 180K. The course, which has a future session at time of writing, is taught by Peter Struck, PhD, an Associate Professor of Classical Studies at UPenn. His research topics include myth, meaning, literary criticism and divination. He won a classical studies award for his first book, as well as two teaching awards. He has consulted for a number of media organizations, including NBC, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report.
Additional info:
Platform : Coursera
: Coursera Institution homepage : University of Pennsylvania
: University of Pennsylvania Total enrollment : 180000
: 180000 Lecturers: Peter Struck
The MOOC Learn to Program: The Fundamentals, from University of Toronto (U of T) on Coursera, covers the basics of computer programming, using Python as the language of choice. and is intended for people with no programming experience. Recommended background includes grade school math. Total enrollment since the course’s launch in Sep 2012 is about 198.6K. The course, which is archived from a 2013 session, is taught by Jennifer Campbell and Paul Gries, both Senior Lecturers in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Both Campbell and Gries also teach Learn to Program – Crafting Quality Code, which is listed at #30 on this list, and which elaborates on their career achievements.
Additional info:
Platform : Coursera
: Coursera Institution homepage : University of Toronto
: University of Toronto Total enrollment : 198566
: 198566 Lecturers: Jennifer Campbell, Paul Gries
The MOOC Web Development: How to Build a Blog (or CS 253) centers around the course-long project of creating a web page that anyone can add to and edit. Course lessons include (in chronological order) (1) how the web works, (2) forms and inputs, (3) databases, (4) user accounts and security, (5) APIs, (6) caching, (7) caching, and (8) a final project. The final project is the creation of a fully functional Wiki platform to which users can add new or edit existing pages. Total course enrollment is currently at over 217k. Instructors include Steve Huffman–co-founder of Reddit and Hipmunk– and Sean Bennett, a course architect and programmer at Udacity.
Additional info:
Platform: Udacity
Udacity Institution homepage: n/a
n/a Total enrollment: 217322
217322 Lecturers: Steve Huffman, Sean Bennett
33. A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior / Duke University
The MOOC A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior, from Duke University on Coursera, covers rational and irrational behavior from the aspect of behavioral economics and standard economic theory. Total enrollment since the course’s launch is about 217.3K. The course, which currently has no profile page on Coursera nor any archives, is taught by Dan Ariely, PhD, of Duke. Ariely is a professor of Economics and is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics, and is also associated with the Fuqua School of Business and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. His research includes topics on psychology and behavioral economics, on which he has written three books. Ariely, who had much of his body burned as a teen, also teaches MBA-level courses.
Additional info:
Platform : Coursera
: Coursera Institution homepage : Duke University
: Duke University Total enrollment : 217331
: 217331 Lecturers: Dan Ariely
The MOOC Creativity, Innovation and Change, from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) on Coursera, covers creativity techniques for building your business, including the creative diversity model, paradox of structure, creative process, intelligent fast failure, value creation strategies and more. Content is in English and has Chinese subtitles. Total enrollment since the course’s launch is about 220k. The course, which is currently available through Coursera’s on-demand format, and is taught by Kathryn W. Jablokow, PhD (electrical engineering), Darrell Velegol, PhD (chemical engineering), Jack V. Matson, PhD (environmental engineering) and Elizabeth Kisenwether – all of Penn State.
Jablokow is an associate professor in Mechanical Engineering and Design, and has won awards for her teaching. Velegol is a Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, has won awards for teaching, has written over 70 papers on colloid science and related topics, and several books, including CENTER, which is suggested reading for this course. Matson is Professor Emeritus in Environmental Engineering, has developed courses in innovative design, has founded/ cofounded three startup companies, and written several books. Kisenwether is an Assistant Professor in Engineering Design and has interest in encouraging entrepreneurship on campus, especially as co-director of the Lion Launch Pad, a business accelerator for students.
Additional info:
Platform : Coursera
: Coursera Institution homepage : Penn State
: Penn State Total enrollment : 220000
: 220000 Lecturers: Kathryn W. Jablokow, Darrell Velegol, Jack V. Matson
The MOOC 6.002x Circuits and Electronics, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on MITx, covers introductory circuits, resistive elements, independent and dependent sources, switches, energy storage, amplifiers and more. Total enrollment since the course’s launch is about 229.8K. The course has one session scheduled in 2015, running from Jan 20 for 16 weeks. It is taught by Anant Agarwal, Gerald Sussman, et al, all of MIT. Agarwal is a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, President of edX, founder of a number of startups, and a co-author of this course’s textbook. Sussman is a professor of Electrical Engineering and author of a top textbook of computer science.
Additional info:
Platform : edX
: edX Institution homepage : MIT
: MIT Total enrollment : 229813
: 229813 Lecturers: Anant Agarwal
The MOOC Gamification, from University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) Wharton School of Business (Wharton) on Coursera, covers gamification, which is the application of game theory and digital game design techniques to non-gaming disciplines. Gamification has been applied to learning, productivity, team-building, customer engagement, crowdsourcing and other areas. Total enrollment since the course’s launch in Aug 2012 is about 148K. The course, which is currently unavailable, is taught by Kevin Werbach of UPenn. Werbach |
scope.bar++; }); } } }); app.controller('MainCtrl', function($scope) { $scope.foo = 0; $scope.bar = 0; });
It binds foo and bar from the controller to show them in a list, then every time we click on the element, both foo and bar values are incremented by one.
What will happen if we click on the element? Are we going to see the updates? The answer is no. No, because the click event is a common event that is not wrapped into an $apply call. So that means that we are going to lose our count? No.
What is happening is that the $scope is indeed changing but since that is not forcing a $digest loop, the $watch for foo and the one for bar are not running, so they are not aware of the changes. This also means that if we do something else that does run an $apply, then all the $watch we have will see that they have changed and then update the DOM as needed.
Try it
Directive example
If we click on the directive (the blue zone) we won’t see any changes, but if we click on the button to update the string next to it, we suddenly see how many times we clicked on the directive. Just what I said, the clicks on the directive won’t trigger any $digest loop but when the button is clicked on, the ng-click will call $apply and it will run the $digest loop, so all the $watch we have are going to be checked for changes, and that includes the one for foo and the one for bar.
Now you are thinking that this is not what you want, you want to update the bindings as soon as you click on the directive. That is easy, we just need to call $apply like this:
element.bind('click', function() { scope.foo++; scope.bar++; scope.$apply(); });
$apply is a function of our $scope (or scope inside a directive’s link function) so calling it will force a $digest loop (except if there is a loop in course, in that case it will throw an exception, which is a sign that we don’t need to call $apply there).
Try it
Directive example
It works! But there is a better way for using $apply :
element.bind('click', function() { scope.$apply(function() { scope.foo++; scope.bar++; }); })
What’s the difference? The difference is that in the first version, we are updating the values outside the angular context so if that throws an error, Angular will never know. Obviously in this tiny toy example it won’t make much difference, but imagine that we have an alert box to show errors to our users and we have a 3rd party library that does a network call and it fails. If we don’t wrap it inside an $apply, Angular will never know about the failure and the alert box won’t be there.
So if you want to use a jQuery plugin, be sure you call $apply if you need to run a $digest loop to update your DOM.
Something I want to add is that some people “feel bad” having to call $apply because they think that they are doing something wrong. That is not true. It is just Angular that is not a magician and it doesn’t know when a 3rd party library wants to update the bindings.
Using $watch for our own stuff
You already know that every binding we set has its own $watch to update the DOM when is needed, but what if we want our own watches for our purposes? Easy.
Let’s see some examples:
File: app.js
app.controller('MainCtrl', function($scope) { $scope.name = "Angular"; $scope.updated = -1; $scope.$watch('name', function() { $scope.updated++; }); });
File: index.html
<body ng-controller="MainCtrl"> <input ng-model="name" /> Name updated: {{updated}} times. </body>
That is how we create a new $watch. The first parameter can be a string or a function. In this case it is just a string with the name of what we want to $watch, in this case, $scope.name (notice how we just need to use name ). The second parameter is what is going to happen when $watch says that our watched expression has changed. The first thing we have to know is that when the controller is executed and finds the $watch, it will immediately fire.
Try it
JS Bin
I initialized the $scope.updated to -1 because as I said, the $watch will run once when it is processed and it will put the $scope.updated to 0.
Example 2:
File: app.js
app.controller('MainCtrl', function($scope) { $scope.name = "Angular"; $scope.updated = 0; $scope.$watch('name', function(newValue, oldValue) { if (newValue === oldValue) { return; } // AKA first run $scope.updated++; }); });
File: index.html
<body ng-controller="MainCtrl"> <input ng-model="name" /> Name updated: {{updated}} times. </body>
The second parameter of $watch receives two parameters. The new value and the old value. We can use them to skip the first run that every $watch does. Normally you don’t need to skip the first run, but in the rare cases where you need it (like this one), this trick comes in handy.
Example 3:
File: app.js
app.controller('MainCtrl', function($scope) { $scope.user = { name: "Fox" }; $scope.updated = 0; $scope.$watch('user', function(newValue, oldValue) { if (newValue === oldValue) { return; } $scope.updated++; }); });
File: index.html
<body ng-controller="MainCtrl"> <input ng-model="user.name" /> Name updated: {{updated}} times. </body>
We want to $watch any changes in our $scope.user object. Same as before but using an object instead of a primitive.
Try it
JS Bin
Uhm? It doesn’t work. Why? Because the $watch by default compares the reference of the objects. In example 1 and 2, every time we modify $scope.name it will create a new primitive, so the $watch will fire because the reference of the object is new and that is our change. In this new case, since we are watching $scope.user and then we are changing $scope.user.name, the reference of $scope.user is never changing because we are creating a new $scope.user.name every time we change the input, but the $scope.user will be always the same.
That is obviously not the desired case in this example.
Example 4:
File: app.js
app.controller('MainCtrl', function($scope) { $scope.user = { name: "Fox" }; $scope.updated = 0; $scope.$watch('user', function(newValue, oldValue) { if (newValue === oldValue) { return; } $scope.updated++; }, true); });
File: index.html
<body ng-controller="MainCtrl"> <input ng-model="user.name" /> Name updated: {{updated}} times. </body>
Try it
JS Bin
Now it is working! How? We added a third parameter to the $watch which is a bool to indicate that we want to compare the value of the objects instead of the reference. And since the value of $scope.user is changing when we update the $scope.user.name the $watch will fire appropriately.
There are more tips & tricks with $watch but these are the basics.
Conclusion
Well, I hope you have learnt how data-binding works in Angular. I guess that your first impression is that this dirty-checking is slow; well, that is not true. It is fast as lightning. But yes, if you have something like 2000-3000 $watch in a template, it will become laggy. But I think that if you reach that, it would be time to ask an UX expert :P.
Anyway, in a future version of Angular and with the release of EcmaScript 6, we will have Object.observe which will improve the $digest loop a lot. Meanwhile there are some tips & tricks that I am going to cover in a future article.
On the other hand, this topic is not easy and if you find that I missed something important or there is anything completely wrong, please fill an issue at Github or write a pull request :).Gaia, the living biosphere, is infested with humans. Not just any humans, but the type that grow fat and reproduce exponentially by liquidating natural ecosystems. The population bomb has burst and we are seeing daily the predicted consequences of collapse and death in the climate, water, oceans, and on the land. Having spent much of my life working to protect Earth’s last naturally evolved primary forests from logging for inequitable over-consumption, I am today ready to declare defeat. Preserving Earth’s last large old-growth forests is a lost cause as there are simply too many people. This Time of Great Dying is unlikely to end well unless a global ecology ethic – including a sense of ENOUGHNESS, just population reductions, ending fossil fuels, and massive ecological restoration – is widely embraced with all haste in an unprecedented and overdue Great Awakening.
By Dr. Glen Barry, EcoInternet
“The idea that we can just keep growing forever on a finite planet is totally imbecilic…” – Paul Ehrlich, Author of The Population Bomb “Over-population has destroyed Earth’s last large natural old-growth forest ecosystems, aided and abetted by traitors to the cause… It is up to each of us to develop a keen sense of enoughness, which among other things means no old-growth forest products.” – Dr. Glen Barry
OVER-POPULATED, INEQUITABLE OVER-CONSUMPTION
In 90 years – a blink of an eye in ecological and geological time – the human population has gone from two billion to over seven billion. Another one billion people are added every 12-15 years, such exponential growth in human population can only end in collapse. Of these, a billion extravagantly over-consume (including a few hundred individuals who have amassed half of Earth’s wealth) as another billion live in abject poverty on less than $1.50 a day.
Concurrently capitalism has manufactured all types of artificial needs for consumption to which the vast majority aspire, and which can never be universalized at current population densities. Thus globally devastating inequity is assured. Each of these manufactured desires is fulfilled through apocalyptic polluting of the atmosphere and liquidating of natural ecosystems that have evolved over eons and make Earth habitable.
Over-populated, inequitable over-consumption literally dismembers Gaia – the living Earth – to gorge upon her ill-gotten limbs.
As long anticipated, the population bomb has burst, and we are witnessing the impact upon the natural world. The result of such democratic consumption has been our current Time of Great Dying – an epic cataclysm of death and destruction rained down by humanity upon all non-human life and their assemblages into natural wildlife populations, plant communities, ecosystems, and landscapes. Humans, after all, are animals too. It is not normal for populations of an organism to grow so rapidly, or for an organism to so quickly destroy its own habitat. When this does occur in nature, the result is always mass death and system collapse.
Everywhere a trained eye looks, one can see the tawdry, traumatized remains of much diminished organic biological life upon an immense ecocidal battlefield. Oceans are plagued by overfishing and dead-zones, the climate is failing before our very eyes, wetlands and soils are much diminished, natural sources of water are increasingly scarce, wildlife has been decimated in a reign of terror, and natural terrestrial ecosystems have virtually disappeared. And the murder of remnant bits of nature that still exist continues unabated.
Over the past century throughout much of the world naturally evolved millions of year old old-growth forests have in short order simply been mowed to be replaced by farms, homes, and strip malls for the ever burgeoning bourgeois population of over-consumers. We poorly measure human advancement by the speed whereby this growth machine dismembers our ecological habitat.
As long predicted in the ecological classic The Population Bomb, Earth’s natural ecosystems have been overrun. Not unlike bacteria in a petri dish, industrial humans are reproducing (and many over-consuming) uncontrollably, on track to quickly surpass their ecological base. Such a nefarious enterprise is already leading to collapse and mass death.
Earth is finite. There are biogeochemical limits to the amount of energy produced on Earth, to the number of any given organism that can be supported by a unit of land, and to natural ecosystems’ absorptive capacity for waste. Numerous planetary boundaries – including climate change and terrestrial ecosystem loss – have already been surpassed as Earth spirals out of control in a state of profound ecological overshoot.
We are in the Time of Great Dying.
OLD-GROWTH FORESTS LOST
Having spent much of my life working to protect Earth’s last naturally evolved primary forests from being logged for inequitable over-consumption, I am ready today to declare defeat.
The campaign to maintain large old-growth forests is lost. What old forests remain are emasculated fragments of their former ecological and evolutionary brilliance. Earth’s old-growth forest heritage has been dismembered through logging, saturated in nitrogen, cleansed of large wildlife, and have become sources rather than sinks of carbon pollution.
How could it have ended any other way when the organizations self-tasked decades ago with maintaining ancient forests instead started spouting nonsense regarding how they should be “sustainably” logged and creating “certified” markets for doing so? No large, natural forest can long withstand the demands of 7 billion super predators bent upon their destruction for lawn furniture and toilet paper, particularly when billions over-consume opulently as billions lack basic needs.
More old-growth forests and other natural ecosystems have been lost than the biosphere can bear. Over-population has destroyed Earth’s last natural forest ecosystems, aided and abetted by traitors to the cause. You know who you are and may you live your final days in shame and despair for your old-growth logging treachery.
It is pure ecocidal madness to individually and societally continue to live in a manner that it known with certainty will kill us all. Despite vast strides in knowledge and understanding of ecological science truths by specialists, most of the world and its leaders wallow in willful ignorance. Many are too concerned with the comfort of their individual nerve endings to understand that their ecological context of being, which they as organic beings utterly depend upon for everything, is collapsing and dying.
Slews of technologies are developed and then misused to exacerbate over-population and over-consumption. Inordinate amounts of energy are put into techno-optimist schemes that far from obviating ecological limits, simply postpone them as ecosystems are driven even further beyond sustainability. There is no technology that can safe us.
There is one last hope. We must now embrace an age of ecological restoration, to allow what fragments of natural ecosystem still exist to age, recover, and expand. Of course this would presuppose that we stop logging the last old-growth forest fragments, instead maintaining all old forests as genetic seed stocks and ecological models. We must return to the garden even as we learn to live with the sadness (for however long we have) that we willfully destroyed the ancient ecological tapestry of being from which humanity and all life evolved and have been forever sustained.
We best help old forests grow back fast from what remains of native old-growth forests or we are toast. Much potential exists for agro-forestry and perma-culture enmeshed within regenerating natural ecosystems. Only returning to the land to tend our gardens and rebuild ecosystems can prolong and possibly sustain human being.
THE GREAT AWAKENING
The answer is less.
Less people. Less stuff. Less inequity. Less technology. Less industry. Less emissions. Less toxics. Less hate. Less war. Less religion. Less ignorance. And fast.
We need less of everything; except for far more natural ecosystems, sharing, truth, justice, and love.
Only by limiting our own fertility and consumption can the human family avoid biosphere collapse and the end of being. It is up to each of us to develop a keen sense of enoughness, which among other things means no old-growth forest products.
A mammoth coordinated program of population control, ecosystem restoration, renewable energy, industrial degrowth, and total disarmament are our only chance to avoid utter ruin. We must hold onto our humanity as massive extreme weather, authoritarian demagoguery, thirst, and famine of our own making ravage an ill-treated Earth.
Only then can the human family together make its way back to the garden.
Reducing population growth and inequity, and then absolute human numbers, is deviously simple: educate all girls too, free birth control and a universal basic income, provide meaningful work (including restoring ecosystems) and human services with funds realized by demilitarization, and tax the birth of children. And learning to share with and love one another. Seems like a small price to avoid an apocalyptic end of being.
Believe in a better world and make it so.
Only by getting back to the land and making a righteous living which creates more ecology than it consumes can you overcome post-modern humanity’s bacteria like destructive instincts. We each choose every day whether we are part of the Great Dying, or its antithesis, the Great Awakening. Time for each of us to decide, are you part of the disease afflicting the Earth, or the cure?
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PrintWelcome to Overnight Regulation, your daily rundown of news from the federal agencies, Capitol Hill, the courts and beyond. It's Tuesday evening here in Washington, where everyone is anticipating President Trump's Supreme Court nominee.
Here's the latest.
THE BIG STORY
House Republicans laid out plans Tuesday to strike down a controversial Obama-era coal rule.
The Interior Department's stream protection rule could become just the second regulation in history -- and the first in 16 years -- to be repealed under the Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to overturn regulations they disapprove of with a simple majority.
The House will vote Wednesday on whether to overturn it.
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The stream rule prohibits the coal industry from polluting the water sources near mines, but Republicans say this makes it nearly impossible for these companies to operate and is pushing them out of business.
Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) called it "one of the most onerous regulations that has come out of the Obama administration."
"Tomorrow, we're turning the page on Obama's war on coal," said Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.).
"There is nothing about 'protection' in this rule," he added. "This was the death mill to coal. It came from an ideologically driven administration. It didn't care about streams. It wanted to do one thing: kill coal."
Critics, though, claim President Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress are caving to industry at the expense of the environment.
Rep. Rob Bishop Robert (Rob) William BishopAddressing repair backlog at national parks can give Congress a big win Senate votes to extend key funding mechanism for parks Republicans push back at first climate hearings MORE (R-Utah), though, dismissed that notion.
"We are not doing anything negative for the environment," he said.
"We're not going back to the 1950s and 1960s, but we will be able to, hopefully, get our coal mines back in operation," added Rep. David McKinley David Bennett McKinleyRepresenting patients’ voices Super PACs spend big in high-stakes midterms Twitter chief faces GOP anger over bias at hearing MORE (R-W.Va.).
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) previously announced five Obama-era regulations Republicans intend to overturn this week. After they vote Wednesday on the stream protection rule, lawmakers will turn their attention to the Securities and Exchange Commission's disclosure rule, Labor Department's blacklisting rule, gun restrictions from the Social Security Administration, and the Bureau of Land Management's methane emissions regulation.
The House is also expected next week to strike down another round of Obama-era regulations. McCarthy told reporters Republicans hope to repeal "as many (rules) as possible" over the next two weeks.
But the reach of the Congressional Review Act is limited to rules that were issued in the previous 60 legislative days, which makes it difficult for Republicans to repeal controversial rules from the beginning of the Obama administration.
This is new territory for Republicans.
The Congressional Review Act was passed in 1996, but has only been successfully used once when President George W. Bush repealed a Clinton-era labor regulation in 2001.
In the last Congress, Republicans voted to strike down four regulations from the Obama administration, but GOP lawmakers were powerless to overcome vetoes from then-President Obama. With Trump in the White House, they now have a small window to repeal some of the more recent Obama-era regulations. http://bit.ly/2kdSOQD
ON TAP FOR WEDNESDAY
The Senate Judiciary Committee will reconvene at 10:30 a.m. to vote on the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsFormer Trump refugee director did not notify superiors about family separation warnings Court rejects challenge to Mueller's appointment Trump says he hasn't spoken to Barr about Mueller report MORE (R-Ala.) for attorney general.
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing to discuss a growth agenda, focusing on reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens.
The Senate Budget Committee will meet to vote on the nomination of Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) to be the director of the White House Office of Budget and Management.
The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy will hold a hearing to discuss the electricity sector's efforts to respond to cybersecurity threats.
TOMORROW'S REGS TODAY
President Trump's regulatory moratorium is slowing new rules for truck drivers, tobacco products, and workplace safety in Wednesday's edition of the Federal Register.
--The Department of Labor (DOL) will delay new workplace safety standards to comply with President Trump's regulatory moratorium.
The Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued new rules to protect workers from exposure to beryllium on Jan. 9, but is delaying the implementation of those workplace protections.
The beryllium standards will now go into effect on March 21.
--The Department of Transportation (DOT) will delay new training requirements for entry-level truck drivers.
The Transportation Department's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued the training requirements in December, but is now delaying the rules to comply with Trump's regulatory moratorium.
The truck driver training requirements will now go into effect on March 21.
--The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will delay new tobacco rules.
To comply with Trump's regulatory moratorium, the FDA will delay new requirements for tobacco product submissions issued in December that block the agency from reviewing applications that are not written in English.
The submission requirements will now go into effect on March 21.
NEWS RIGHT NOW
Dems delay Sessions vote
House to repeal Obama coal rule Wednesday
GOP lawmakers split over Trump LGBT order
Senate panel approves McMahon to lead Small Business Administration
Lawmaker to propose abolishing EPA
GOP senator 'concerned' about EPA pick's history of suing the agency
Dems mulling protest of Trump's EPA nominee
Trump scraps signing of cybersecurity executive action
New FCC chief gets to work cutting back regs
Senate easily confirms Trump's Transportation pick
Trump tells drug companies to 'get prices down'
Trump's hard-line actions have an intellectual godfather: Jeff Sessions – The Washington Post
Bills across the country could increase penalties for protesters – NPR
BY THE NUMBERS
8: Final rules
3: Proposed rules
(Source: Federal Register)
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Just because you make up a fantasy does not make it real. The next thing we're going to hear is that unicorns voted," Sen. Patrick Leahy Patrick Joseph LeahyDems introduce bills to restore Voting Rights Act provision Can Lindsey Graham take the politics out of judicial battles? Senate plots to avoid fall shutdown brawl MORE (D-Vt.) said, criticizing President Trump's claims of voter fraud.The ratio of household debt to disposable income hit a new record in the fourth quarter of last year.
Statistics Canada says the ratio rose to 165.4 per cent in the fourth quarter, up from 164.5 per cent in the third quarter.
That means Canadian households on average held $1.65 in debt for every dollar of disposable income.
Much of that new debt came in the form of mortgages. "Most of the growth was in mortgage credit, up 6.3 per cent, which has accelerated considerably since 2014 and is now increasing at the fastest pace since late 2012," TD Bank economist Diana Petramala said.
The increase came as disposable income increased 0.6 per cent.
However, total household credit market debt, which includes consumer credit and mortgage and non-mortgage loans, increased 1.2 per cent to $1.923 trillion at the end of last year.
The total included $573.6 million in consumer credit debt and $1.262 trillion in mortgage debt.A new research study discovers several sporadic genetic mutations in children with autistic spectrum disorder.
University of Washington researchers used new molecular biology techniques to discover the mutations. The research is published online in the journal Nature Genetics.
Dr, Brian O’Roak and colleagues analyzed the genetic makeup of 20 individuals with autism spectrum disorder and their parents.
Autism spectrum disorders encompass a range of social impairments in language, communicating and interacting with others, repetitive behaviors, and engrossing fascinations. The condition can be mildly to severely disabling.
The researchers found 21 newly occurring mutations, 11 of which altered proteins. Proteins altered by genetic mutations may hold clues to the biological pathways involved in the development of the disease. The abnormal proteins or the pathways they affect could draw interest as targets in the design of preventive or treatment drugs.
In four of the 20 families studied, O’Roak and colleagues identified disruptive new mutations that are potentially causative for autism. In examining the clinical data on the child in each of the four families, they learned that these children were among the most severely affected of the study group, both in intellectual disability and in their autistic features.
The findings suggest that these new sporadic disruptive genetic mutations could play a significant factor in the underlying mechanisms and severity of autism in perhaps 20 percent of the cases in which no larger family history of autism exists.
In some cases, the combination of newly appearing mutations and those inherited from the parents may worsen the severity of the disorder.
In this study, many of the discovered mutations were located in genome areas that were highly conserved during evolution. These parts of the genome likely play a fundamental role in the biology of many animals, including humans. Mutations in these regions tend to have significant repercussions.
“Consistent with the complexity of autism and its symptoms, the new mutations were identified in several different genes,” lead author O’Roak said.
Moreover, many of these mutated genes have already been associated with other brain disorders, including epilepsy, schizophrenia and intellectual disability — reflecting a surprising genetic overlap.
Still, the researchers say that are not sure what the genetic overlap means. It could point to common underlying mechanisms in the development of these neurological diseases, or different manifestations stemming from similar genetic lesions.
Another view is that the mutations may stem from other factors, such as environmental triggers or other genes in a person’s make-up that influence how and when genes operate, whether or not a disease will appear in a genetically susceptible individual, and what type of disease it will be.
How and why sporadic mutations such as these originate is as yet unknown. However researchers are uncovering clues about risk factors.
In six of the affected children in this study, the scientists were able to trace the original genes that were later mutated in the child back to the father’s half the child’s genome, and in one case to the mother’s half. This findings support population studies showing that autism is more common among children of older parents, especially older fathers.
Researchers say the identification of mutations is a positive step toward understanding autism and the interaction of genetic and environmental factors.
Source: University of Washington
Genetic Mutations Linked to Autistic Spectrum Disordersby
As Ecuador heads toward the second round of its presidential election on April 2, a scandal has broken out over the opposition candidate Guillermo Lasso’s financial dealings. The accusations are serious and largely based on public records, with most of it verifiable on websites such as the Panamanian Public Registry and Superintendency of Banks and the Ecuadorean Superintendency of Companies. The newspaper that broke the story was Página/12 of Argentina, with two articles there in the last week by journalist Cynthia Garcia, as well as on her website.
Yet, as of this writing, the major international media covering the election, as well as the big privately owned Ecuadorian media, have pretended for a week that the story does not exist. This is despite the fact that President Correa has publicly denounced Lasso for his dealings and called on him to resign from his campaign. And Lasso publicly responded without denying the accusations. It is difficult to explain this gap in reporting on the basis of what most people would consider journalistic norms.
It is as if the US and international media had failed to report on the controversy over Donald Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns during the 2016 US presidential election.
Lasso has been routinely described as a “former banker” who allegedly retired from banking activities five years ago. However, he remains a major shareholder in Ecuador’s largest bank, the Bank of Guayaquil, (through a trust named with his initials, GLM). And evidence from minutes of board meetings of Banco Guayaquil’s parent company indicate that he is still a key decision maker at the bank, where he has been Executive President for more than 20 years. This in itself would be big news in Ecuador, where banking interests ran the country in the years prior to the election of Rafael Correa in 2007, and are not held in high regard since they caused a severe financial and economic crisis in the 1990s. This crisis impoverished many Ecuadorians and sent large numbers of people out of the country to seek employment.
But there is more. In 2007, Banco Guayaquil (BG) created an offshore bank in Panama, which was called Banco de Guayaquil Panamá. In 2011, BG Panama changed its name to Banisi; in 2014 BG sold Banisi to Banisi Holding. This holding company is registered by a law firm but belongs to Lasso, and he has admitted to this; but on paper there are a series of transactions of the kind often involved with offshore banking and tax avoidance that disguise this ownership. These transactions and ownership manipulations involve various Lasso family members and cronies.
What makes this disguised ownership so important to the election is that Lasso’s offshore bank in the tax haven of Panama appears to be primarily operating for the purpose of facilitating capital flight from Ecuador. There is much evidence for this, including the fact that about two-thirds of Banisi’s liabilities are out of country; the Panamanian regulator authorized Banisi to open an office in Ecuador; and its website domain registry and servers are in Lasso’s Ecuadorean bank in Guayaquil.
Most importantly, since 2014, it has been illegal in Ecuador for banks and their shareholders to own offshore banking operations in tax havens. Thus Lasso’s ownership of Banisi, if proven in court, would appear to put him in violation of the law.
The issue of illegal capital flight and tax havens is a big one in Ecuador for a number of reasons, and was voted on in a referendum in the first round of the election on February 19. The majority of voters approved a ballot initiative stating that Ecuadorians who have money in tax havens should not be allowed to hold office. This is a global problem, with trillions of dollars (including tax revenues) being lost to developing countries through illegal capital flight, contributing to poverty and inequality. And it has special meaning in Ecuador: first, because of the devastating financial crisis caused by bankers in the late 1990s; and second, because Ecuador’s success in the past decade under the Correa government was partly due to reforms that taxed capital flight, forced banks to repatriate liquid assets held abroad, and other re-regulation of the financial system.
The investigative reporting on Lasso’s offshore holdings and banking activities raises additional questions. The reporting thus far indicates that some 50 companies associated with Lasso have been identified. Some of them have to do with disguising bank holding ownership through family members and cronies and others appear to be involved in real estate in Florida.
But regardless of the unknowns and various complexities of Lasso’s offshore holdings and transactions, the most important findings are clear: he appears to be involved in banking interests that facilitate capital flight from Ecuador. The offshore bank, in tax haven Panama, appears to be in violation of the law. These are serious charges backed by serious evidence that is in the public domain. There is no justifiable reason for journalists covering this campaign to ignore this scandal.
This article originally appeared on The Hill.The Bird House Tiny Cottage in Asheville, NC
This is the Bird House tiny cottage in Asheville, North Carolina.
It’s a tall and skinny foundation home in a great location and available as a vacation rental through Airbnb.
This little home has an interesting floor plan because it offers three levels of living space! When you walk inside through the front door, you’re entering the second level which is your living area. This is also where the bathroom is placed (near the front door entrance).
When you head downstairs using the black spiral staircase you’ll find the kitchen and dining area in the first level. From the second floor living room, when you head upstairs to the third floor, you’ll find your cozy little sleeping loft with dormers. Please enjoy, learn more, and re-share below. Thank you!
Related: 624 Sq. Ft. 3-Story Small House in Japan
The Bird House Tiny Cottage in Asheville, NC
Images © Airbnb/Dana
Images © Airbnb/Dana
Learn more: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/6863511
You can share this Bird House cottage with your friends and family for free using the e-mail and social media re-share buttons below. Thanks.
If you enjoyed this tiny house story you’ll absolutely LOVE our Free Daily Tiny House Newsletter with even more! Thank you!
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commentsNEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- General Motors announced plans Monday to cut 23,000 U.S. jobs by 2011, drop its storied Pontiac brand and slash 40% of its dealer network in its latest bid to stay out of bankruptcy.
The new restructuring proposal will leave the Treasury Department, and thus U.S. taxpayers, owning a significant stake in GM. Treasury would accept GM stock, rather than cash, for repayment of about $10 billion that the government has already lent to GM.
Trust funds controlled by the United Auto Workers union would also hold a significant stake in the company. Between them, Treasury and the unions would own 89% of GM.
GM also announced an offer to its bondholders to swap $24 billion of the company's $27 billion in unsecured debt for stock. GM is offering bondholders 225 shares of its stock for every $1,000 it owes the bondholders in principal.
GM CEO Fritz Henderson warned in a press conference Monday that a bankruptcy is still very likely unless bondholders agree to the swap.
"It's not impossible but it's a tough task," Henderson said about the company's ability to get enough bondholders to accept the company's stock. "That's why I think [bankruptcy] is more probable."
And in a statement released late Monday afternoon, advisors to an ad hoc committee of GM bondholders expressed dissatisfaction with the proposal, dubbing it "neither reasonable nor adequate."
"We are deeply concerned with today's decision by GM and the auto task force to offer only a small, inequitable percentage of stock to its bondholders in exchange for their bonds," the statement read. "We believe the offer to be a blatant disregard of fairness for the bondholders who have funded this company and amounts to using taxpayer money to show political favoritism of one creditor over another."
The moves are GM's latest efforts to cut costs and stem losses that have dogged its North American auto operations since 2005. But Monday's restructuring announcement goes much further than the viability plan GM unveiled to President Obama's auto industry task force in February.
The company had announced many of the job cuts in February, but Monday's news that GM would have about 38,000 hourly U.S. employees by 2011 represents an additional reduction of 7,000 to 8,000 jobs beyond what GM disclosed in its previous viability plan.
The job cuts come as GM is set to announce the closing of more plants in the next few weeks. Henderson would not comment on which plants could be on the chopping block.
The company said its goal is to cut costs to the level where GM can break even even with industrywide U.S. sales of only 10 million vehicles, rather than the 11.5 million to 12 million sales range that had been its previous break-even target. Henderson added he's hoping that the company could be profitable as soon as 2010 under the new restructuring plan.
While the cuts will leave GM a much smaller company, Henderson said this does not concern him. He admitted that results at GM have not been acceptable for quite some time.
"I'm much more focused on getting results than being big," he said.
GM also confirmed reports that surfaced Friday and officially announced plans to drop its Pontiac brand altogether. In its earlier restructuring plan, GM had signaled that Pontiac would survive, albeit as a niche offering.
The company also said it would make more cuts to its dealership network than it announced in February, and at a much faster pace. GM said Monday it will cut the number of its dealers by 42% to 3,605 by 2010, up from its original plan to reduce its network to 4,100 dealers by 2014.
Bankruptcy still possible
The Obama administration's task force, which found that GM's February turnaround plan was not viable, said Monday that the new plan "reflects the work GM has done since March 30 to chart a new path to financial viability." But the task force added that it "has made no final decision regarding the treatment of its current loan to GM or with respect to any future investments in the company."
The administration has given GM only until the end of May to reach deals with creditors and unions to cut costs or be forced into bankruptcy. But the Treasury Department did extended GM an additional $2 billion in loans last week, bringing its total federal assistance to $15.4 billion.
Even before it reaches the government's May 31 deadline to reach an agreement with bondholders and unions, GM will need additional loans from the Treasury in order to continue to pay its bills, Henderson said Monday.
Details of those loans have not yet been worked out. The company has said it could |
,” said lead author, Hengli Tang, a virologist with Florida State University.
The NEJM paper, on the other hand, is the first “prospective cohort study” of Zika and newborn malformations — meaning U.S. and Brazilian researchers enrolled a group of women and followed them over the course of their pregnancies. The 88 pregnant women included in the study all developed a rash within five days of being treated by a clinic with the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro. Seventy-two had blood or urine samples that tested positive for Zika virus between September 2015 and mid-February.
Article Continued Below
Of the 42 women who consented to ultrasound exams, 29 per cent had abnormal results, according to senior author Dr. Karin Nielsen, a professor and infectious pediatric disease expert with UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. “In a healthy population, it’s usually around 1 per cent or 2 per cent at most,” she said. By comparison, all 16 women who were not infected by Zika had normal ultrasounds. The abnormal results included not just microcephaly but also “intrauterine growth restrictions” and brain malformations. Of the eight babies born so far, two were stillborn and three have microcephaly or brain calcifications, according to Nielsen. Two also suffer from retinal impairment, indicating they will probably suffer from vision problems. Nielsen was surprised that even women infected during their third trimester experienced serious outcomes, including stillbirths and one baby at 40 weeks who had no amniotic fluid. “Zika seems to be a problem when there is an infection in women in any trimester of pregnancy,” she said. “They’re not out of the woods just because the first trimester is over.” Nielsen said Brazil is now suffering a “perfect storm” because this surge in microcephaly is converging with a struggling economy and failure to control the mosquito that spreads Zika. “This will be a big burden on the country,” she said. “Children with brain disorders are very expensive to follow and to maintain, and need a lot of services.” According to the WHO, only two countries have reported an increase in microcephaly cases during a Zika outbreak so far: Brazil and French Polynesia, which suffered an outbreak in 2013 and 2014. But this week news reports indicated that Colombian scientists have confirmed their first cases of birth defects associated with Zika. A large prospective study involving roughly 5,000 pregnant women, mostly in Colombia, is still underway, however, and final results probably won’t be available until June, according to WHO.
Read more about:There are certain people with whom — by the nature of their demonstrated bona fides — I choose not to argue. For example, when John McCain tells me that torture doesn’t work, I say, OK, I’ll take your word for it, and move on. In the 1980s when the Detroit Pistons and Boston Celtics played annually in the NBA’s Eastern Conference finals, Larry Bird, as was his wont, would come out early onto the floor of the Pontiac Silverdome to practice his shooting. As he went through his entire routine, and shot after shot banged away off the rim, you could see him growing increasingly frustrated. Later, he would always make it a point to tell us reporters that basketball was not meant to be played in domes. The basket was so far from the stands that it seemed to be suspended in midair. When the stands filled up, the shooting background was strange and unfamiliar, being located at a distance. When Larry Bird tells me that basketball should not be played somewhere, I take his word for it.
The NCAA tournament’s final is going to be contested in one dome or another forever. This means the organization’s signature event, and the one that pays almost all the bills, is going to be contested in buildings that are too big for basketball. Next year will be an exception. The 2014 Final Four will take place in Jerry Jones’s monumental tribute to overcompensation out on the plains outside Dallas, which means that it will be contested in a building that really is too big for football.
Saturday’s semifinals at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta were penny dreadfuls, the two of them. They were compelling. They were close and hard-fought. They had some surprise stars; Wichita State’s Cleanthony Early — and the world has far too few Cleanthonys for my taste — made some serious coin for himself against Louisville. They both turned, at least in part, on a single ghastly officiating call. (The block/charge on Syracuse’s Brandon Triche was pretty bad, but at least it was a fairly standard bad call. The held-ball call in the Wichita State–Louisville game was a preposterously quick whistle.) But the fact remains that the simple task of putting the ball in the basket is far too difficult while you’re trying to play the game in Castle Dracula.
Russ Smith of Louisville, an 81 percent free throw shooter, missed his first four attempts. His teammate, Peyton Siva, missed all five 3-point shots and, at one point, missed a point-blank layup. As for Monday’s other finalist, Michigan’s top three scorers shot 17 percent from the field Saturday. The four teams playing Saturday combined to shoot 26-for-83 on their 3-point attempts. None of them shot better than 45 percent, and Louisville only got that number because Luke Hancock somehow solved the riddle of the jumbled depth perception and shot 6-for-9. This wasn’t basketball. This was watching half-drunk teenagers trying to win stuffed pandas for their girlfriends on a carnival midway in East McJesus, Indiana.
“I couldn’t really see,” Siva said after the game. “It was too far away.”
It’s all too far away. The baskets look like they’re drifting in space. The seats are so distant that, when you shoot at them, the closest fans look like they’re sitting behind the walls of an aquarium — which sort of makes you, the player, like, the fish. Where do you go, seriously, when the size of the event makes the actual playing of the game impossible? There is no event so ludicrously overafflicted with corporate elephantiasis than the Super Bowl, but, when the last flyover has flown and we have finally finished Honoring America for the 33rd time, the game is still played within the confines of a regular football field. The end zone Joe Flacco saw in February looked to him to be located on pretty much the same dimensional plane as every other end zone he’d ever seen. The size of the event of the Final Four — and the corresponding unbridled greed that goes with it — forced the event to move into the domes, and playing the games in domes has completely destroyed the act most basic to the game itself. This is beyond absurd. And it also is beyond all recall. That horse is out of the barn, over the hill, down the lane, and standing at stud at Three Chimneys by now. The NCAA in its infinite avarice has made its signature event almost unrecognizable as actual basketball.
By all rights, Monday’s national championship game should be a show. Michigan is young and apparently fearless. Louisville is going to press the Wolverines all night, even though the Cardinal backcourt depth isn’t what it was before Kevin Ware got hurt, and that showed a little against Wichita State. There should be running. There also should be gunning. But my money says there won’t be. There will be banging and clanging, and bad whistles, and more banging and clanging until somebody snags a long rebound and throws an outlet pass to some dude who gets away from the pack and dunks. Everybody then will cheer, and there will be a new highlight for the highlight reel, and the people running the whole show will tell you this is what they had in mind all along.
The weekend began with a demonstration of something that was both wilder than the Louisville press and more baffling than the Syracuse zone. That was NCAA president Mark Emmert’s employment of what many observers took to be the English language in an attempt to talk his way around the fact that the entire system over which he presently is presiding is on the verge of absolute collapse. The true nature of the NCAA as little more than a cartel profiting from underpaid — or unpaid — labor steadily had been becoming clear even before Taylor Branch hit the whole thing with a two-by-four in the pages of The Atlantic. The most immediate evidence for the prosecution came only last week, when Louisville’s Kevin Ware blew up his leg in a regional final, and it raised questions about who might be responsible for his medical bills — a fine illustration of the point made by Branch that the rubric of “student-athlete” had been invented so the colleges could dodge workers’ compensation claims arising from the brutal early days of college football — while Louisville started marketing Ware-themed T-shirts almost immediately after Ware had come off the operating table.
So Emmert took to the podium on Thursday, and simultaneously took refuge in some combination of bureaucratese and fluent Weaselspeak that was within 3-point range of actual English. He was attempting to explain how the NCAA’s latest stalling tactic — the “miscellaneous expense allowance” (who names this stuff, anyway?) — doesn’t in any way conflict with the organization’s stated position that a college athlete should not be paid. Gaze in awe.
The second big issue was the issue of increase in the value of scholarships to the full cost of attendance. This is the so-called miscellaneous expense allowance, the proposal to allow schools to, at their option, increase the value of scholarships an additional $2,000 to cover what’s referred to in higher education jargon as a “miscellaneous expense,” sometimes confused with “pay for play,” which is absolutely wrong. It is to cover the real cost of attendance and only the real cost of attendance for a student-athlete.
Catholic theologians who argue that the Church must not change its position on, for example, birth control, occasionally do so by arguing that a pope who would change such policies has to account for all the people who were accounted sinners under the previous policy and may in fact, at the moment, be residing in the postmortal suite of the Gehenna Arms. (No, really. “What do we do about the people who already are in hell for violating the old policy?” I’ve actually heard this.) Emmert’s gotten himself in rather a similar box here. Down through the years, various people — alumni, boosters, shoe company reps, the odd talent scout or five — have been “covering the real cost of attendance of the student-athlete” and, when they or the athlete got caught, the athlete got shamed and his school got punished. Now, with his organization in moral tatters, and the whole business model tottering around him, Emmert decides in a squid-cloud of word-ink that a little extra somethin’-somethin’ is really ethical as long as it’s laundered through euphemism. What about all those schools that found themselves on probation down through the years for doing exactly what Emmert’s proposing now? Do we all owe Dana Kirk and the Fab Five an apology?
Mark, dude. Let the light dawn. As soon as you allow athletes to pick up extra money because they are athletes, that’s the ball game. It doesn’t matter if you call it a salary, or a stipend, or a “miscellaneous expense allowance” — though I really wish you wouldn’t call it that — you are giving the basketball player extra money because he is playing basketball. He is playing and the school is paying. I have been paying close attention to this stuff for going on 40 years and what you’re proposing is exactly what the NCAA told me was wrong and awful through about 38.5 of those years. You were up there, because the real powers in the sport, the TV networks and the university presidents and the commissioners of the various conferences, let you in through the tradesman’s entrance to be the front man for a crumbling charade, essentially to make the same argument Chris Webber was making 20 years ago when he asked why his “miscellaneous expenses” were not allowed. The players know it. Russ Smith and Luke Hancock and Trey Burke and Mitch McGary all know it. They knew it when they got here and they’ll know it tonight when they throw the ball up to make a whole lot of strangers even more wealthy. They all know the system’s dying, and that the loudest noise in Atlanta is not the cheering or the pep bands. It is the distant, thundering hooves of all those horses long ago let out of the barn.The Dutch Eredivisie has long been noted for its goals, not only the quality of them but the bucketfuls they come in. No top league in Europe has a higher average of goals per game this season with an average more than three goals per game banged in during the opening half of the season. And, as the league enjoys a four-week winter break at the mid-way crux of the season, it is no surprise to see that goals mean plenty.
In a tight championship battle in which just five points separate the top five teams, free-scoring PSV Eindhoven are benefitting from their goalscoring exploits. A 6-1 away win at NAC Breda in the most recent of their 18 games played saw PSV reach the 60-goal barrier to top the table on goal difference. That difference is +42, double that of FC Twente who share the same points, underlines just how crucial goals have become. Remarkably not one PSV player has reached double figures in the Eredivisie with the goals shared between Tim Matavz, Dries Mertens and Georgino Wijnaldrum amongst others.
Like PSV, FC Twente, coached by Steve McClaren, have have won 13 of their opening 18 games. They have lost just twice all year, two less than PSV, but are paying for four drawn games. Victory in one of those would have meant outright lead in the Eredivisie for the team with the meanest defence. But the message harks back to the number of goals scored – 25 less than PSV in fact. Twente have a reliance on goals coming from Luc Castaignos, Dusan Tadic and Nacer Chadli, the trio having netted almost three-quarters of the 35 goals between them.
Reigning champions Ajax, last year’s Feyenoord and Vitesse Arnhem, the surprise package of the season, remain firmly in the title hunt at the half-way stage. The former pair are just three points adrift of top spot, while Vitesse are a further two points back. Ajax are paying the price of seven draws, without some of which they would be clear at the top. Beaten just once, they are being made to pay for five away games ending in stalemate. If able to overcome the drawitis, the wise money would be on another Ajax title at the end of the season. Feyenoord, meanwhile, have flown into contention, dropping just two points since November 11. Six wins and a draw in that period have cast aside memories of a dismal start to the season in which Ronald Koeman’s side won only five of their opening 11 games. It is the goalscoring exploits of 14-goal hitman Pelle (no, not that one, but Graziano Pelle who is on loan from Parma in Italy) and Lex Immers (10) that has fired Feyenoord into the title frame again, the same applying to Vitesse who have the Eredivisie’s leading marksman Wilfried Bony, who has found the net 16 times, to thank for their role in the battle. Never crowned champions before (they’ve been runners-up on six occasions), Vitesse were the team to catch at the start of December, but signing off the first half of the season with two away defeats – they previously had a 100 per cent record on the road – and a draw at home has left them five points adrift. The break could not, perhaps, have come at a better time for them as they look to regain the form that made them so dangerous to the big four teams. As ever, in typical Eredivisie fashion, we can expect this one to go down to the wire, where goal difference could count for plenty.
At the other end of the table, Willem occupy the automatic relegation spot having picked up 12 points from the opening 18 games. Two draws in the opening two games was a relatively positive start for the newly promoted side, but they picked up only four more in the next 11 games to be left rooted to the foot of the table. However, one defeat in the last five games has doubled the points tally and given renewed hope of avoiding an automatic return to the Erste Divisie.
Now, just three points separate the bottom five and there are just five points between one-time champions AZ Alkmaar in 12th in the table and Willem at the bottom. Venlo and NAC Breda, who sit in the relegation play-off places having amassed 15 and 14 points respectively, are firmly in trouble at the half-way stage of the campaign, as are Roda and Eredivisie newcomers Zwolle, who are both spared a place in the dreaded drop zone thanks to a better goal difference than Venlo. Alkmaar and Heerenveen finished fourth and fifth last year but there is a serious risk of them being dragged into a scrap for survival having endured torrid opening halves to the season. Should Heerenveen lose Alfreo Finnbogason, the joint second highest goalscorer in the division having netted 14 times, during the transfer window, with AC Milan and Aston Villa among his suitors, then who knows where they will end up come May. As always, the Eredivisie is never predictable. Expect a dramatic second half to the campaign.Yesterday, work began to place final landscaping in the median and it is expected to be complete this fall. Final resurfacing work was expected to begin in late-August, but due to weather and pavement product concerns the work has been delayed. ODOT and the contractor are working together to resolve the issue and resume the paving work as soon as possible. We are still committed to getting the work completed this fall. We appreciate everyone's continued patience during this important public improvement project.
Improvements on West 25th Street between Division and Main avenues are expected to wrap up next week and the third -- phase of work on West 25th Street will begin one week from today.During this phase,To view a larger version of the map below as well as the detour information, click hereFrom the outside, being a part of the 1 percent looks like an all-access pass to owning anything you want: Fancy cars, private jets, over-the-top homes.
But while the super rich can afford to purchase expensive luxuries, the most successful people know that living within their means is the path to sustained wealth.
"Here's the key question all of you should ask: When do you buy what you can afford versus what you need when what you need is less than what you can afford?" former CNBC host and personal finance maven Suze Orman explained to CNBC Make It at the eMerge Americas conference in Miami, Florida, in June.
In other words, just because you can afford the more expensive option doesn't mean it's always the best choice. As the saying goes: A penny saved is a penny earned.from Joel Beeke Category: Articles
Though children learn from what we say, they learn even more from who we are and what we do. Our faith, our praying, our teaching, and our living must be parts of a seamless whole. Thus, the implementation of our teaching as parent-prophets necessitates godly modeling.
The preeminent godly model for us as parent-prophets is the Lord Jesus, who excelled all others as a true prophet, teacher, fisher of men, and maker of disciples. We do well to make a personal study of the Gospels with an eye to how Christ went about training His disciples. A good teacher looks for good models and constantly strives to hone his skills and improve his methods. Christ provides us with the very best model and abundant resources to draw upon as we take up the work of teaching and training our children.
Children are not looking for perfect parents, and they are remarkably forgiving. They have an uncanny way of knowing who their parents are and what they stand for. It is hard to keep secrets from anyone when we live under the same roof. Children are always reading the books of our lives. Besides the Bible, the way we live our faith from day to day is the most important book our children will ever read.
What children need to see is not a perfect mom or dad, and certainly not a mom or dad who never says, “I’m sorry.” They need to see in us an unwavering commitment to Jesus Christ, an unconditional love for them, and a strong bond of love for each other as husband and wife. They need to see a mom and dad laboring shoulder to shoulder, of whom the children can say: “My mom and dad hate sin, they love God, and their only hope is in Christ Jesus. They want with all that is within them to live holy and godly lives. I can see it, I can feel it; I know it is true and it is real, and I want to be like them. I want the God of my father and mother to be my God.” In particular, godly modeling should instill in our children the conviction that the Christian life is the way to live and that it brings true joy, true purpose, and true meaning in life, and awaken in them a kind of holy jealousy to want these things for themselves. As our children read the books of our lives, they learn how important God, Christ, the Bible, faith, prayer, and family worship are to us.
This excerpt is taken from Joel Beeke’s Parenting by God’s Promises.Atlanta United announced today it has acquired defender Greg Garza from Tijuana on a season-long loan. In a preceding move, Atlanta acquired Garza’s Discovery Priority from Columbus Crew SC in exchange for a conditional second round selection in the 2018 MLS SuperDraft.
“Greg has represented the United States on several occasions and we’re thrilled to be able to add a player of his quality,” Atlanta United President Darren Eales said. “In addition to his caps at the international level, Greg has experienced top-level competition in Liga MX. To continue to attract players with his international background is a great sign for our club.”
Garza, 25, was born in Grapevine, Texas but has spent the majority of his soccer career abroad, with youth stints in academies at Sao Paulo at Sporting Lisbon. He then signed with Tijuana of Liga MX on Dec. 21, 2011 and quickly became a key member of the Xolos lineup. Garza has combined to make 84 career appearances for Tijuana, including six appearances in CONCACAF Champions League and four appearances in Copa Libertadores.
“Greg is a quality left back who’s profile fits in nicely with our style of play,” technical director Carlos Bocanegra said. “He has the ability to get up-and-down the line to contribute to both sides of the ball, and his experience in Mexico, along with the U.S. National Team, brings another quality dimension to our team.”
Garza’s rise to prominence for Tijuana began during the 2012-13 season. While the left back only appeared in six games during the Liga MX Apertura, he made his difference in the postseason, scoring an 86th minute goal against Monterrey on Nov. 15, 2012 to pick up a 1-0 road win during the first leg of quarterfinals. Tijuana went onto beat Monterrey 2-1 on aggregate, en route to beating Toluca in the championship, claiming Tijuana’s first-ever title. Garza went on to appear in 49 games over the next two seasons, including 37 starts, becoming a permanent starter during the 2014-15 season. He was sent on loan the following season to fellow Liga MX side, Atlas, before returning to Tijuana this year.
Internationally, Garza has been capped for the United States Men’s National Team nine times, most recently during the 2015 Gold Cup during a 1-0 win in group stage against Haiti. He made his National Team debut when he entered as a substitute in a friendly against the Czech Republic on Sept. 3, 2014. Garza made a total of five appearances, three starts, in 2014 for the USMNT, leading him to inclusion in the 2015 Gold Cup roster.Next month’s draft is Phil Emery‘s third with the Bears. In his two-plus seasons with the team, he has tried to transform the team. He has changed the offense. He hired an offensive minded head coach. Gone is the old “Three yards and a cloud of dust” offense. In is an intricate, high-octane offense with two of the finest wide receivers, one of the top running backs, a tight end who can actually catch and block and a quarterback eager to show he is deserving of these shiny toys.
Of course, in concentrating on the offense so much, the defense started to suffer. It started to age. Injuries piled up, and went from being one of the top units in the league, to one that was one of the worst in franchise history.
Through free agency, Emery has improved the defense (at least on paper of course). This draft can help solidify the improvement. This draft can also turn the Bears into long-term playoff contenders.
The Bears had been year in and year out contenders in the past. In 14 seasons between 1933 and 1946, the team went to the playoffs eight times, making it to the championship game in every playoffs played, winning five of them. In 50 seasons between 1964 and 2013, they went to the playoffs 14 times, going to the championship just twice, winning only once.
This draft can turn the team’s fortunes around. The last time the Bears were in a position like this was in 1983.
In that draft, the team selected Jimbo Covert, one of the top offensive linemen in team history, in the first round. They then selected Willie Gault, a speedy receiver who was also a track star. In the third and fourth round, two solid, dependable defensive backs, Mike Richardson and Dave Duerson were chosen. Tom Thayer, a solid offensive lineman, was picked next in the fifth round. In the seventh round, future Hall of Famer Richard Dent was taken (seventh round!).
My point with this is that all of the above mentioned players were integral part of the team’s incredible season in 1985 that culminated in one of the most lopsided Super Bowl victories of all-time.
The Bears are playoff contenders now. They finished one game away from the playoffs the last two seasons. Last year they were one play from the playoff, even with such a dismal defense. Emery is looking to get them over the top.
NFL.com’s Gil Brandt also believes this is a crucial draft for the Bears. He wrote that “After narrowly missing the playoffs in 2013, the Bears are poised to seriously challenge for the NFC North crown. They have almost all the necessary pieces to be a true force in 2014, from the quarterback position (Jay Cutler) to running back (Matt Forte) and receiver (Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery). They also helped themselves greatly in free agency, bringing aboard defensive linemen Lamarr Houston and Jared Allen.
“It’s imperative that the Bears make good on this window of opportunity, which won’t be closing immediately but also won’t be open forever.”
As we watch the draft unfold in about two weeks, Emery knows how important his choices will be. Done right, he could return the Bears to the perennial championship contenders they once were, not a team that gets lucky every few years..
VIDEO
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BERRISOM MY LIP TINT PACK - VIRGIN RED
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HOW TO APPLY AND LETS TEST IT OUT
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INGREDIENTS
src: wishtrend
THE LASTING POWER
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WHERE TO BUY?
FINAL THOUGHTS
note: this was sent to me for review purposes, this post contains affiliate links.
I'm really excited to share this product with you - I'm talking about the lip tint pack from Berrisom. I received this product from Honestskin.com to try. A lot of beauty bloggers have been talking about these lip packs. This lip product claims to be waterproof, won't smudge and claims to have an extremely long lasting power. In today's post I'm going to review this product, will it really last long on the lips?I was directly SOLD after watching this video below. I really wanted to try this product out after watching it:The lip tint pack from Berrisom comes in 8 shades ( take a look at a few swatches on their website ): virgin red, vivid scarlet, candy orange, sexy red, bubble pink, lovely peach, chic purple and pure pink. There used to be 6 shades, but there are 2 more now. I got it in the color virgin red. There is 15g of product in it.The product comes in a little plastic squeeze packaging. There is a lot of air inside so you mustn't think that it's all product. It has a bit of a cherry scent which isn't overwhelming.First of all, make sure that your lips doesn't have dry flakes by exfoliating your lips. Otherwise it won't look appealing.1. Squeeze some product out and spread it evenly on the lips.2. Let the product dry on your lips for 10 minutes.I noticed that it is hard to apply it evenly on the lips. The texture of the product is sticky and thick. Make sure that your lips are all covered with the product. Don't apply it too thick, otherwise it will take more than 10 minutes to dry. Also applying it within my lip line was a hard job at first, but practise really helped. If you apply it outside the lip line, you will definitely notice it afterwards (you will have a red stain haha), so make sure you do it within the lines. During the drying time you will feel your lips tighten a bit, which might feel slightly uncomfortable, but make sure you got some distraction e.g. read a book or my blog kekekke.The upper part of the packaging will turn red. I usually clean it up after every usage, since i'm scared that the product will stick onto the cap.3. The fun part! After 10 minutes you will notice that the lip product has dried up and that it's ready to peel it off! WOHOO! This just feels like peeling off a mask, no pain at all! BUT, one think that I didn't like was that my fingers turned all red during this process. It was quite hard to make it clean afterwards.If you have applied an extremely thick coat you will notice that some parts might still stick on your lips. Normally, you can just peel it off in one go.4. End results. I'm loving the outcome! It doesn't feel dry nor moist, but I always prefer to have moist lips so I applied some vaseline afterwards. The lip tint pack gives you a very natural but visible color.The lasting power is A-MAZING! Seriously, A-MAZING! When you have a cold drink or when you eat bread, it won't smudge nor it will transfer or anything which is awesome. The lip tint pack lasted for a long time on my lips. They claim that it will last for 12 hours, well I would say 5-6 hours? And yes… you can guess it already, this means that it's pretty hard to remove it with normal make up remover or with cold water (it's impossible). I always use an oil-based lip remover which makes is easier to remove.However, I once drank some tea while I had this on and it started to fade and it transferred a bit, so try not to have hot drinks or have hot food if you want this to last long on the lips. I would also avoid fatty and oily food.I received this product from Honestskin.com where they are selling it in a set of 6 shades for USD $36.83. Thank you so much for letting me try this product out, it's a product that is very popular at the moment, so a lot of online shops don't have it in stock. You can also get it individually at Wishtrend.com. They will also show you how to distinguish the fake and real ones. There are some fake ones around in the market, so be aware that you are not getting a fake lip tint pack.It is a very fun product for the lips, I actually enjoy using this. It takes 5-10 minutes to dry but I usually just wait for 10 minutes (just in case) while doing other things in the morning. The Berrisom Lip tint pack leaves a very natural finish but the color is quite visible as well. The lasting power is amazing, it last for a very long time. If you have a cold drink or when you eat bread it won't transfer or smudge AT ALL. However you do need to keep in mind that it will transfer and fade when you eat hot or oily stuff. You can always do a touch up after eating hot food ofcourse, but you do need to wait for 10 minutes until it's dry, which means you need to stay in the toilet for a longer period than normal lol. (Your friends might wonder what you're doing in there.)Another downside is that it's quite hard to apply it evenly and within the lip lines, but practise is very important. If you don't have an oil-based lip remover, make sure to get that first before you use this, unless you want this lip color on for another day haha.After a day-long debate, Toronto Council has approved continuing along the path set by Mayor John Tory to study and possibly to build the transit lines branded as “SmartTrack”. Although this proposal is now much different from the scheme that was Tory’s campaign centrepiece, the idea of SmartTrack continues to receive broad support among Councillors.
The debate covered a lot of ground with two related threads: how would Toronto actually pay for SmartTrack, and how much of the larger transit network many hope to see will actually be built.
Council has yet to consider a long-term financing strategy and possible “revenue tools” (new taxes in plain English) to deal with the combined capital and operating budget demands of the would-be network. Although there was much talk of the lost decades of underinvestment in transit, Council has yet to show that it really is ready to spend Toronto dollars (as opposed to money from any other source) at the level that will be needed. City staff will present a report on financing options in a few weeks, and the reaction to this will be telling.
What Did Council Approve?
Below is a consolidation of the staff recommendations and amendments adopted by Council arranged to keep related issues together. For full information, please refer to the detailed record of the item.
Note that in all cases where approvals relate to “SmartTrack” this includes both the six new GO stations and the Eglinton West LRT extension unless otherwise noted.
Process:
(1) Adopt the “Summary Term Sheet and Stage Gate Process” which includes details of the many parts of the proposed agreements and (2) authorize the City Manager to negotiate and execute agreements with the province to implement this.
(3) Request staff to report at Stage Gate 5 for final approval of full funding for SmartTrack. A report on more definitive costing and the financing funding strategy has been requested for an earlier step in this process. See (18) below.
(4) Approve the confidential staff recommendation regarding settlement of the Georgetown corridor funding issue. See also recommendation 15.
Technical and Planning:
(5) Proceed with planning and design for the six SmartTrack GO stations, report back to Council, and launch the Transit Project Assessment Process (TPAP). This was amended by two further requests that the work include improvement of: the placement and access points of the Liberty Village Smart Track Station to maximize connectivity, and pedestrian connections to the existing Exhibition Place Station for both Liberty Village and Exhibition Place.
(6) Confirmation of city support for transit supportive land use plans for areas around the SmartTrack and GO RER stations. Amendments related to this included: Amending the development strategy for public lands at stations, including air rights, to create ongoing operating revenue streams from development resulting from that strategy. Directing the Chief Planner to report in January 2017 with options to develop a comprehensive plan for managing development and growth related to transit expansion. Confirming that the Official Plan as well as other plans, bylaws and policies, are not changed by this decision on this item. The intent of this is to forestall any claim for additional density by would-be developers in advance of the passing of updated plans for area affected by transit projects.
(7) Proceed with planning and analysis of the Eglinton West LRT extension up to Stage Gate 3 including finalization of stops and grade separations, provide a scope for this project up to the Renforth Gateway, and provide a class 4/5 estimate of the project’s cost, and conduct the TPAP. Note that this is a more restrictive approval seeking more detail than in the case of the ST/GO stations in (5) above.
(8) Request a financial contribution from Mississauga and Pearson Airport to the outside-416 portion of the Eglinton West extension.
(9) Ensure that the proposed new station design at St. Clair and Keele includes improved road operations and is co-ordinated with the St. Clair West Transportation Master Plan. A significant part of this would be the widening of the underpass east of Keele Street to remove the existing choke point.
(10) Request Metrolinx to consider grade separations at Progress and at Danforth on the Stouffville corridor, with the proviso that any option closing existing roads would not be considered. This was amended at Council to add requests for grade separations at Passmore, McNicoll, Huntingwood and Havendale.
At Council, there was an attempt to have items (7) and (8) deferred until after the Waterfront Transit Reset report is considered by Council in 2Q17, effectively putting both of the proposed Etobicoke LRT proposals on the same approval timeframe. The deferral motions did not pass.
Finance:
(13) Approve $71m for preliminary planning and design on SmartTrack (the 6 new stations plus the Eglinton West LRT)
(14) Include $2b in net capital requirements for SmartTrack (stations plus LRT) in the city’s 10 year capital projections.
(15) Approve $95m for settlement of the Georgetown South issue with the province.
(16) Approve |
otta Warriors of Emperor Qin's Mausoleum but they have far greater variety. As time passed, regular visitors to the Terracotta Warriors Museum and Yangling Mausoleum saw the colors slowly fade from the statues, i.e. the chemical didn't work. When the experiment was eventually declared a failure, the opened excavation pits at Yangling were quickly covered up again. (Imperial Tours was already taking its guests to Yangling by this time.) Recently, in March 2006, Yangling Museum opened its new exhibition hall and displayed a stunning new approach for dealing with the issue. Although the idea is disarmingly simple, it has been executed so tastefully that it has not only placed Yangling on the map but it has also increased the credibility of Chinese archaeology. The new concept is to leave the pieces in situ in their excavation pits and to enclose them within enormous glass cases whose temperature and humidity is constantly monitored and controlled. Visitors to Yangling walk beneath ground level into an underground vault. They walk over the top of and next to glass-walled excavation pits in which sit the priceless treasures, one after the other. It is stunning. Meanwhile, behind the glass, the air humidity is maintained at over 90% and the air temperature between 18 - 20 degrees Centigrade (64-68 degrees Fahrenheit) exactly as it would be if the objects were still buried in earth. This approach is still in its early stages. However, if it proves successful it will give a new lease of life to Chinese archaeology. I strongly encourage you to spread the news about Yangling. As a post-script to this article, I want to share my excitement about Jinshan Museum, which is scheduled to open in Chengdu this October. This dig, dated between the third and first millennium BCE, is complementary to Sanxingdui (see July '05 broadcast). Whereas Sanxingdui has fantastic bronze and gold masks and trees, Jinshan Museum has a collection of contemporaneous jade and ivory pieces. If the Jinshan collection proves to be comparable to Sanxingdui, Imperial Tours will strongly promote Chengdu as a tourist destination. Go to top 888 888 1970. We hope you enjoyed this newsletter. As always, please do write back with any feedback that you would like us to incorporate. Alternatively, please call Margot Kong, our Director of Sales and Marketing, in San Francisco, at With Best Regards,
Guy Rubin
Managing Partner, Imperial Tours To forward this newsletter to a friend, please click here.
To subscribe to this newsletter, please click here. You are subscribed as web_inquiry@imperialtours.net. To unsubscribe please click here.February 17, 2012 3:00 AM | John Polson
A new indie documentary challenger has appeared! Whereas Indie Game: The Movie takes viewers on a roller coaster ride of indie game development, Us and the Game Industry aims to explore specifically those indie developers who are "reinventing the medium of game design and challenging the established norms with their finely crafted work."
As further described on the Vimeo page, "Us and the Game Industry is a film about the new thinkers at the new frontier of experimental computer game development." Those new thinkers chosen for the trailer are thatgamecompany (Flower, Journey), Spry Fox (Realm of the Mad God, Steambirds: Survival), and Jason Rohrer (Sleep is Death, Inside a Star-filled Sky). "This film will explore how their motivation, design process, focus and execution are creating unique and new possibilities of connecting people and providing the possibility for uncharted experiences outside the normal realm of commercial games."
As of this writing, the Us and the Game Industry official site is under construction. When more information becomes available, if you all are interested, I'll definitely share it!Recently, Google has stepped up its presence in the cloud computing arena. Google's new App Engine (aka "AppSpot") lets you design and run web applications using Google's existing infrastructure. Their (free) basic account offers up to half a gigabyte of storage plus the computing power to push approximately 5 million page views per month. That's a nice starting point for anyone who might be looking into a web-based application environment.
App Engine applications run in secure sandboxes that distribute application load across multiple servers. They offer distributed data storage with standard query, concurrency, and transaction features. So the App Engine lends itself particularly well to structured knowledge repositories like the Open Radar community-sourced bug reports for Apple developers.
Python only
At this time, App Engine uses Python as its primary programming language. Although Google is investigating other languages for future releases, if you want to get started with App Engine, you'll need to first master the Python scripting language. If you're already conversant with Python, congratulations. If not, Ars has put together the following site roundup to help you find resources for learning the language.
Image courtesy of Moving to Python can come as a shock to C Programmers used to bracesImage courtesy of Zarquon.biz
Programming language tutorials either appeal or do not appeal based on any number of personal factors. Some developers prefer simple lessons that move learning forward in stages. Others like the facts to be laid out in familiar terms with a minimum of hand-holding. Each of the following sites presents its own approach to mastering Python, which you may or may not find useful for your learning path. These represent just a fraction of the available online Python tutorial resources.
Online Python tutorials
Official Python Tutorial It's hard to go wrong when Python.org provides the tutorial for you. The official tutorial offers an excellent language overview with all the details you could hope for. That being said, the tutorial reads like a language manual, which it is. This may be exactly what you're looking for or something you'd prefer to avoid.
People with passive-voice allergies are advised to grab some Claritin before reading. Here's an actual quote from the write-up "Perhaps the most well-known statement type is the if statement. For example: There can be zero or more elif parts, and the else part is optional. The keyword ‘elif‘ is short for ‘else if’, and is useful to avoid excessive indentation. An if... elif... elif... sequence is a substitute for the switch or case statements found in other languages."
Strengths: Complete and correct coverage.
Weaknesses: Not especially user friendly introduction.
Python Rocks! Kent S. Johnson provides a terrific overview of the Python language—and why you should be excited by it—in his "Python Rocks!" rant on his personal website. His brief language tour covers a lot of the language highlights for anyone who wants to understand the big Python picture before settling down to a core Python tutorial. It's a great place to start to get you in the mood for learning the language.
Strengths: Helps you understand why Python rocks.
Weaknesses: Short, not a full language overview.
Dive Into Python Mark Pilgrim's online book offers a highly regarded survey of the language. First published in 2004, Dive Into Python is considered one of the best comprehensive overviews by some of our Ars staffers. Presented in outline format, the book covers language basics including statements, data types, objects, regular expressions and more. If you have the time to spare, this book offers exhaustive detail. The last chapter, which covers performance tuning, looks like a real gem for advanced programmers.
Strengths: Really detailed
Weaknesses: Slightly dated, with noticeable typos.
A Byte of Python Swaroop C H's online book offers many, many little knowledge chunks. Each page offers a tiny bit of Python knowledge, with clean formatting and good examples. It is not, however, a book that you'll want to sit and read through as there's little narrative flow from this Yahoo! employee. Instead, it works well as a reference. Click through to the if statement, for example, to find out how to put this one statement together or to the tuple page to see examples of grouped data elements.
Strengths: Just the facts.
Weaknesses: Just the facts.
Learning With Python (2nd Edition) For the experienced programmer who's looking to get up and going with a language as quickly, Jeffrey Elkner, Allen B. Downey and Chris Meyers' Learning with Python site (aka, "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist") provides a simple data dump. Expressions, functions, conditionals, iteration, strings and more are covered in short, pointed chapters.
Each of the 11 chapters is presented on a single webpage with lots of well-focused sample code. It's a great resource for anyone who knows object oriented programming and scripting already but needs to quickly produce results in the new language.
Strengths: Direct and to the point; my favorite site
Weaknesses: Misses advanced best practices.
Learning to Program Alan Gauld's "Learning to Program" offers a series of tutorials that assume little or no programming background. Using Python examples, it start with a surey of language basics and then moves on to more advanced topics including event-driven programming and file manipulation, touching on some basic CS introductions to functional programming and recursion.
You'll probably find his "Python in Practice" and "Working with Databases" sections to be valuable, regardless of your background as it covers very practical applied Python. Sadly, his "Writing Web Clients" and "Writing Web Applications" topics are referenced but not available online at this time.
Strengths: Suitable for new programmers
Weaknesses: Some topics are missing in action.
Other Books The official Python.org wiki offers an excellent list of introductory Python books that are not necessarily available online but should be readily available from Amazon and other retailers. Online tutorials aren't everybody's thing, and the wiki's book list provides a good starting point for tracking down dead tree resources for learning.
Strengths: Excellent survey
Weaknesses: Resources must be tracked down and read in dead-tree format.Getty Images
Guys, want to become (temporarily) infertile? You'll just feel a little prick...in a VERY delicate place.
Male Birth Control Is Almost Here -- And No, We Don't Mean Condoms
For decades, guys have worried about their girlfriends remembering to take the pill -- but soon, the responsibility may be on both genders. Or even just men.
No, the male birth control pill isn't here -- but the male birth control gel is on its way, assuming the human trials go well. (Research has already proven the procedure effective at preventing pregnancy in baboons.) Here's everything you need to know about the potential future of contraceptives...
What is this magical pregnancy-preventing drug?
It's called "Vasalgel," but it's not exactly a drug. It's a non-hormonal polymer gel that temporarily blocks sperm from flowing through guys' tubes. Simplified tenfold, it's a reversible vasectomy -- minus the cutting.
You said "reversible," right?
Yep. The gel is injected into the vas deferens -- remember learning about those in 7th grade sex ed? -- a.k.a. the ducts that transport sperm.
Wait, it's injected where?
"The tube that connects the testes with the urethra." Want some Tylenol?
OK, OK, fine...tell me more.
The gel forms a wall that effectively stops any sperm from swimming to the motherland. When it's time to reverse the procedure months or even years later, a second injection flushes out the polymer wall and restores the sperm flow. Compare this to a traditional vasectomy, where the vas deferens are permanently cut.
Is it 100% effective?
In the animal study, male baboons on Vasalgel were each given unrestricted, uh, play time with 10 to 15 female baboons. There were no female pregnancies in six months of baboon hanky panky. Earlier research on rabbits also supports the reversibility of the procedure.
When can I get this? WHEN?!
Human trials for Vasalgel are planned to start next year. The trials will be small to start off, but larger trials will start in 2016. The Parsemus Foundation, the nonprofit behind the new contraceptive, hopes Vasalgel will hit the market by 2017.
How much will it cost, even though I will pay anything?
As a company that supports under-researched medical approaches, Parsemus wants to make the procedure as widely available (and inexpensive) as possible.
"A contraceptive shouldn’t cost more than a flat-screen TV," their website states. "It is likely that the cost for the doctor visit will be more than for [Vasalgel]. We’ll also work to get it covered by insurance." Sounds good to us!
But as with many things in life, money is a limiting factor for Vasalgel. It's much more profitable for the pharmaceutical industry to sell monthly birth control pills to women over years and years rather than a one-time procedure to men. As The Daily Beast puts it, "Why sell a flat-screen television to a man, after all, when you can rent one to a woman for a decade?"
How will this affect my life?
The widespread availability of male birth control -- which could very well be a thing in just three short years -- would completely change the conversation around sexual health. Would boyfriends use Vasalgel while their girlfriends took the pill? Or would one method rule over the other? What about insurance policies -- would employers be required to provide coverage for male contraceptives?
Related: Supreme Court Rules That Employers Can Deny You Birth Control
These are questions that only time will answer. In the meantime, we're just excited about the possibility of a new non-hormonal contraceptive. In addition to being ridiculously expensive, hormonal birth control methods like the pill or IUDs can come with a host of harmful side effects -- everything from depression to an increased risk of heart disease and blood clots. One of the great things about Vasalgel is that it doesn't interfere with guys' testosterone levels. That's awesome.
So can I stop using condoms during hookups?
NO! Vasalgel won't protect against STD transmission. Even with Vasalgel, guys will still ejaculate seminal fluid -- which can carry HIV or other infections. So don't go ditching the condoms just yet.
Check out Bedsider.org for more info on current contraceptive methods and visit MTV’s It’s Your Sex Life website to learn more about pregnancy and sexual health.Kim Kardashian checks out $2 million car
Kim Kardashian is known for liking the finer things in life, and it shouldn't be any surprise that the starlet also loves the world's finest cars.
Kardashian checked out the first Pagani Huayra in the United States this week, and if she signs on the dotted line, she could own the rare sports car for around $2 million, according to Yahoo.
Pagani models are handcrafted by Horatio Pagani, an Argentinean engineer, and the car pays close attention to on-road performance and styling in the interior. The cars can hit 60 mph in 3 seconds and tops out at 230.
And in the inside, you'll find a designer-quality interior.
Doesn't it seem like the perfect match for Kardashian?
Kardashian isn't a stranger to high-end sports cars. She drove around in a Lamborghini Aventador on Halloween.Image caption On their final flight the VC10s refuelled a Eurofighter Typhoon, Tornado GR4, Hercules, Boeing E-3 Sentry as well as each other
The RAF's last Vickers VC10 jetliners have completed their final mission after 47 years of service.
The two aircraft took off from RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, at 10:00 BST and refuelled several planes air-to-air before landing at about 14:30.
They are to be dismantled and replaced by a fleet of new Voyager A330-200s.
Wing Cdr Ronnie Trasler said it meant the base's 101 Squadron would still be at the forefront of air-to-air refuelling for "many years to come".
On Wednesday the Princess Royal attended the base for the consecration parade of the squadron's new standard, which also marked the end of service life of the VC10.
Gp Capt Steve Lushington, RAF Brize Norton station commander said: "You only have to look through the chapters of aviation history to find the VC10 has played a part somewhere along the line.
"Be that the returning of those people held hostage around the world, flying the Royal Family, The Queen, heads of state and Prime Ministers to all sorts of wonderful locations as part of state visits."
Largest aircraft
On their final flight the VC10s - affectionately known in the RAF as the "Funbus" - refuelled a Eurofighter Typhoon, Tornado GR4, Hercules, Boeing E-3 Sentry as well as each other.
Image caption The RAF's Vickers VC10s have taken part in one last operational sortie Image caption The jetliner has been the mainstay of the RAF's air-to-air refuelling fleet Image caption The RAF craft will be dismantled and replaced by Voyager A330-200s Image caption The crews of the final sorties of the VC10 before takeoff at RAF Brize Norton previous slide next slide
They also took part in flypasts over Newcastle, Warton, RAF Coningsby, RAF Marham, Birmingham, RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Leuchars, and Prestwick.
The VC10 was built as a commercial airliner but has been the mainstay of the RAF's air-to-air refuelling fleet.
It has also been used to deploy troops around the world.
Its replacement, the Voyager, is the RAF's largest aircraft, with a 60m (197ft) wingspan, and is also nearly 60m long.
The RAF bought 14 of the aircraft under a 27-year private finance initiative contract worth £10.5bn with the AirTanker consortium.
The VC10 will retire on 25 September.Roy Moore's signature. Politico
Roy Moore, a Republican candidate for US Senate from Alabama, allegedly signed a high-school student's yearbook before he sexually assaulted her.
In a press conference on Monday, Beverly Young Nelson said Moore became a regular at a restaurant called the Old Hickory House when he was the District Attorney of Etowah County and she was a waitress.
She said that one night when she was 16 years old, he offered her a ride home when her shift ended, then drove around to the back of the restaurant sexually assaulted her in his car in the parking lot.
As evidence of their relationship, Nelson presented a page of her yearbook that Moore asked to sign during one of his earlier visits to the restaurant.
Moore's message read, "To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say, 'Merry Christmas.' Love, Roy Moore DA, 12-22-77, Olde Hickory House."
As Business Insider's Josh Barro pointed out, Moore's signature in the yearbook matches his signature on his US term limits pledge this year.
Nelson was one of several women who have come forward in recent days accusing Moore of sexual misconduct when they were teenagers and he was an adult.
Last week, The Washington Post reported that Moore dated several teenagers and committed sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old when he was in his 30's.This was a very good lecture subject. I thought it very interesting. Dr. Kelly explained the basics of what evolution is along with the definitions of Facts, Theories, and Hypotheses. Dr. Kelly explained how being a Christian and a believer in evolution are not mutually exclusive ideas. She actually stated that evolution makes her faith stronger by the fact that God works in wonderous ways.
She didn't have all the answers, or at least not enough to satisfy the card carrying Creationists. During the Q and A Creationists basically demanded proof of afterlife since she was so certain of evolution.
Some questions were funny as they tried to stump her on Cambrian Explosion. Well, she did her dissertation on that subject, shut them up quick. Other questions had to do with taking the Bible at its word verbatim. I heard not one clear thought during the Q and A. It is as if they just waited to speak instead of listening first.
My belief....
I was surprised by how much I have in common with the Doctor. I mean besides my supreme science knowledge (yeah right)...
No, I really do feel the same way as she does in a sense. While I don't proclaim to be a Christian, I do believe in the Judeo Christian "God" and I believe God created the earth.
I just believe God created the earth and everything in the Universe and science is the result, evolution included. What a concept!
Creation science is not science. That is not an opinion, it is just fact. It should not be taught in public schools, PERIOD.
Thoughts...A Melbourne couple sleeping in bed were woken by teenage bandits armed with golf clubs and pretending to be police.
During the home invasion, which took place about 3.40am on Sunday in Glen Iris, teenagers allegedly told the couple to get on the floor before stealing phones and an iPad and drove away in the couple's silver Mercedes.
A 13-year-old Packenham girl was charged with aggravated burglary and will appear in a children's court, but the rest of the intruders remain at large.
The female victim told Seven News anonymously the experience was "terrifying".
"In fact you almost can't believe it's real. It feels quite surreal, as if you're in a horrible nightmare," she said.
"They came around the door, shone torches and they shouted 'police, police, get on the floor'."
No one was injured during the burglary, and the vehicle is yet to be found.
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After what should be regarded as a less than stellar NCAA Men's Soccer season, the final ended fittingly with Virginia winning the College Cup tournament on penalty kicks after a 0-0 draw with UCLA. Virginia saw the school’s top player and MLS prospect Eric Bird return from injury for the final, although he only played 36 minutes and the Cavilers stuck to a defensive style that got them to the finals over earlier round favorites Notre Dame and Georgetown. Connecting on 4 out of 5 penalty kicks while the Bruins missed 2 out of 4, giving Virginia its first championship since 2009, and seventh in the school’s history. After the game many were critical of how Virginia played and thought they didn't deserve to win, especially after getting the easier semi-final draw against the Cinderella team UMBC. However, I had picked Virginia to make the final four and in a year with not many dominant schools, and the way the tournament draw was set up, it didn't surprise me especially after a run in last season’s tournament that the Cavaliers made it this far. On paper, even I will admit that UCLA had the stronger team and almost too much depth, with many high school and international student prospects not getting enough minutes for one of the best recruiting schools. Although like many programs this season, I found UCLA frustrating at times by not being able to put in a complete performance. This includes Leo Stolz, who will most likely win the college player of the year and be talked about regarding the MLS draft. However, the German didn't dominate this season like he did in 2013 and after choosing not to take a penalty kick his last action in college was a yellow card at the end of second overtime. This doesn't mean this year’s tournament wasn't entertaining. Arguably UCLA’s win over the University of North Carolina (“UNC”) to get to the final four was one of the most exciting games I've seen this year in soccer and could go down as one of the greatest college game of all-time. UNC, the other stacked team in terms of prospects with UCLA, had Alex Olofson red carded just 12 minutes in the game but they took the lead through Omar Holness. The teams shared goals, including one from UCLA freshman prospect Abu Danladi, who despite playing only 12 games in college is now being talked as a potential GA candidate for the upcoming draft. The game went into penalty kicks tied 3-3 and UCLA won in PKs 7-6. All except one of UCLA’s five tournament games went into extra time, including a 3-2 win over Providence in the Semis. The Canadians in the tournament performed well but were eliminated before the conclusion, most notably Syracuse lost to Georgetown in the round of 16. While Jay Chapman’s Michigan State were upset by Providence in the final 8, although this didn't harm the Campbellford, Ontario native’s profile. The school’s success as well as his performances up to that point have led to rumors of him being signed by an English Premier League club and seems he will leave school now to sign with Toronto FC as a potential Homegrown player or with a club in Europe. Meanwhile, maybe outside of Abu Danladi, the tournament didn't effect the top prospects regarding the upcoming MLS Draft. This led to an embarrassing situation from the American soccer media, such as MLSSoccer and the broadcaster ESPN, as they choose to only really cover the tournament during the Final Four and generally hyping up players who most likely are not going to make an impact in MLS. Personally, my own top 100 prospect list changed only slightly as the season progressed, while four of my top 20, including UCONN's Cyle Larin, didn't even make the tournament. However, the tournament did allow me to see some players more closely and despite no stats to speak of, a player who impressed me because of his defensive awareness is UNC’s Boyd Okwuonu, who I feel will bring the greatest value to the MLS club who drafts him. Other players to read up about before the draft are Georgetown's Joshua Yaro, who I like but have more concerns about than others. A few other notable players are St Louis forward Robbie Kristo, Notre Dame midfielders Nick Besler and Patrick Hoden, and Washington's Sophomore Christian Roldan. Meanwhile, Duke's Sean Davis signed a Homegrown contract with New York Red Bulls and expect the same with Jordan Morris and Darwin Jones in Seattle. While Toronto FC have a number of decisions to be made regarding Jay Chapman and Jordan Murrell, and unfortunately Allando Matheson has likely played himself out of a potential Homegrown contract with Toronto after struggling with UCONN this season. Like most soccer in North America, NCAA soccer isn't perfect with many structural and organizational issues, including schools being asked to play up to 25 games in less than four months. There has been talk of change such as a full calendar season with a winter break, and the addition of most MLS clubs now having USL Pro clubs so the expectation on drafted players should be less. Academy based players are having a greater impact on college soccer, although I still feel college soccer is a key stepping stone in both player development and North American scouting as it gives further opportunity to evaluate. However, it is up to MLS and its clubs to care about college soccer beyond the final four to fully take advantage of it.Nearly six months after initially deciding to transfer to the Florida Gators, junior guard Eli Carter learned that the NCAA has granted his waiver to play immediately, according to CBSSports.com‘s Jeff Borzello. The report has since been confirmed by UF.
Carter, who committed to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in 2011 but decided to leave the program following the scandal involving then-head coach Mike Rice, averaged 14.9 points in 28.8 minutes per game during his sophomore season.
He joins a Florida team in need of backcourt scoring help after losing two veteran guards – Kenny Boynton and Mike Rosario – to graduation after the 2012-13 season. Boynton and Rosario combined for 24.5 points per game last season.
Though he is now eligible to play, whether Carter is healthy enough to step on the court for the Gators in 39 days (Nov. 8 vs. North Florida) remains to be seen. He has not yet been medically cleared by UF’s doctors and trainers.
On Feb. 16 in a game against DePaul, Carter gruesomely fractured his right fibula [GIF] when he was fouled early in the second half on his way to the basket for a layup.
Though he was initially expected to make a full recovery without surgery, Carter went under the knife on Feb. 28. He was told by surgeons and trainers that he would be able to resume running in June.
It is the second time in the last four offseasons that Florida added a transfer from Rutgers as Carter is following in Rosario’s footsteps. He was a three-star prospect and the No. 114 recruit in the nation as ranked by Rivals in 2011 and chose UF over Maryland as his transfer destination.
Gators assistant Rashon Burno – who like Carter and Rosario played at St. Anthony’s High School in New Jersey under head coach Bob Hurley – reached out to the player in early April. Head coach Billy Donovan then flew up north to meet with Carter and his family in their home after learning of their interest.
“Eli is a great addition to our team, and we’re pleased he’s a Gator now,” Donovan said in a school release from May 10. “I’m excited to get down to Florida, and I can’t wait to start gelling with the team and the coaches,” Carter added.
Carter scored 20 or more points eight times during the 2012-13 season, but Florida fans probably best remember him for going 12-for-24 for 31 points with seven rebounds and seven assists when Rutgers registered a two-overtime 85-83 upset victory over UF in Piscataway, NJ back on Dec. 29, 2011.
While he can certainly put the ball in the hoop, Carter must allow Donovan and the coaching staff to help him become a more consistent shooter. After hitting 41 percent of his shots and 35 percent of his threes as a freshman, his averages fell to 38 percent and 32 percent, respectively, during his sophomore campaign.If this report and article is accurate; and if Donald Trump has actually hired Cambridge Analytica, then there’s another dot of clarity within the campaign matrix. When you cut through the chatter, noise and obfuscation, Cambridge Analytica is Robert Mercer.
Without the existence of billionaire Robert Mercer -and the millions he pours into it- Cambridge Analytica would not exist.
So what is Cambridge Analytica? You can use google, and look at the presented framework (identify how others define the psychological targeting operation) and their explanations behind behavioral science of social media profiling/marketing and analytical tools.
It would be far too cumbersome for this discussion for us to outline the “intended” definition of the psy-ops program; and, incidentally, we abhor it – we dislike everything about it. Taken to it’s logical conclusion, behavioral science exploited is dangerous.
The rather eccentric billionaire Robert Mercer funded/created C.A. as a social tool to target behavior. However, the behavioral analytics tool itself is intended much less to identify behavior, and much more to shift the action of the entity being targeted.
Our own research into the 2014 and 2015 “advanced polls for preferred candidates” quickly dispatched any notion that C.A. was a scientific or altruistic endeavor. It is not. It’s expressed, albeit unwritten, motive is to change behavior – not just identify it.
Mercer funded C.A. to assist Ted Cruz. Mercer used/deployed C.A. through a very specific media outlet to gather information to assist Ted Cruz. It was only AFTER Mercer realized the Cruz objective was self-serving, that Mercer removed Cruz as a benefactor of his endeavor.
We understand, given the objective need for candidate Donald Trump to work around the insufferable media, why Trump would be reluctantly willing to enlist the assistance of C.A. as a tool toward that goal – but the alignment still presents a discomfort:
[…] The London-based company set up approximately ten data scientists within Giles-Parscale, the Texas-based firm that runs Trump’s website. The cost was about $1.6 million. (link)
It would be intellectually dishonest for us to say there’s no risk involved here.
If you are a person who goes out to eat, maneuvers through life or engages in the world around you, while attached to a small computer called your cell phone – and you find yourself engaged in the web-based internet reality as opposed to “real life experiences”, while traveling through the real world around you – then you probably don’t quite accept the following with the same degree of comprehension held by a person who has intentionally kept themselves disconnected from it:
On June 15th “Aggregate Media Polling” showed Hillary Clinton leading by 15 points.
On July 15th “Aggregate Media Polling” showed Donald Trump leading by 15 points.
On August 3rd “Aggregate Media Polling” showed Hillary Clinton leading by 10 to 15 points.
These aggregate media claims are factually impossible. There is no real world scenario where political opinions swing 30+ points every two to four weeks. Such claims are pure nonsense; manufactured nonsense, absurd in the extreme.
They are not real.
The only place such reality exists, is within the world of ‘alternate reality’. Or put another way, within the world of those who construct your impression of reality.
Those who construct these insufferable ‘alternate realities’, particularly those within the media, feed the information into your world view via those alternate reality windows we call cell phones, or portable computers.
Hence, here is where you find the challenge for Donald Trump to connect to you when it is impossible for his message to travel through the same network because the gate keepers have a vested interest in filtering out the Trump message.
And that’s where Robert Mercer and Cambridge Analytica come into play. They have designed tools to work within the tightly controlled networked system, to track you down and communicate with you.
It is fair to say without a corrupt corporate media, there would be no need for Trump to hire Cambridge Analytica; but the former is reality, and therefore the latter is a necessity.
It’s still dangerous.
Because this :
Leads to this :
AdvertisementsWhile some Chinese travelers storm the tarmac when flights get delayed, others might wish their flights never take off -- assuming they're flying from the northeast China city of Dalian.
To entertain waiting passengers, Dalian International Airport recently recruited a squad of cheerleaders to perform kicks, jumps and splits in the airport's main hall.
During massive fog-related delays in Dalian last week, the cheerleaders' pom-pom routines "soothed emotion and alleviated fatigue" for more than 5,000 stranded fliers, according to the Dalian Evening News.
The cheerleading show is part of the airport's effort to "bring more convenience to passengers in the summer-autumn air season," said Zhen Qun, an airport official.
It's also a way for the Dalian airport to "demonstrate spirit and shoulder social responsibility," according to an airport press release.
The airport has launched a series of other innovative services, including free physical checkups and instant weather and flight updates by text message.
Zhen did not discuss the daily schedule of cheerleader shows, but the airport has staged at least one performance every day in the past week, each lasting two to three hours, with breaks.
"The cheerleaders are enrolled in different colleges in Dalian. We hire them on a work-for-study program," added Zhen. "The performance is free of charge for passengers."
That's good, because we're not sure we'd pay to see them, anyway.
Dalian International Airport is the biggest airport in northeastern China and the fourth busiest in China (by international passengers). The hub handled more than 12 million passengers in 2011.
Amid a current boom in aviation in China, flight delays are becoming a major sticking point for travelers in the country.
Poor weather, restricted military airspace and logistical issues regularly play havoc with airline schedules.ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- As the Denver Broncos went about their business in practice Tuesday, the team's executive vice president of football operations/general manager, John Elway, had a cellphone pressed tightly against his right ear.
And roughly two hours after the practice was over, the Broncos agreed to terms with guard Evan Mathis on a one-year deal. Mathis, a two-time Pro Bowl selection, will receive a $2.5 million base salary with the ability to earn up to $4 million if he hits all of the play-time incentives, sources told ESPN.
The $1.5 million worth of incentives will include percentage of offensive snaps played as well as amounts for each week Mathis is on the active game-day roster, according to multiple sources.
Evan Mathis will provide a veteran presence on a Denver Broncos offensive line that is undergoing a youth movement. Drew Hallowell/Philadelphia Eagles/Getty Images
"Evan Mathis is an accomplished veteran who has played at a very high level for the last several seasons," Elway said in a statement. "He will immediately make our team better, and we are excited to have him as part of the Denver Broncos."
A free agent, Mathis became available after he was cut by the Philadelphia Eagles amid a contract dispute. Mathis was looking to renegotiate a five-year, $25.5 million deal he signed in 2012. Mathis turned down a $5.5 million offer from another team, but signed in Denver because he wanted to play for a top contender, a source told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.
Had he not been cut, Mathis would have been in line to make $5.5 million from the Eagles this season.
Mathis projects to start at left guard for Denver, putting a veteran player into a youth movement in the offensive front. The Broncos have had rookie Max Garcia at left guard through the bulk of training camp as well as the two preseason games.
Editor's Picks Wednesday NFL preview: Broncos significantly change RB depth chart NFL Nation previews what to watch for Wednesday around the NFL, including the significant change on the Broncos' RB depth chart.
Garcia, rookie left tackle Ty Sambailo and center Matt Paradis, who was on the team's practice squad as a rookie in 2014, gave the Broncos a left side of the offensive line with no NFL regular-season starts to protect star Peyton Manning.
Coach Gary Kubiak, however, has lauded Paradis' play in particular of late, and there had been some feeling in the organization Sambrailo would be helped by a veteran presence alongside him. The Broncos still very much consider Garcia a future starter even if Mathis is quickly moved into the lineup.
Mathis has experience in a West Coast offense dating to his time with the Eagles during the Andy Reid era, so the transition should go quickly. The Broncos' most likely combination on the offensive line for the Sept. 13 regular-season opener against the Baltimore Ravens would be Sambrailo at left tackle, Mathis at left guard, Paradis at center, Louis Vasquez at right guard and Ryan Harris at right tackle.
Following practice Tuesday, Kubiak took a so-far, so-good approach in his assessment of the line's play, but also left often the possibility a move could be made.
"It |
windows that hadn’t been shattered and couldn’t be opened. What a mistake to think of the 9/11 conspirators as criminal masterminds. Imagine their state of mind as they watched their plan to destroy one of the world’s most famous landmarks (and, of course, violently murder thousands of innocent people) unfold before their eyes. Even the most jaded covert operative wouldn’t likely remain un-rattled after having perpetrated such an outrage. And don’t forget, they had very similar performance problems in OK City. Certainly we can find Deepthroat’s words to Bob Woodward (in relation to yet another botched “op”) encouraging; “Truth is, these aren’t very bright guys and things got out of hand.” But—despite the fact that the fires ne ver caught on as hoped—for the conspirators, the clock was ticking; a burgeoning army of firefighters and rescue workers were descending on Ground Zero. To the 9/11 cabal, it was then or never, so down came Building 7 at 5:25 PM, its suspicious collapse to be sanitized by our megalo-media, a propaganda machine that could be relied upon to play ball after the smoke had cleared. And play ball it did. Needless to say, any paradigm shift of this magnitude relating to an event as grave as 9/11 will likely undergo intense scrutiny, as it should. But I do believe that the available facts indicate this alternative. The only point to support the theory that the plotters kept WTC 7 up all day
(Fig. 11) Diagram showing the radius of debris damage from the collapse of the Twin Towers. WTC 7 and the Verizon Building stand side by side at top. 7 long for some unfathomable reason is that it did stay up all day long. But just because something happened, it’s certainly no guarantee that it was meant to happen. 9/11 researchers have often cited the OEM bunker in WTC 7 as a possible front for the conspirator’s operations center. Although this theory hasn’t been proven conclusively, the facts supporting it are very intriguing. The timing of the construction of a reinforced facility (shortly before the most dramatic “terror” hit in history) with a bird’s eye view of what was obviously a conspiratorial operation seems oddly convenient in retrospect. But the fact that the location chosen for the brand new facility had been acknowledged by experts as the single most likely terrorist target in the western hemisphere is particularly suspicious, especially when the WTC had already been struck once in 1993. This point was revisited, though half-heartedly, by the 9/11 Commission who understandably questioned the logic of locating an emergency command retreat where it would likely be destroyed (as it was) in the event of an actual attack. But another odd fact about the OEM bunker was addressed in an article in the NY Daily News that described the command post in WTC 7 as “the first-e ver aerie-style bunker,” the vast majority (or, according to The Daily News, all) of similar facilities naturally having been built underground and well removed from potential hot spots. Richard Sheirer, the Police Commissioner’s Chief of Staff, testified to 9/11 commissioners that he had warned OEM officials that such a location could render the facility inaccessible (and the elevators inoperable) should the building sustain damage in an attack or natural disaster. These and other suspicious facts about the OEM bunker have given 9/11 researchers much to consider. Although these points may not prove conclusively that this OEM facility was really a nest of conspirators, they would appear to explain the poor choice of locations for a command retreat that oddly rewrote the rules set in place for similar facilities in the past. As mentioned above, it is possible that the conspirators never did reenter WTC 7 to set fires but opted instead to just allow the “debris impact” fires to spread. But this theory gets very complex very quickly. A NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) report on the collapses of the WTC buildings includes photos that appear to show significant damage to the lowest floors of the southwest corner of WTC 7 (Fig. 10). This damage may extend across the full length of WTC 7’s south face but the few available photos of this area, all taken from disadvantageous angles and obscured by smoke, cannot confirm this possibility. Incredibly, no unobstructed photos of the south face of WTC 7 have ever been released to the public (much like the video surveillance tapes of the Pentagon hit), a wholly suspicious development in and of itself considering how vital this evidence is to those who support the official story. NIST also claimed that the North Tower’s plummeting wreckage “sco oped out” about 25% of the bottom third of WTC 7. How NIST scientists determined that this catastrophic damage was done to
The Verizon Building WTC 7 WTC 6 The North Tower (Fig. 12) The south face of the Verizon Building stands in near pristine condition at upper left. The lack of damage to its façade seems inconsistent with the heavy damage officials claim had impacted Building 7 (right). 8 Building 7 is anyone’s guess since, as mentioned, no photographic evidence is available to confirm it. The debris-caused-catastrophic-damage-and-fires-to-WTC 7 theory would appear to make sense were it not for the strange lack of damage to a building right next door that logically should have sustained similar damage. Photos of the Verizon Building (standing just across a side street to the west of WTC 7) clearly show that it sustained, at best, only light damage. Despite suffering one or two minor puncture wounds, presumably from stray girders, the building remained virtually unscathed by the debris that had apparently “scooped out” a quarter of WTC 7’s total depth. Site plans (fig.11) of the area confirm that debris from the collapsing North Tower should have impacted both buildings equally. But look at these aerial photos of the Verizon Building’s south face (figs. 12 and 13), especially its sharp southeast corner (directly opposite WTC 7’s heavily damaged southwest corner); it stands in near pristine condition—not a nick or a scratch on it. What force c ould so heavily impact WTC 7 and yet leave the adjacent Verizon Building virtually untouched? Some might argue that the buildings were constructed of different materials, but one would think that any wreckage that allegedly caused such profound damage to WTC 7 would surely have left its mark on its cozy neighbor, no matter what the buildings were made of. Does it really make sense that falling wreckage from the collapsing North Tower magically veered off towards WTC 7 and away from the Verizon Building or does the damage to Building 7’s lower floors and the ensuing fires within tell a very different story about what was at work in Building 7? More to the point, does the damage to WTC 7 provide us with a clue that there was perhaps a third possible cause of the fires in WTC 7; that, just like the Murrah Building in OK City, a partially detonated explosive system may have failed to complete its sequence? Explosive demolitions typically begin on ground floors and proceed upward. And which makes more sense, that the smoke billowing out of the wound in WTC 7’s south face (fig. 14) was the result of impact damage from stray debris or a hot explosion from within? Is this why no clear photos of Building 7’s south face have ever been released to the public; because they’d show that significant amounts of debris never reached WTC 7 in the first place and that the front of Building 7 was actually blown out by an explosion, not in by debris? This idea, that wreckage falling onto structures automatically sets them on fire, is absurd. The South Tower fell right onto the North Tower, and yet no fires in the North Tower’s lower floors were ever photographed or reported. Photos of WTC Buildings 5 and 6 completely engulfed in flames seem suspicious in this light and seem to point instead to arson. And those who argue that a tsunami of debris hit WTC 7, struck the diesel fuel tanks and/or electrical substation in its belly The North Tower
(Fig. 13) Another aerial view of the Verizon Building and the remains of WTC 6 and WTC 7. 9 seem out of luck when the debris impact theory appears to have so little plausibility to begin with. Lacking insider confirmation, we may never know the complete story about what happened to World Trade Center Building 7 on the afternoon of 9/11. But its paltry fires just don’t seem consistent with the kind of well-crafted plans executed earlier in the day. What we saw instead was a virtual replay of what happened in Oklahoma City; the incomplete detonation of a pre- planted demolition system in a highly secure government building housing military, financial and intelligence agencies. In addition, isn’t it odd that the FDNY seemingly just gave up on such an exceedingly important and valuable building as WTC 7, one that had only marginal fires burning within? Wouldn’t the conspirators have preferred wrapping things up in one fell swoop that morning rather than prolonging the spectacle any longer than necessary? And the bewildering notion— hinted at by one or two 9/11 theorists—that the conspirato rs spent the day in the OEM bunker “orchestrating the aftermath” of the attacks in the uppe r floors of a burning building is really stretching reason to the breaking point. “What we saw instead was a virtual replay of what h appened in Oklahoma City; the incomplete detonation of a pre-planted demolition system in a highly secure government building…” As for Larry Silverstein’s cryptic remarks about ‘pulling’ Building 7 (originally aired on a PBS documentary in 2002), well, look at it this way: a building that Silverstein owned inexplicably “collapses” in what was obviously an intent ional demolition at the end of the most infamous day in American history. As the months passed, he had to have become the focus of mounting suspicions about the strange death of his building and likely became desperate to offer something in the way of an explanation to a doubtful public. All he needed was the right pulpit. For a wealthy and well-connected man like Silverstein, finagling an interview on a PBS documentary may not be as hard as it seems. Using Karl Rove- like sleight of hand, Silverstein’s well-oiled comments offer us a vague accounting of the anomaly delivered to us on an almost subconscious level. However subtle this attempt may have been, his simple and concise phrasing—that “...they made that decision to ‘pull’ and we watched the building collapse” —has impressed many of the finest 9/11 researchers as being clear and unambiguous, and for good reason.About
[A note on fulfillment: We've listed shipping in the summer of 2016, which is sort of a worst case scenario. The earliest we could possibly begin shipping is December 2015. It's much more likely to ship the first quarter of 2016. The different reward levels will not actually take a month each to fulfill, but represents a "first come, first served" approach to shipping.]
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Download the Print and Play version for FREE
Epic Dice TD brings tower defense games to your table top in a competitive, all-dice game.
If you didn't take part in Dungeon Dice or Dungeon Dice: GUILDS, you should know that we plan to add a lot through stretch goals. Currently, the game includes 161 dice, with another 68 in the Witching Hour expansion, but that number will grow! [For more info on the Witching Hour expansion, check out the Add-on section at the bottom of the page]
Players: 2-4
Game Time: 20-40 minutes
Minions, towers and spells are all represented by dice. Players construct towers and hire waves of minions to send against other players.
Each player receives a game mat to organize towers and minions. Each game mat indicates positions for a lane of towers on the player's left and a lane of towers on the player's right. In the center of the mat are three slots for waves of hired minions.
Each round, player's roll off to determine turn order for the entire round.
The round consists of a Buy Phase and an Attack Phase.
During the Buy Phase, players are allotted five gold. Players may spend gold to construct towers, reroll weak towers, hire groups of minions to form waves, or to cast spells.
During the Attack Phase, each player may send two waves of minions against adjacent players. The entire wave is rolled and minions weaker than the tower are removed. If a minion equals or exceeds the towers strength, the tower is destroyed. Each minion type has a specific ability that activates automatically if that minion's image is rolled on the die. Different minions are useful under different circumstances, and it is up to the player to decide what group will be most effective as an attacking wave.
When a monster makes it past all opposing towers, the die may be rolled once for a chance to score victory points.
The game is over when a player scores a total of 8 victory points.
Here's a video of a play session. This video includes the minions from the Witching Hour expansion.
For complete rules, see the instruction booklet at the bottom of the page.
Every box of EPIC DICE Tower Defense comes with the following (this list is updated as we hit stretch goals):
[All artwork is subject to change]
More and more goodness...
(The Witching Hour Expansion is suitable for 2-6 players)
Game Mats
Each game comes with four cardboard mats. Upgrade your mats to larger, flexible neoprene, with an added area for spell dice and score trackers. Upgraded mats will fit in the game box.
Add $5 per mat to your pledge (No extra fee for international pledges. Not available to EU backers, see Bundle below)
2 Player Pack
Add 12 additional towers, 2 catapults, 2 Score Trackers, 2 Upgraded Tower dice, and 2 Spell dice. Enough dice for 6 players! The 2 Player Pack will fit in the game box. (This graphic displays catapults which will be unlocked in the near future.)
Add $8 to your pledge (No extra fee for international pledges. Not available to EU backers, see Bundle below)
Bundle (2 Player Pack + 6 Mats)
Get enough dice for 6 players, and 6 upgraded game mats, with a $9 discount.
Add $29 to any pledge (No extra fee for international orders outside the EU)
EU Backers add $39 to your pledge (This includes $10 for shipping from the US)
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/168141/epic-dice-tower-defense
Additional Game
Get an additional copy of Epic Dice TD.
Add $40 for each additional copy to US pledges
Add $45 to pledges from Canada
Add $48 to pledges from the EU
Add $52 to other international pledges
Want to learn more about the rules for Epic Dice TD? Just click the link below to read the manual, or get the instructions from our BGG page.In the winter, the coast of Peru is a very cloudy place. In this part of the Pacific Ocean, the Humboldt Current provokes coastal upwelling; that is, cooler water from the ocean depths are pulled up to the surface. The cooler water chills the air above, causing water vapor to condense into water droplets and, eventually, low clouds. These lumpy, sheet-like clouds are called marine stratocumulus, the most common cloud type in the world by area.
When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed over coastal Peru on June 7, 2015, sheets of marine stratocumulus clouds were meeting the dry coastline of Peru, outlining the coastal geography in dramatic fashion. Patches of both open- and close-celled low clouds are visible offshore. Open-cell clouds look like empty compartments, whereas close-cell clouds look like compartments stuffed with cloud. Despite their moisture-free appearance, pockets of open cells are actually associated with the development of precipitation. Uninterrupted decks of closed-cell stratocumulus clouds produce little to no drizzle, while pockets of open cells form as drizzle begins to fall.
Along the coast, the cloud layer has pushed in to cover Peru’s coastal plain, obscuring Lima and the other cities along the coast. Since the marine clouds are low—just a few hundred meters off the ground—the Andes Mountains block their eastern movement. The river valleys are the only places moist and cool enough for the low clouds, or fog, to persist. In the lower, close-up image, notice how tendrils of fog trace the river valleys.
Low clouds are so common over coastal Peru that locals have a name for the phenomenon: garúa, which means “drizzle.”
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response. Caption by Adam Voiland.Officers with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department have arrested a suspect in connection with the death of a man outside of a downtown nightclub a week ago.
Detectives identified 27-year-old James Beach, also known as James Michael Garcia, as the person who hit and killed the victim.
The incident originally happened around 1:34 a.m. on April 30 in the 500 block of Fremont Street near South Las Vegas Boulevard.
RELATED LINK | Metro seeks help finding two suspects in fight, man's death on Fremont Street
Officers were hailed by people standing outside of a nightclub in the area in regards to an apparent fight that had just happened.
Officers found an unconscious man on the sidewalk in front of the business with a head injury. The man was transported to UMC Trauma with what appeared to be a life-threatening injury.
On May 4, the victim died from his injuries. The victim was identified as 45-year-old Luis Campos of La Plunte, Calif.
Campos' wife, Julieanne, says Luis, a father of five, was waiting in line to get into the Vanguard Lounge when he was punched in the face.
According to Julieanne, Luis was in Las Vegas celebrating his brother's bachelor party.
RELATED LINK | Wife of man killed outside downtown Las Vegas club speaks out
Detectives described two suspects involved in the incident as Hispanic men in their twenties. Video surveillance caught both suspects running east on Fremont Street before turning north on 6th Street.
On May 7, detectives with the LVMPD Criminal Apprehension Team located Beach and took him into custody without incident.
LVMPD homicide detectives interviewed Beach and transported him to the Clark County Detention Center where he faces one count of open murder.
A second man involved has been identified and interviewed and is no longer being sought by detectives.The letter also takes aim at recent news regarding reliability for Tesla's automobiles, saying that the "cost of first year repair claims on cars produced in 2015" was half that of 2014, and one quarter of what it saw in 2012. Hopefully that means things are trending the right way as it cranks up production. Tesla built more cars in Q4 than it ever had before, with 14,037 EVs rolling out, and it's expecting to reach 1,000 Model Xs built every week during Q2.
Of course, all that building up isn't cheap, and Tesla said that its net loss nearly tripled to $320 million. There are reasons to be positive however, as Elon Musk said the company expects to be cash flow positive starting next month, and that the Model S was the best-selling "comparably priced" sedan in the US last year. In 2016 Tesla is planning to open 80 more retail and service centers, and add some 300 new Supercharger locations. We're listening in to the company's earnings call now, and will update this post if there's any new information.
Update: According to Elon Musk, the Model 3 is designed to ease manufacturing, and it will be significantly lighter than the Model S. The initial sales will be "relatively highly optioned versions of the car" so don't expect to see many base models at the beginning. He also noted the problem with the Model X launch where some publications misunderstood the high-end Signature series pricing as the SUV's base price. He also hasn't made a decision about how much of the new car to show at its reveal next month, so we'll all just have to wait and see.
Update 2: And now Musk has announced in a tweet that the car will be available for reservations starting March 31st. Get all the details here.Chimani announced today that all iOS and Android national park apps will be free in celebration of National Park Week, which runs from April 21-29. In order to encourage users to download the apps before National Park Week, the apps will be free starting on Wednesday, April 18th. The Chimani national park apps normally sell for $4.99-$9.99 each and have an average user rating of 4 1/2 stars.
“Last year we gave away over 100,000 apps during National Park Week – it was a huge success and we’re excited to do it again”, says Chimani President, Kerry Gallivan, in the press release. “Our goal is to reach a million downloads this year and to encourage just as many people to visit their local national park.”
The Chimani suite of national park apps include Acadia National Park, Cape Cod National Seashore, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, Zion National Park and the National Parks app – a virtual passport for tracking visits to all national parks.
The Chimani national park apps are an indispensable resource for anyone exploring some of our most treasured parks. Each app delivers constantly updated information, ranger-led event schedules, auto touring points of interest, hiking guides, restroom locations, detailed maps, free shuttle bus schedules, and breaking news alerts. Users can also view sunset and sunrise times for the most memorable scenic overlooks, access tide schedules along the coast, review lodging options, and much, much more.
More info and download links for Chimani iOS apps via Apple’s iTunes App Store here.
Source: Chimani, LLCOTTAWA — Senator Larry Campbell, while acting within ethics guidelines, has put himself in a clear “appearance” of being in a conflict of interest by accepting a post as adviser to a Vancouver company breaking into the medical marijuana business, say ethics experts.
The former Vancouver mayor was named Tuesday to an “advisory board” for Vodis Innovative Pharmaceuticals Inc., along with ex-Conservative MP John Reynolds, once one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s most high-profile allies.
Vodis, which is seeking Health Canada approval to market medical marijuana, said both were brought on due to their business expertise and not because of any real or perceived political influence.
“It’s just because of (their) credibility,” said Vodis chief financial officer Brian Gusko.
But three frequent commentators on government ethics said the appointment of Campbell, who like all senators earns a base salary of $138,700, could make Canadians wonder if he has divided loyalties.
The fact that the company hand-picked one of B.C.’s best-known and most influential Conservatives, as well as Liberal appointee in Campbell, suggests the company is trying to cover its bases in case there’s a change of government in 2015, they said.
“This would appear to be the purchasing of access,” said Richard Leblanc, associate professor of law, governance and ethics at York University in Toronto. “It’s an enormous conflict of interest.”
Spokesmen for two ethics watchdog groups, Democracy Watch and Integrity B.C., said Campbell is acting within Senate rules, which they have criticized as too loose.
They said an argument can be made that it’s ethical for senators and ordinary MPs to maintain an interest in family companies after their election or appointment, as long as they recuse themselves from votes that affect the interest of those investments.
But the Vodis appointment stands out because it is a new company that will require federal government approvals to proceed.
“It’s different when you are going to become part of a new venture where very clearly you are being appointed to that board not only for your potential expertise but also because of your position and the influence you might have.”
As well, if the Liberals take power in 2015 the company could be in a position to expand if marijuana is legalized and Vodis decides to tap that new market, they noted.
In an interview, Campbell said he’s been working for several months on contract to help Vodis get established, and said his main objective is to get the company a listing on the TSX.
He said his remuneration as a member of the advisory committee will be in the form of stock options to buy up to 250,000 Vodis shares at 40 cents apiece — roughly the current price on the Canadian Securities Exchange, which services primarily junior and emerging public firms.
Campbell said he will not approach Health Canada to lobby for the company, and he dismissed any suggestion that he has influence with Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.
“The Liberal party has nothing to do with me. They don’t talk to me, I don’t talk to them,” he said, pointing to Trudeau’s decision earlier this year to boot senators out of the Liberal caucus.BEIJING: India's exports to China registered a sharp increase of over 53 per cent year-on-year to reach USD 1.24 billion in October, but the trade deficit continued to mount, according to data released by the customs.The trade deficit for October stood at USD 3.86 billion.Despite the strains in the bilateral ties, India-China trade increased by 13.56 per cent year-on-year to reach USD 6.33 billion in October.Significantly, India's exports to China increased by 53.04 percent year-on-year to reach USD 1.24 billion though the trade deficit continued to grow. The Indian exports to China around the same time last year was USD 0.81 billion, data showed.China's exports to India also continued to grow registering an year-on-year growth of 6.87 per cent to reach USD 5.09 billion.The Indian exports were boosted by natural pearls, precious stones and precious metals, organic chemicals, copper and articles, cotton, including yarn and woven fabric, ores, slag and ash.Since this year, India's exports which were on the decline for a number of years started showing increase.In the first seven months, the exports registered 40.69 per cent year-on-year to reach USD 10.60 billion.However, the trade deficit expanded to USD 44.51 billion in the first seven months despite surge in Indian exports as imports from China continued to increase.Last year, the trade deficit climbed to USD 52 billion in little over USD 70 billion trade.India has been pressing China to open up its pharmaceutical and IT software sectors to expand the base of Indian exports.A Real Pearl
When it comes to whipping up a killer wardrobe, Pearl (Matt James) has always sought to be a nonconformist. The 23-year-old drag performer still vying to be America’s Next Drag Superstar stunned fans and judges alike from the very beginning with an eclectic and creative eye for fashion. To those who have followed Pearl throughout the seventh season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, she is the sultry, septum piercing-wearing, “fla-zay-dah” contestant who has cranked out gag-worthy eleganza such as the “black trim blonde bombshell”, uber-chill grunge chic, and the unforgettable Mathu Anderson-inspired bearded look, just to name a few.
While she never ceased to impress fans with innovatively embellished ensembles on the show, at the beginning, it was Pearl’s attitude that left the judges thirsty for a little more. It wasn't until RuPaul’s memorable “wakeup” call that we were finally able to see that there was more behind those self-proclaimed bedroom eyes.
After touring through the Midwest and making a pit stop in sunny San Antonio, Pearl expands on where she draws inspiration for her looks and how she describes the essence of her drag aesthetic. “Typically I like to think of myself as a really eclectic dresser,” the Chicago queen says, adding, “I don’t really like to just wear one type of thing.” Pearl says that she has never liked to limit herself creatively and always seeks to go the extra mile when it comes to creating looks. “I’m not just going to wear a green dress,” she explains, “I’m just going to think of something a little more interesting.”
Describing her own drag persona as the ultimate “stepford wife robot bitch”, Pearl says that it’s hard to pin down her artistry as a drag queen in just one simple way and now that she’s touring, it’s even more difficult to pull out her usual jaw-dropping looks. “I don't really have one drag aesthetic, really. I’m pretty open as far as fashion goes,” she says, “but it’s hard when you’re touring and doing shows to bring crazy looks and be able to do crazy paint jobs on your face.”
SLIDESHOW | PEARL LIAISON
Although many of her looks arguably left fans captivated, Pearl says she always finds room for improvement, even in her own work. “To be honest though, looking back at the season, I’m not in love with what I did on the show,” she laughs, “’I’m very proud of myself and I’m happy that I was able to bring in some cool looks…maybe it's just me being my own worst critic.”
While to many avid Drag Race watchers Pearl was almost always guaranteed to pull out some expertly crafted look, it was the judges that did not readily embrace her personality on the show at first. Often characterized as a little too lackadaisical, Pearl says that simply being on show impacted her personality. “I think the show put me in a really weird mental state and I really wasn’t myself,” she says. “When people meet me at shows and at meet n’ greets and stuff, I’m very much myself and I think it comes as a big surprise to them,” she adds, “It’s like…I’m actually a lot of fucking fun,” she says with a laugh.
Pearl says that some of her more fun, empathetic moments on the show were often not seen on the final cuts. “The funniest moments happened offset from cameras, which was just kind of hanging out with all of the queens together,” she explains, “Those were the best times, just sitting in the green room and being stupid.”
While the show had its fair share of friendlier moments, Pearl says that it didn’t come without a significant amount of both physically and mentally draining challenges. “There are no words to describe the exhaustion and how humbled you are by it,” she says. “You’re constantly being judged and critiqued and read to filth. It can get so daunting on your self-esteem, not to mention you’re overworked, you’re exhausted and you can’t sleep.”
Pearl explains that it was hard for her, even before she actually started filming for the show and that some of her looks were a team effort. “I got the call and had like two weeks and I had to work every single day. It was hard,” she says. “I was lucky to have some friends that were able to scramble and put some looks together.”
With this season of Drag Race near its end, Pearl says that, even with the demanding nature of touring, she still has made time for a half album set to be released in a few weeks. In addition to the half album, she says that she has worked on a “huge” project with Wilhelmina Models that will be released around the end of June. “Right now, it’s just been so busy touring that it’s hard to focus on creative projects,” she explains, “but in the future, when I have more free time, I would like to work on a bunch of different creative projects.”
Pearl realizes that the show’s publicity can only take a talented queen so far and that it’s important to have a plan post Drag Race. “There’s a lot of pressure to figure out what is going to come next,” she says. While a queen’s time as a Drag Race girl is numbered, Pearl explains that it doesn’t escape her how much gravity there is behind keeping a drag career relevant. “You really just have to take the experience and do anything you can with it,” she adds, “you have to be smart about your future.”
The Drag Race finale airs June 1 on Logo.HOUSTON -- Dwight Howard is rekindling his crusade to save centers.
A day after failing to earn a starting spot in this year's All-Star Game, the Houston Rockets' big man joked there was a need to protect the NBA's centers.
Dwight Howard was disappointed he wasn't chosen to start the All-Star Game, but said his main goal is to win a championship. Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports
The league changed the voting last year to eliminate a separate category for centers, leaving the game's largest players to compete with small and power forwards for a spot on the team. No center was named a starter for next month's game in New Orleans.
Howard has been unhappy with the change since last year when he made a silly video asking people to help save the centers. The video, which can be seen on YouTube, plays off the popular ASPCA commercial where Sarah McLachlan sings "Angel" and asks for donation to help abused animals.
In Howard's public service announcement, a song to the tune of "Angel," with lyrics about famous centers, plays in the background while Howard touts his fictional "Center Center for Centers."
"I'm going to have another campaign for saving the centers because the world needs us," he said before Friday night's game against Memphis. "They might not need us to start for the All-Star Game but they're going to need us to block shots and get things from the ceiling, tall things. So we'll be needed."
In the video he talks about how his fake center will retrain centers to be point guards so they can be "productive members of the NBA." He adds that he'll teach them to dribble, make a layup without dunking, shoot 3-pointers and how to wear "tiny sneakers."
He laughed heartily as he showed the video to reporters on his iPad on Friday.
The seven-time All-Star, who is in his first season with Houston, was fourth in the Western Conference in frontcourt voting behind Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin and Kevin Love. He received 653,318 votes, while Durant received 1,396,294.
"That's understandable," he said. "Now there's no centers in the ballot. We get mixed in with the Kevin Durants and the Blakes and guys who play a small forward and power forward so it's a little bit different. I'll do whatever I can to get back up to the top. The way you do that is by winning and that's what we'll try to do."
Howard entered Friday's game averaging 18.3 points and 12.6 rebounds a game for the 29-15 Rockets. When he was first asked about the snub, he tried to brush it off, but later admitted his true feelings about not starting.
"Of course there was a little disappointment with everything," he said. "But I want to win a championship and that's why I'm here. Being on the All-Star team is a bonus and it's a blessing to be a part of that group. But my goal is to win a championship and that's what I'm here for and that's why I came to Houston."James Martin/CNET
Editors' note: This story was originally published on January 7, 2017.
Ten years ago, Nokia was the world's largest phone maker. Microsoft was gearing up to launch Windows Vista. And the best new products at CES included a wireless TV and an MP3 player that streamed internet radio.
Then, on Jan. 9, 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a device that went on to change the world -- a $499 iPhone that came with 4GB of storage. It was a mobile phone, a music player and an Internet device. It went on sale about six months later: June 29, 2007.
"iPhone is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone," Jobs said at the time.
Since then, Apple has sold more than 1.2 billion iPhones and has become the most profitable public company in the world. Copycat phones from companies like Samsung, HTC, Motorola and Xiaomi proliferated across the globe, and now even people in places without steady electricity have smartphones.
"It's difficult to understate [the iPhone's] impact," Reticle Research analyst Ross Rubin said. "The ripples it has created affect wide swaths of our lives."
Here are some ways the iPhone has changed the way we live:
1. We're always on
It used to be you'd fire up your computer, wait for your Wi-Fi to connect (or your dialup connection, if we're going wayyy back) and open Internet Explorer, Safari or some other web browser. Now you're connected to the internet all the time. If you're not on Wi-Fi, you're linked through your cellular network.
It's not just inescapable connectivity that the iPhone helped bring about. It's also how we actually access the internet. The iPhone made mobile web browsing useful for the first time. Every other mobile web browser before that was painful, in the words of CNET's Kent German. Soon came a flood of apps, which removed the need to open a web browser at all.
2. Tablets, watches and headphones, oh my
Multiple devices are either tied to the iPhone or exist because the phone was created. There's the iPad, essentially a larger iPhone you use at home. And there's the Apple Watch, which is tethered to the iPhone.
Then there are all the accessories spurred by the popularity of the iPhone, like phone cases; Bluetooth speakers and headphones; and charging docks. ABI Research estimates that revenue in the global mobile accessories market will top $110 billion in 2021.
"Given users' attachment to their smartphones and their wants and needs to personalize and protect them, the aftermarket mobile accessories market is showing no signs of slowing down," ABI analyst Marina Lu said.
3. The key to appiness
You may not remember this now, but Apple's first iPhone didn't have such a thing as third-party apps or the App Store. That changed in July 2008, when Apple introduced the iPhone 3G and its iPhone 2.0 software.
The App Store is what made the iPhone a must-have device. There are now more than 2 million apps in the App Store, with essentially every company making one or more apps. And the iPhone and App Store have spawned industries that couldn't exist without smartphones. There'd be no Uber or Lyft to shuttle us from place to place, for instance, or Instagram or Snapchat for sharing |
the total numbers could include instances in which [a given] individual [using aliases] was counted more than once.
[emphasis mine]
You got it right. The reports to Congress on the use of NSLs are wrong and the FBI is never going to be able to give Congress hard and fast correct numbers. How in hell can anyone do proper oversight when they cannot get accurate information?
Tell me please, when do heads (figuratively) roll?Today at the Gmail Behind The Scenes panel at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, key team members of the Gmail team revealed the true secret of the service: Shit umbrellas.
Product manager Todd Jackson made the humorous revelation when explaining how the Gmail team works as a group of about 100 people, the vast majority of which are engineers. “You can either be a shit funnel or a shit umbrella,” Jackson says.
What he means by that is that as a product with hundreds of millions of users (and a company with thousands of employees) there’s a lot of stuff constantly being hurled at the team — as a shit umbrella, the product managers protect the engineers from getting distracted. It’s not enough to be a “shit funnel” where they would pass some of the junk down to engineers, they need to fully protect the engineers.
This sentiment was echoed by Edward Ho, who is known as “Mr. Buzz,” as he’s the one who built up the Google Buzz team (a sub-unit of the Gmail team). Ho noted his hatred for unnecessary meetings, and has made sure that when the Buzz team needs to have them, they are based around demos, not talking about things. “It’s all about what you’ve done,” Ho says.
Some other interesting notes about Gmail:
The original invites system wasn’t a marketing ploy, it was simply an engineering decision to make sure they could scale
There’s a 30-1 engineers to products managers ratio in the Gmail team — it’s certainly one of the biggest ratios at Google
The Gmail team is spread over a few offices around the world (including Zurich), it used to be more, but they consolidated to help the product.
There are “hundreds of million of users” — the third-largest email provider
In India, Gmail is the number one email provider
Gmail is growing fasters internationally than in the U.S.
Gmail is available in 53 languages
Internally, the Google Buzz team was known as “Team Taco Town” after an SNL skit
Google uses Gmail internally (obviously), switched over from Microsoft Outlook at launch (about 6 years ago)
Gmail is slow for some users mainly because they have a ton of emails saved. A fix for that is coming soon
Most of gmail is written in Java, JavaScript, C++
There are several hundred thousands lines of javascript in Gmail – one of the biggest in the world
No new feature can launch for Gmail that adds latency to the product
[photo: flickr/atomicjeep]OAKLAND – Bay Area activists are planning to block two commercial shipping tankers partially owned by the Israel Corporation from docking and unloading at the Port of Oakland on Saturday in support of the Palestinian people, according to event organizers.
Protesters plan to block two Zim Integrated Shipping Ltd. commercial vessels scheduled to dock and unload at the Port of Oakland.
According to Zim’s website, the company was established in 1945 and is one of the largest carriers in the global container shipping industry.
Protesters are singling out Zim ships because 32 percent of the company is owned by Israel Corporation, which was founded in 1968 by the Israeli government is Israel’s largest holding company.
Zim’s remaining shares are owned by financial institutions and ship-owners, according to the company’s website.
Organizers of the event include the Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice. The group describes itself as an anti-war group consisting of trade unionists, labor and social justice activists and retired union members from around the San Francisco Bay Area.
According to a Facebook posting for the “Block the Boat for Gaza” event, protesters plan to meet at the West Oakland BART station at 5 a.m. on Saturday in solidarity with Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip who are directly affected by the recent wave of violence in the region.
The group will then begin marching, biking and will provide shuttles to SSA Berth 57 of the Port of Oakland at 5:10 a.m. sharp, organizers said.
“We call on a broad coalition of Pro-Palestinian labor, human rights, and anti-war organizations to join us for direct actions and pickets against the Israeli Shipping company ZIM!,” event organizers said on Facebook.
Protesters will not be able to park at the port and can catch shuttles between the West Oakland BART station and the SSA terminal.
Organizers are using the hashtag BlockTheBoat to promote the event and connect with protesters via social media.
In 2010, a similar protest against a Zim ship at the Port of Oakland was held by hundreds of demonstrators condemning Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Copyright © 2014 by Bay City News, Inc. … Republication, re-transmission or reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.With 42 caps to her name, Dunn is an established veteran on the U.S. women's national team and the sort of player who gives head coach Jill Ellis plenty of options.
BY John D. Halloran Posted
October 21, 2016
2:40 PM SHARE THIS STORY
WITH NEARLY THREE YEARS until the next major international tournament—the 2019 World Cup in France—American head coach Jill Ellis has decided the time is now to begin a series of widespread changes to her squad.
First, she took the unusual step of calling in 11 new players to this month’s training camp, while leaving 10 of her experienced Olympic veterans at home. Then, on Wednesday night, in the first of two friendlies against Switzerland, Ellis unveiled a radical formation shift, sending out her team in a newfangled 3-5-2.
For 24-year-old Crystal Dunn, now a de facto veteran with her 42 caps on a roster of newbies, the changes have been positive. Speaking to American Soccer Now ahead of Sunday’s second match against the Swiss (1:45pm ET, Fox Sports1), Dunn said the new 3-5-2 formation gives the U.S. some much-needed tactical flexibility.
“I enjoyed it. It’s good for us to have multiple formations,” she explained. “We never know what a team’s going to throw at us. We can go in thinking they’re going to play one way and they give us something completely different, so it’s important for us to be prepared.
“Going forward, Jill is definitely trying to put as many clubs in our golf bag as we can possibly have so we can whip [that club] out at any time.”
In Wednesday’s 4-0 win over Switzerland, five players (Andi Sullivan, Casey Short, Lynn Williams, Abby Dahlkemper, and Ashley Hatch) made their debuts for the Americans. Dunn observed that the new players showed a surprising maturity in how they handled the challenge of their first caps and the new formation.
“All those that got on the field did really well and it’s not an easy environment,” said Dunn. “We played a completely different formation than we’re used to. They stepped into an environment that some of the veterans weren’t even prepared for, necessarily.
“Lynn [Williams] with her first goal and first cap was incredible. She came on and lit a match and that was awesome for her. Casey Short, playing 90 minutes, was awesome. [She’s] super strong and technical, and did a lot that was asked of her. Abby [Dahlkemper] coming in. Andi Sullivan was super solid. It was great having them on the field.”
Traditionally, roster turnover for the U.S. is rare and first call-ups are hard-won. But with an aging roster and nearly three full years to experiment, Ellis has decided to embrace change. That rebalancing has left Dunn—still a youngster—as one of team’s more experienced players.
“Some people who are well under 100 caps are feeling like veterans,” acknowledged the New York native. “For me, and a couple of other girls who are around 50 caps—that seems like a lot—but [in comparison] there are girls here who don’t have a cap, or now have one cap.”
Despite the number of fresh faces, Dunn hasn’t changed her leadership approach during this camp, and said her role is to help integrate the rookie players and welcome them into the new environment.
“I’m the same person I always am. I try to be a leader in my own way,” insisted Dunn. “I’m not a Carli Lloyd but I do feel like I have a voice on the field. I give instruction when needed. It is a bit of a different role when there aren’t so many players with so many caps ahead of me, but I don’t think anyone went into this camp thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I need to change my role.’
Dunn came into this camp off a heartbreaking loss in the National Women’s Soccer League final, in which her Washington Spirit side gave up an equalizing goal to the Western New York Flash in the 124th minute of extra time two weeks ago in Houston. The Flash went on to win in penalties, but Dunn still looks at this season with Washington as a success and credits the team’s closeness with their ability to make the team’s first league final.
“We were such a tight-knit team and that really goes a long way,” said Dunn. “People don’t understand when you actually respect your teammates, not just as players, but as people, you’ll basically do anything for them. That’s what drove us to our success this year.”
Dunn, who won the NWSL MVP award in 2015, added that the future for the league is bright.
“The league has been incredible. Anyone who knows my story knows that last year, I basically was only given the NWSL platform and that’s exactly what I needed—that spotlight,” noted Dunn. “It provided me with a stage to perform and get myself out there and allow people to see who I was as a player. I’m just so honored that there’s a league still around.
“There’s always been talk from year to year, ‘Oh, what’s going to happen next year?’ I don’t think any of those talks are actually being had anymore. It’s all about what new things are going to be brought to the league. We’re not concerned anymore about it folding. We’re on the up right now and, for me, it’s incredible.”
Throughout her career, Dunn has played a variety of roles, to the extent that her tactical flexibility almost defies believability. In 2012, playing as a right back, she helped lead the U.S. U-20’s to a World Cup title and provided the game-winning assist in the team’s 1-0 win over Germany in the final.
Returning to the University of North Carolina after the win—where she starred as both an attacking midfielder and center back—Dunn helped lead the Tar Heels to a national championship while winning All-American honors and the Hermann Trophy for herself.
In college, Dunn says the variety of roles frustrated her: “I was so upset with Anson [Dorrance] when he said [at UNC], ‘I need you to play center back.’ I thought, ‘What are you talking about? What do you mean?’ It probably took me the whole four years I was in college to realize it was actually a blessing in disguise.”
When Tom Sermanni called her into the senior national team a few months after winning the 2012 NCAA title, Dunn began to see action as a left back before then transitioning into roles as a winger and forward for the Washington Spirit—where she won the NWSL Golden Boot in 2015, scoring 15 goals in 20 games.
Dunn admitted the constant positional switching has caused frustration at times, but has also made her a more complete player.
“The thing about me—I’ve been all over the field,” said Dunn. “Yes, I’d love to work on my shooting, work on my passing. But for a player like me, I couldn’t tell you where I’m going to play on the field. On the national team, I started off as a right and left back, now playing a little bit of center mid, a little bit of outside mid, a little bit up top. For me, the day that I’m ready to hang up the boots, I’m looking back and saying, ‘I was the most complete player I could possibly be.’
“For me, my next stage is just getting better in every single area and being ready for any position that is needed of me because it’s not easy,” she added. “People have played forward their whole life and they’ve been a goal scorer their whole life. As much as I’d love that to be me, I haven’t been a forward my whole life. I’m competing with people who live, breathe, and die scoring goals. I can be a top goal-scorer, obviously, but there are other things that I need to work on as well. It’s about being an overall soccer player.”
On Wednesday, Dunn saw yet another role for the U.S., when Ellis dropped her into the No. 10 role in the second half against Switzerland. While not a classic playmaker, Dunn’s pace, power, and willingness to mix it up immediately caused the Swiss defense problems.
Dunn said she enjoyed playing the No. 10 position and is willing to embrace whatever role she is given.
“I’ve had some experience playing there—not a ton. I’m definitely still learning where my movements should be, my positioning, things like that. I loved it. I had a ball in that game.
“I love playing the 10 and wherever I’m thrown—I’m like, let’s go.”
John D. Halloran is an American Soccer Now columnist. Follow him on Twitter.CELTIC Fotball Club has joined Scotland's pre-eminent historian, leading broadcasters and figures from academia and the legal profession have called for the scrapping of the SNP Government's controversial football laws.
Professor Sir Tom Devine, pressure group Liberty, television executive and journalist Stuart Cosgrove and broadcasting colleague Tam Cowan
have joined dozens of others from public life calling for a repeal of the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act.
The historian Professor Tom Gallagher, both co-convenors of the Scottish Green party, Patrick Harvie and Maggie Chapman, several prominent Labour Party figures, former snooker world champion John Higgins, and author and playwright Alan Bissett have also signed a petition for the Act to be overturned.
Celtic later added the club's voice to the calls, claiming the legislaton was "unworkable" and should be "repealed in the interests of all football supporters and football clubs".
Sir Tom said: "I argued strongly against this to no avail before the Justice Committee of the Parliament before its implementation.
"The legislation is likely to go down in history as the most illiberal and counterproductive act passed by our young Parliament to date.
"Pushed through by the SNP government with no concern for the considered views of other parties and expert evidence to the contrary, it remains a stain on on the reputation of the Scottish legal system for fair dealing."
The petition criticises the Act, which received Royal Assent in January 2012, just nine months after the Old Firm'shame game' which heralded it, as "an unjustifiable attack on freedom of speech and the rights’ of fans to political expression".
It also describes it as "a clumsy political response to one football match".
The move comes as the pressure group leading the charge against the Act, Fans Against Criminalisation, appear in front of the Scottish Parliament's public petitions committee on Tuesday calling on the "Government to hold a full and comprehensive review of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 with a view to having this Act repealed".
It also comes on the eve of the election campaigns for the Holyrood elections in May.
The petition states: "We, the undersigned, call on the Scottish Government to repeal the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012.
"We do so on the basis that it is wrong to create a law which applies to one demonised sector of society, which this act does to football fans. It is by definition a discriminatory piece of legislation and we also note that the Government has failed in its commitment outlined in its Equality Impact Assessment to carry out an equalities audit in regard to this law.
"We also oppose this legislation on the basis that it is practically impossible and inherently dangerous to criminalise offensiveness. This Act is therefore an unjustifiable attack on freedom of speech and the rights’ of fans to political expression.
"This legislation was a clumsy political response to one football match which serves only to unjustly criminalise football supporters and should be repealed as a matter of urgency."
Although accounting for only a tiny percentage of convictions in Scotland over the past few years, the law has however dogged the Government with opponents continuing to fight a high-profile campaign against it.
Critics have said it points to an illiberalism within the SNP and a denial of free speech, as well as accusations of poorly drafted legislation and disproportionate policing.
In response, ministers and supporters of the Act have repeatedly pointed to opinion polls calling for tougher action on sectarianism, while last summer the Government, courts and prosecution officials all signalled they wanted to make more use of civil bans rather than criminal punishments for those who flaunt the controversial legislation.
A Celtic spokesman said: "We have consistently opposed this legislation from the outset as it has been used to create a general presumption that different laws should apply to football supporters as distinct from society as a whole.
"We reiterate our position that the Act should be repealed.
"We encourage and promote positive behaviour within football at all times and welcome any attempt to do likewise.
"However, this Act is unworkable, and once again we call for it to be repealed in the interests of all football supporters and football clubs."
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "Since the introduction of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Act, religious crimes are down, race crimes are down, crimes in relation to individuals' sexuality are down and we’ve seen a decrease in crimes of offensive behaviour at or in relation to regulated football matches in Scotland showing the Act has delivered real improvements.
“The Act sends out a clear message that Scotland is a country which will not tolerate any form of prejudice, discrimination or hate crime, and it gives police and prosecutors an additional tool to tackle this behaviour."
Other signatories include George Galloway, co-founder of the Rangers Standard Alasdair McKillop, River City actor Gary Lamont, academic Stuart Waiton, Professor Willie Maley, Maureen McBride of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research and several leading solicitors.UPDATE / 3PM Mon., Jan. 27: North Central College and both local school districts are closed due to deep freeze and wind chill. Naperville Park District programs have been canceled. Sun is shining, but the temperature is 1.5 degrees below zero.
Both school districts 203 and 204 have announced they will be closed on Tues., Jan. 28.
Shortly after 1PM, the Naperville Park District announced all of its programs also would be canceled again on Tues., Jan. 28. Residents are reminded to refrain from outdoor winter activities such as sledding and skating until the cold weather advisory has passed.
The Alfred Rubin Riverwalk Community Center, located at 305 W. Jackson Ave., as well as the 95th Street Center, located at 2244 W. 95th St., continue to be open during regular hours as warming centers. Hours for the Riverwalk Community Center are 8:30AM-10PM. Hours for the 95th Street Center are 8:30AM-8PM. Additionally, the District’s Administration Building at 320 W. Jackson Ave. will be open from 8:30AM- 5PM.
The City of Naperville wants you to know “that garbage and recycling collection will occur as scheduled tomorrow, Mon., Jan. 27.”
The Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce “State of the City Address” was held as planned from 11AM-1PM today at the Chicago Marriott-Naperville.
UPDATE / 4:45PM, then 8:49PM Sun., Jan. 26: Both 203 and 204 school districts will be closed on Mon., Jan. 27, because of the forecast for extreme weather conditions. After-school activities also are canceled.
In addition, due to the forecast of dangerous wind chills, North Central College will be closed on Monday, Jan 27. All classes are canceled.
The Naperville Park District also has canceled programs.
The City of Naperville wants you to know “that garbage and recycling collection will occur as scheduled tomorrow, Mon., Jan. 27.”
Officials at Naperville area School Districts 203 and 204 are closely monitoring weather conditions in regards to potential school closures or late starts due to extreme winter weather. As of Sunday afternoon, no closures or delays have been announced. Stay tuned for updates.
The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory effective until 6AM Monday for the Naperville area. In addition, a wind chill warning remains in effect until 6AM Wednesday with expected wind gusts up to 40MPH and wind chill temperatures between 30 and 45 degrees below zero.
From the School District 203 Website:
Once again, extreme weather conditions are forecast for the beginning of next week. The District will continue to monitor the forecast and local weather conditions throughout the weekend. If conditions warrant a decision to close school or delay opening it will be communicated as soon as possible. Students are encouraged to always dress appropriately for weather conditions, especially those walking to school or waiting at a bus stop. Information about Late Starts and School Closings can be found here: http://www.naperville203.org/schools/SchoolClosings.asp.
From the School District 204 Twitter Page:She was finishing her workout; he was just starting his.
An Upper West Side woman in post yoga, meditative bliss was allegedly rudely awoken by a maintenance worker masturbating next to her mat, a new lawsuit claims.
Keiko Herskovitz, a regular yogi at Equinox’s Pure Yoga on W. 77th Street, was in the corpse pose called shavasana, laying down with her eyes closed on Jan. 26, when she “heard someone walk into the room.”
At first Herskovitz, 55, ignored the noise until “she felt that there was a person next to her, and she opened her eyes to find a Pure Yoga employee, a maintenance associate, about two feet away, masturbating,” the suit alleges.
Herskovitz “confronted the maintenance employee and asked, ‘what are you doing?!'” she recalls in the court papers. The man, described as a 19-year-old, “quickly covered himself with a yoga blanket and ran out of the room,” the documents allege.
Herskovitz immediately told a manager about the encounter. The supervisor allegedly dismissed the accusation and said that the man “was a good employee,” court papers state.
The yogi, who’d been stretching at the studio weekly for three years, reported the incident to the police. She later received an email from the studio noting the seriousness of the incident, but management “has not reported the offender to the police or has taken any action against the offender,” Herskovitz claims in the suit.
Her attorney, Eric Creizman, is hiring a private investigator to determine if the maintenance worker “has been involved in additional incidents.”
Herskovitz is suing Related Companies, which owns Equinox, for unspecified damages.
A spokesperson for Pure Yoga said the studio is “aware of the allegations and takes them seriously. Police have told us there’s no evidence of a crime.”
Related Companies did not return calls for comment.UFC middleweight Nate Marquardt’s veteran status paid dividends, according to disclosed salaries for this past Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 96.
Even though Marquardt (35-16-2 MMA, 13-9 UFC) fought on the UFC Fight Pass prelims of the FS1-televised event, he still took home the biggest payday from the event, banking $112,000 for a second-round knockout of Tamdan McCrory (14-5 MMA, 4-5 UFC).
MMAjunkie today requested and received disclosed show and win purses for according to the Oregon State Athletic Commission, which regulated UFC Fight Night 96 at Moda Center in Portland, Ore.
Event headliner John Lineker (29-7 MMA, 10-2 UFC) took home the second biggest payout for a split-decision over John Dodson (18-8 MMA, 7-3 UFC), banking $72,000 after 20 percent of his show money ($8,000) went to Dodson when he came in a half-pound over the limit for non-title bouts.
Official payouts listed below notate only what the fighters were contracted to receive. Two others on UFC Fight Night 96’s card missed weight and were forced to give 20 percent of their show purse to their opponents.
The total disclosed payroll for the event was $737,000.
The full list of UFC Fight Night 96 payouts included:
John Lineker: $72,000 (Lineker forfeited 20 percent of his original $40,000 show money to Dodson for missing weight)
def. John Dodson: $38,000 (includes 8,000 from Lineker’s show money)
Alex Oliveira: $43,200 (includes $24,000 win bonus. Oliveira forfeited 20 percent of his original $24,000 show money to Brooks for missing weight)
def. Will Brooks: $57,800 (includes $4,800 from Oliveira’s show money)
Zak Ottow: $24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus)
def. Josh Burkman: $54,000
Brandon Moreno: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Louis Smolka: $32,000
Luis Henrique da Silva: $24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus)
def. Joachim Christensen: $10,000
Andre Fili: $39,200 (includes $18,000 win bonus and $3,200 from Dias’ show money)
def. Hacran Dias: $12,800 (Dias forfeited 20 percent of his original $16,000 show money to Fili for missing weight)
Shamil Abdurakhimov: $28,000 (includes $14,000 win bonus)
def. Walt Harris: $12,000
Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos: $24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus)
def. Keita Nakamura: $19,000
Nate Marquardt: $112,000 (includes $56,000 win bonus)
def. Tamdan McCrory: $15,000
Ion Cutelaba: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Jonathan Wilson: $12,000
Curtis Blaydes: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Cody East: $10,000
Ketlen Vieira: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Kelly Faszholz: $10,000
Now, the usual disclaimer: The figures do not include deductions for items such as insurance, licenses and taxes. Additionally, the figures do not include money paid by sponsors, including the official UFC Athlete Outfitting sponsorship program pay. They also do not include any other “locker room” or special discretionary bonuses the UFC oftentimes pays. They also do not include pay-per-view cuts that some top-level fighters receive.
For example, as previously reported, UFC officials handed out additional $50,000 UFC Fight Night 96 fight-night bonuses to Moreno, Marquardt, de Silva and Blaydes, all of whom earned “Performance of the Night” awards.
In other words, the above figures are simply base salaries reported to the commission and do not reflect entire compensation packages for the event.
For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 96, check out the UFC Events section of the site.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Has the process of recycling left you scratching your head? What goes where and where does it end up?
One company in Indianapolis is making it easier by mixing the very things people are painstakingly separating in their kitchens every day: foam and plastic.
Plastic Recycling Inc or PRI is revolutionizing the way we trash our trash.
PRI wants you to think of foam and plastic as the same thing. They say they are the same thing but with one difference: one is puffed up with air, the other is a rigid plastic.
And now they have a revolutionary machine that allows people at home to recycle them together so there is a better chance none of it ends up in a landfill.
Hundreds of bales fill the PRI’s Indianapolis warehouse containing red Solo cups, styrofoam egg cartons or coffee cups and they all have the recycling #6 on them.
PRI is buying the two products co-mingled from 65 cities in California and shipping it to the Midwest to reduce the state's carbon footprint. PRI is making money thanks to the $500,00 Pellenc, better known as an optical sorter.
"So instead of using humans and having them decipher one type of plastic from another, we can use machinery that will do it automatically and it does it instantaneously,” said Michael Westerfield of the Dart Cooperation who is working with PRI.
The process is involved and starts by breaking up the monstrous bales of California trash.
From there, it hits the tumbler to lay out the plastics on the Pellenc. Then, near-infrared light further sorts the stuff. What can be used, heads up a belt to be chopped up into colorful confetti-like re-grind. Then it is washed in water, separated yet again in a sink float tank where gravity takes over.
"The Styrofoam is lighter so it floats to the top. And the harder plastic sinks to the bottom," said Fred Read, general manager at PRI.
Then it's dried and boxed-clean and ready to be heated.
The result is millions of pellets, sold by the ton in any color that companies like 3M or Rubbermaid want.
6500 pounds are processed here an hour.
Dart and PRI together say the optical sorter is the key.
So why is California the only state taking the leap with this new technology?
"According to the EPA, polystyrene only makes up about 1% of the weighstream,” said Westerfield. “That's why cities are going after the other items first like your corrugated, your bottles, your aluminum cans."
New York is looking at recycling foam but is not yet doing so. Chicago has no plans as of now.Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory have discovered a new type of Weyl semimetal, a material that opens the way for further study of Weyl fermions, a type of massless elementary particle hypothesized by high-energy particle theory and potentially useful for creating high-speed electronic circuits and quantum computers.
Researchers created a crystal of molybdenum and tellurium, one of only a few compounds that had been predicted to host a new and recently postulated type of Weyl state, where the hole and electron bands normally separated by an indirect gap touch at a few Weyl points. Those points are equivalent to magnetic monopoles in the momentum space and are connected by Fermi arcs.
A combination of angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), modelling, density functional theory and careful calculations were used to confirm the existence of this new type of Weyl semimetal.
This material provides an exciting new platform to study the properties of Weyl fermions, and may lead the way to more new materials with unusual transport properties.
"This an important, interdisciplinary discovery because it allows us to study many aspects of these exotic particles predicted by high energy physics theory in solid state, without need for extremely expensive particle accelerators," said Adam Kaminsky, Ames Laboratory scientist and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State University. "From my perspective as solid state physicist it is absolutely extraordinary to observe two bands touching each other at certain points and being connected by Fermi arcs -- objects that are prohibited to exist in "ordinary" materials."
The research is further discussed in a paper, "Spectroscopic evidence for a type II Weyl semimetallic state in MoTe2"; authored by Lunan Huang, Timothy M. McCormick, Masayuki Ochi, Zhiying Zhao, Michi-To Suzuki, Ryotaro Arita, Yun Wu, Daixiang Mou, Huibo Cao, Jiaqiang Yan, Nandini Trivedi and Adam Kaminski; and published in Nature Materials.To get ahead, it's often not enough to make good professional choices in your job. It helps to make solid relationship choices, too.
So says Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook and co-author, with Wharton professor Adam Grant, of the new book, "Option B." In a wide-ranging interview with Hannah Kuchler of the Financial Times, she makes clear that individual success is often best achieved in a stable context. The same way that it's easier to do well in school if you come from a supportive family, it's easier to do well at work if you have a partner who understands and encourages you.
"You can date whoever you want, but you should marry the nerds and the good guys," Sandberg tells Kuchler. "The guys who want an equal relationship. Guys who want to support your career."The overeager adoption of big data is likely to result in catastrophes of analysis comparable to a national epidemic of collapsing bridges. Hardware designers creating chips based on the human brain are engaged in a faith-based undertaking likely to prove a fool’s errand. Despite recent claims to the contrary, we are no further along with computer vision than we were with physics when Isaac Newton sat under his apple tree.
Those may sound like the Luddite ravings of a crackpot who breached security at an IEEE conference. In fact, the opinions belong to IEEE Fellow Michael I. Jordan, Pehong Chen Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Jordan is one of the world’s most respected authorities on machine learning and an astute observer of the field. His CV would require its own massive database, and his standing in the field is such that he was chosen to write the introduction to the 2013 National Research Council report “Frontiers in Massive Data Analysis.” San Francisco writer Lee Gomes interviewed him for IEEE Spectrum on 3 October 2014.
Michael Jordan on…
Why We Should Stop Using Brain Metaphors When We Talk About Computing IEEE Spectrum: I infer from your writing that you believe there’s a lot of misinformation out there about deep learning, big data, computer vision, and the like. Michael Jordan: Well, on all academic topics there is a lot of misinformation. The media is trying to do its best to find topics that people are going to read about. Sometimes those go beyond where the achievements actually are. Specifically on the topic of deep learning, it’s largely a rebranding of neural networks, which go back to the 1980s. They actually go back to the 1960s; it seems like every 20 years there is a new wave that involves them. In the current wave, the main success story is the convolutional neural network, but that idea was already present in the previous wave. And one of the problems with both the previous wave, that has unfortunately persisted in the current wave, is that people continue to infer that something involving neuroscience is behind it, and that deep learning is taking advantage of an understanding of how the brain processes information, learns, makes decisions, or copes with large amounts of data. And that is just patently false. Spectrum: As a member of the media, I take exception to what you just said, because it’s very often the case that academics are desperate for people to write stories about them. Michael Jordan: Yes, it’s a partnership. Spectrum: It’s always been my impression that when people in computer science describe how the brain works, they are making horribly reductionist statements that you would never hear from neuroscientists. You called these “cartoon models” of the brain. Michael Jordan: I wouldn’t want to put labels on people and say that all computer scientists work one way, or all neuroscientists work another way. But it’s true that with neuroscience, it’s going to require decades or even hundreds of years to understand the deep principles. There is progress at the very lowest levels of neuroscience. But for issues of higher cognition—how we perceive, how we remember, how we act—we have no idea how neurons are storing information, how they are computing, what the rules are, what the algorithms are, what the representations are, and the like. So we are not yet in an era in which we can be using an understanding of the brain to guide us in the construction of intelligent systems. Spectrum: In addition to criticizing cartoon models of the brain, you actually go further and criticize the whole idea of “neural realism”—the belief that just because a particular hardware or software system shares some putative characteristic of the brain, it’s going to be more intelligent. What do you think of computer scientists who say, for example, “My system is brainlike because it is massively parallel.” Michael Jordan: Well, these are metaphors, which can be useful. Flows and pipelines are metaphors that come out of circuits of various kinds. I think in the early 1980s, computer science was dominated by sequential architectures, by the von Neumann paradigm of a stored program that was executed sequentially, and as a consequence, there was a need to try to break out of that. And so people looked for metaphors of the highly parallel brain. And that was a useful thing. But as the topic evolved, it was not neural realism that led to most of the progress. The algorithm that has proved the most successful for deep learning is based on a technique called back propagation. You have these layers of processing units, and you get an output from the end of the layers, and you propagate a signal backwards through the layers to change all the parameters. It’s pretty clear the brain doesn’t do something like that. This was definitely a step away from neural realism, but it led to significant progress. But people tend to lump that particular success story together with all the other attempts to build brainlike systems that haven’t been nearly as successful. Spectrum: Another point you’ve made regarding the failure of neural realism is that there is nothing very neural about neural networks. Michael Jordan: There are no spikes in deep-learning systems. There are no dendrites. And they have bidirectional signals that the brain doesn’t have. We |
transmission during cell division? The rate of data transmission during gamete fusion? The rate of data transmission when human lymphocytes circulate through the bloodstream? What amount of data is destroyed daily by apoptosis? What amount of data is created daily? How does this compare to the rate of data transfer via an optical fiber?
Please feel free to contribute your own dubious calculations and questions below!Getty Images
The mystery of the DeSean Jackson mystery teams apparently has been solved, without the intervention of Shaggy, Scooby-Doo, or any other meddling kids.
According to NBC Washington, the 49ers and Browns are pursuing Jackson, who continues to visit with the Redskins. Per Diana Russini of NBC Washington, the 49ers reached out to Jackson while he was dining with the Redskins. Also, the Browns are “going hard” with an offer.
It’s been known for days that the 49ers are very interested in Jackson. The Browns also were believed to be interested, as part of their whole Jim Harbaugh swing-for-the-fences mentality. It’s now known, if the report is accurate, that both teams are aggressively chasing Jackson.
The timing of the report is curious. With Jackson and the Redskins engaged in a high stakes game of poker, Jackson needs leverage to get the kind of deal he wants. But the leverage has to be credible. Leaking news of a pair of “mystery teams” doesn’t cut it. The teams need to be known, and they need to be genuinely interested.
The extent of the interest of the Browns, the 49ers, or anyone else may not be known unless and until Jackson leaves Washington without a contract. Which could eventually be one of the steps in a dance that has millions of dollars hanging in the balance.Some people make horrible decisions, others are just bad presidents, a few are bloodthirsty, many are extremists, a couple are warmongers, and all of these guys are a mix. Ten of our political leaders in the last 130 years have been the architects of the most horrific genocides, systematic murders, blockades, brutal wars, and policy reforms history has ever recorded.
Where to begin? Maybe an icebreaker for you next dinner party? Did you know the word “genocide” was coined in 1943 to describe when the Armenians were slaughtered haphazardly by Turkish leader Ismail Enver? Until then there was no specific word for it in our language. It makes me think about how much more cognizant we’ve become in this last century to these events. So, a quick toast between you and I to a more peaceable future where less of what follows below is allowed to happen. Sit back, but don’t relax.
10. Yakubu Gowon (1.1 million deaths)
Breakdown: 1 million civilians on the wrong side of a blockade caused by a war of secession in Nigeria and 100,000 soldiers who died in that war.
It starts as many sad stories do with precious beautiful oil. It had been found in the Niger delta where tensions were already high between the Eastern region (led by Ojukwu) and the rest of the country (governed by Yakubu). A dummy agreement was signed between them called the “Aburi Accord”, but it meant nothing to either leader. Yakubu started to put pressure on the region, and tested how much sway he had in the area versus Ojukwu. Well Ojukwu being no slouch declared secession from the rest of Nigeria and became the “Republic of Biafra”. This began a war that caused the deaths of 100,000 soldiers, and much worse, a blockade on the region which starved 1 million civilians.
9. Mengistu Haile Mariam (400,000 – 1.5 million deaths)
Breakdown: As president of Ethiopia and colonel of “the Derg” (communist militia) Mengitsu systematically killed those against him in the “Red Terror” campaign.
Mengistu Haile Mariam is (as in still alive) a politician who presided over Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991. The way he got into power was by smothering the previous president Haile Selassie although he has denied those rumors. His biggest claim to fame is the Ethiopian Red Terror which was a campaign of repression led by the Derg (communist militia in Ethiopia).
In his introductory speech Mengitsu yelled, “Death to counterrevolutionaries! Death to the EPRP!” Then he took three bottles filled with blood and threw them to the ground.
It was an auspicious beginning to say the least. Thousands were killed and found dead on the streets in the years that followed. Much of the murdering can be attributed to the friendly neighborhood watch there known as “Kebeles”. As if killing innocents wasn’t enough they would then charge the family a tax to return the dead body to them. The tax was aptly named “the wasted bullet”! Are you serious Mengitsu? However there was an even more gruesome fate of being left on the street where wild hyenas would fight over the dead. The campaign has been described as one of the worst mass murders ever in Africa. Mengitsu is even known to have garroted people to death.
8. Kim Il Sung (1.6 million deaths)
Breakdown: Unpopular among his people Kim used the U.S. as a scapegoat and forced the country to believe in his delusion or else.
Before our very own Kim Jong-Il was his murderous father Kim Il Sung who led North Korea in a terrible direction. He fought for a command economy that allowed the government to make all decisions for the country. For various reasons the people never seemed to love the man, and so his hold on power was tenuous at best. Like most crazies he blamed somebody else, in this case the USA, and said they had spread disease throughout its population. He also pulled a Stalin, and had large-scale purges. His underlying reason was that it would scare people into believing he was telling the truth. Kim’s purge was a little different than Stalin’s though in that there were no trials. During his tenure prison camps sprung up all over the country to contain the ever growing masses of people against Kim Il Sung.
7. Pol Pot (1.7 million deaths)
Breakdown: Forced city folk to relocate to farms and forced them into hard labor.
Pol Pot was the leader of the communist movement in Cambodia. He attempted to “cleanse” the country and it resulted in the death of an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people. There was an interesting policy going around called agrarian collectivization which he put into practice in the late 1970’s. Basically it forced city folk to head out to the farms to do some labor and vice versa for farmers. As you might guess, and hindsight is 20/20, neither group was very good at their new jobs. Pol didn’t stop at enslaving his own people though. He also didn’t feed them well, gave them little medical care, and executed many of them. The net result was killing off approximately 1/5 of the Cambodian population!
6. Ismail Enver Pasha (2.5 million deaths)
Breakdown: 1,200,000 Armenians (1915) + 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks (1916-22) + 500,000 Assyrians (1915-20)
He began his career as a Turkish military officer and leader in the Young Turk revolution. Eventually he rose to power and led the Ottoman Empire in both Balkan Wars and World War I. As a war minister Enver was not very useful, and was defeated over and over. His crushing loss at the Battle of Sarikamish needed a scapegoat, and that’s when he decided to blame Armenians for the failure. That is what began what is now known as the Armenian Genocide. The word “genocide” was coined to describe this event.
Etymology from Wikipedia:
Coined in 1943 by Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), a Polish–Jewish legal scholar, to describe what the Turkish government (ca 1915–18) perpetrated against the Armenian people, now called the Armenian Genocide. From the stem of Ancient Greek (génos), “race, kind” or Latin “tribe, clan” (-cide).
5. Hideki Tojo (5 million deaths)
Breakdown: Waged unprovoked wars against China, USA, Netherlands, and France.
Hideki Tojo was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army. He assumed the position of Prime Minister and held Army Minister concurrently. As if that wasn’t enough he also held other major positions like Home Minister, Foreign Minister, Education Minister, and Commerce Minister. His major contributions to education were teaching militaristic and nationalist indoctrination. His version of homeland security was approving eugenics measures which essentially made a distinction between pure blood and mixed blood Japanese families.
During World War II Tojo started winning battles and the public loved him for it. He really bought into the Nazi Kool-aid, and held steadfastly with Germany. When the tide turned, and he began losing, it was devastating. Eventually he went into seclusion. He was tried for war crimes and found guilty of waging wars of aggression, wars in violation of international law, and waging unprovoked war against many countries. Not to mention ordering, authorizing, and permitting inhumane treatment of Prisoners of War.
4. Leopold II of Belgium (2-15 million deaths)
Breakdown: Created a colony called the “Congo Free State”, enslaved its people, and forced them into labor plants.
Leopold II was the King of the Belgians, and believed in colonialism. He thought acquiring colonies overseas was essential to a great country and was always scheming. The problem was Belgium really didn’t care, and so Leopold went into business for himself. He started a company that seemed like it was doing good called the International African Society. A year later he used that company to travel to Congo, laid claim to a plot of land 14 times the size of Belgium, and made 14 countries agree (USA included) that he was free to rule it with his own private militia. He then forced the indigenous populations into forced labor, created a bustling rubber industry, and abused his workers grievously.
Missionary John Harris on returning from Congo said:
“I have just returned from a journey inland to the village of Insongo Mboyo. The abject misery and utter abandon is positively indescribable.”
Estimates of the death toll range from two to fifteen million which could all have been avoided if 14 countries didn’t hand him the keys to the car!
3. Adolf Hitler (17 million deaths)
Breakdown: Concentration camps and civilians in WWII.
Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party. He was the absolute dictator of Germany from 1934 to 1945. He gained support by promoting values like German nationalism and anti-semitism. Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933 and began the Third Reich. Hitler was power hungry as all hell, hated the shit out of Jews (and others), and wanted hegemony in Europe. The militarization that was needed to complete such a lofty goal led to the outbreak of World War II. Nazi forces engaged in the systematic murder of as many as 17 million civilians, an estimated six million of whom were Jews, and 1.5 million Romanis.
2. Jozef Stalin (23 million deaths)
Breakdown: The great purges and Ukraine’s famine.
Jozef Stalin was the first Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 – 1953. After Lenin’s death in 1924, he became the leader of the Soviet Union. Stalin didn’t take long in launching a new economy that screwed up food production across the country so bad it caused massive famine. Between 1922-23 it reached such catastrophic proportions everything went to shit. In Ukraine this dark period is known as Holodomor. Its widely believed that Soviet policies caused the famine there and was designed as an attack on Ukrainian nationalism. Estimates on the total number of casualties within Soviet Ukraine range from 2.6 million to 10 million! During the late 1930s Stalin launched another wonderfully titled initiative called the Great Purge (also known as the “Great Terror”). It was a paranoid campaign to kill off the people who opposed him, and his targets were often executed.
In 1939 Stalin agreed to a non-aggression pact with the Nazis. Eventually Germany violated the pact, the Soviet Union joined the allies, and they racked up 23.9 million deaths (the largest death toll in the war).
1. Mao Zedong (49-78 million deaths)
Breakdown: Policy reforms like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
Mao Zedong was a Chinese revolutionary, political theorist, and communist leader who led the People’s Republic of China. Mao, while controversial, is still widely considered a savior of the nation. I did a semester abroad in China in 2001 after falling in love with its history, and was surprised in my conversations that many people thought Mao had done 70% – 80% good things. During his first five years from 1949 – 53 he is said to have systematically killed between 4 to 6 million people by sentencing them to die or by sending them to “reform through labor” camps. He organized mass repressions, established execution quotas, and defended his actions in these early years as necessary for securing power for “The People’s Republic of China”.
His social programs the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution are two of the most ill-fated, poorly named, initiatives ever. The first was an effort to rapidly industrialize China. His focus was on making China a premier exporter of steel, and to this end he asked everybody to make it. The problem was it got many citizens to make smelting shops in their backyards. Not only was the steel of little value, but it was made from everything lying around the house including their own cooking supplies! Without the tools to make food, no money coming in from the steel, and no money to survive ~ a lot of people starved to death. The estimates on this program alone are 20 million deaths! Think about that number. Really think about it. Then ask yourself… why would you EVER let someone back into power after such an insanely bad decision.Well, they took the reigns away from him for a short time.
In the interim Mao started the socialist education movement. He aimed the concept at young ones who would eventually wrest the power away from the older guard. By 1964 this movement was renamed the “four cleanups movement” whose goal was cleansing politics, economics, ideas, and organization of “reactionaries”. This led to the formation of the “Red Guards” who were organized to punish intellectuals and take out Mao’s political adversaries. The Cultural Revolution was now underway, and its overriding mission was to abolish: Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. Something Mao fervently believed in was that destruction and chaos could bring re-birth. So he told his followers to destroy buildings, sacred objects, talk back to ones elders, punish them, turn them in, and kill those who did not agree. By 1968 things were starting to look pretty good for Mao all over again, and so he put into place the decade long “Down to the Countryside Movement” which forced young intellectuals to move out to the country to become farmers. Sadly, the people he pushed out there were the same Red Guards who had helped him get power. Estimates of the death toll are between 40,000 – 7 million depending on who you ask.
Finally, there is the 100 flowers movement which just needs an abbreviated mention here. Mao asked people to come forth and tell him how he should govern China. Intellectuals and liberals bit at the chance to tell him what they really thought, and were encouraged by the Communist party to do so. Then in a sudden change of heart, or an incredibly crafty mission to out his haters, the government persecuted 500,000 of them who were considered to be “dangerous thinkers”.
Mao is essentially like that girlfriend/boyfriend who keeps on taking a shit on you, but is so damn charming you hardly notice. His policies and political purges from 1949 to 1976 caused the deaths of 49 to 78 million people.
The moral of the story is ~
Let’s stop allowing evil political dictators to take office. And if we do have someone bad in office we can find better ways to get them out than murdering them, wars, and aggressive confrontations.SUMMARY:
The ongoing debate about gender identity rights has given voice to numerous concerns and anxieties. While no one wants to deny legitimate human rights to trans persons, there are very real questions about the implications of separating sex from gender and enshrining this in law.
The two primary concerns center around safety and privacy in spaces which were formerly segregated by sex, along with the concern regarding compelled speech — where people would be forced to use certain pronouns when addressing trans gendered persons.
These concerns are not trivial and need to be addressed. Spaces which used to be segregated by sex are now segregated by gender. Yet because gender is deemed to be fluid, this means there is no segregation. Anyone can now enter these spaces which used to provide some assurance of privacy and security.
With respect to compelled speech, the Ontario Human Rights Commission has clearly stated that, “misgendering is a form of discrimination”. The BC Human Rights Tribunal already ruled on this in 2015, removing any doubt on the question. Refusing to use a trans person’s preferred pronouns may not land you in jail, but it could bring a human rights complaint resulting in fines and damages.
Rather than ignoring these issues, Bill C-16 needs to acknowledge that gender rights are based on a personal belief, much like religious rights. As such, they must be subject to the same checks and balances as religious rights.
These checks and balances are two-fold:
Verification: With belief-based rights — such as religion — it is not sufficient to simply claim to have a belief. The belief must be verifiable. This ensures that the law protects those who actually need it while not empowering impostors who would abuse this protection.The verification requirement does not prevent individuals from pretending to be trans in order to access private spaces which they would not otherwise be entitled to. But it does ensure that the law differentiates between those who are authentically trans and those who are not, so they can be legally refused entry or restricted from filing frivolous claims of discrimination. Government Cannot Compel Belief: Bill C-16 embraces the idea that gender is determined by a personal belief. But while each person is free to have their own beliefs, Parliament cannot mandate others to comply with a belief system in word or deed. This means that any law compelling the use of certain pronouns for trans persons would be unconstitutional as it forces compliance with a certain belief.
While seeking to protect rights, Bill C-16 crosses the line and imposes a belief system which many Canadians do not share. In doing so, it threatens to trample on existing rights. This is a serious concern which must be corrected.
FULL TEXT OF SPEECH:
Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C 16. First of all, I wish to state clearly and unequivocally that in our country there is no place for hate or intolerance directed against anyone. Protection against such behaviour is already established in law, including protection for trans persons.
In 1999:
“The Ontario Human Rights Commission took the position that the ground of sex under human rights law could be interpreted to include the right of transgender people to be free from discrimination and harassment.”
That was almost 20 years ago. Since then, every human rights commission across the country federal, provincial and territorial has either implicitly or explicitly affirmed the protection of trans rights.
Gender Identity and Expression
With Bill C 16, the federal government is following in the footsteps of the majority of provinces and territories. By amending the Canadian Human Rights Act to add “gender identity or expression” to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination, Bill C 16 makes these rights explicit.
Bill C 16 also amends the Criminal Code by adding “gender identity or expression” to the definition of “identifiable group” and also adds it to the list of aggravating factors to be considered in sentencing. What Bill C 16 does not do is define “gender identity” or “gender expression.” Instead, it leaves it to be determined by the commission, the tribunal and the courts.
However, these terms are already defined by provincial human rights commissions across Canada. They’re all very similar to the Ontario definition, which says the following:
Gender identity is each person’s internal and individual experience of gender. It is their sense of being a woman, a man, both, neither, or anywhere along the gender spectrum.
Gender expression is how a person publicly presents their gender. This can include behaviour and outward appearance, such as dress, hair, makeup, body language and voice.
In other words, human rights commissions across the country define gender identity as a subjective, inward belief, while gender expression is the objective outward manifestation of that belief. These definitions are important because they tell us that gender identity and expression are based on a personal and subjective belief. As many others have noted, there is no objective means to determine if someone is transgendered. It is a person’s deeply felt internal experience.
Concerns about Bill C-16
Recognizing that gender is now based on belief helps to define the parameters of these rights and addresses a number of concerns that many Canadians have. I will touch briefly on two of these concerns.
1. Privacy and Security
The first is that of privacy and security. During our lifetimes, facilities such as washrooms and change rooms have always been segregated according to biological sex. We are now told that they are segregated according to gender. Yet, to the average person, sex and gender have always meant the same thing. This is no longer the case.
Gender is now supposedly disconnected from your biological sex and it is fluid. You can be a man one day and a woman the next day, depending on how you feel, regardless of your anatomy.
The practical implication of this is that anyone can access any washroom or change room at any time. There is no longer any segregation of these spaces. Many feel, including children and the elderly, that this presents a risk to both their security and their privacy. Few people would advocate for washrooms or change rooms without walls. And yet this is essentially what Bill C 16 endorses, by removing the only barrier which determines who is allowed to enter these spaces.
Let me be clear: This concern is not about preventing trans women from accessing women’s spaces but that we are allowing anyone to enter women’s spaces.
Honourable senators, this is a monumental shift in societal norms which must not be minimized.
2. Compelled Speech
The second concern to which I draw your attention is that of compelled speech. You have no doubt received the same letters in your office as I have in mine claiming that Bill C 16 does not impact free speech and does not criminalize the misuse of gender pronouns. This is misleading and incorrect.
While it is true that misgendering someone will not land you in jail, misgendering is considered actionable before human rights tribunals and courts.
By not using someone’s preferred pronoun, you could be subjected to fines, damages, termination of employment or other so called remedies.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission says this plainly. On their website, they have a page titled “Questions and answers about gender identity and pronouns.”
It says:
Is it a violation of the Code to not address people by their choice of pronoun? The law recognizes that everyone has the right to self identify their gender and that ‘misgendering’ is a form of discrimination.
The commission then notes that in 2015 the BC Human Rights Tribunal ruled misgendering was discriminatory in a case involving a trans woman and the police.
Colleagues, this is not a baseless concern, as some have suggested. You can read it for yourself on the Ontario Human Rights Commission website or in the decision of the BC Human Rights Tribunal in Dawson v. Vancouver Police Board.
These provincial policies and decisions concerning the use of pronouns are important, because Bill C 16 does not define these parameters.
The justice minister explained that Bill C 16 relies on legal interpretations which either have been or will be made by courts, tribunals and commissions. In the same way that provincial policies and rulings already compel the use of certain transgender pronouns, Bill C 16 will do the same at the federal level.
Addressing These Concerns
These concerns about privacy, security and compelled speech are not trivial. They need to be addressed. I believe this can be done without compromising anyone’s rights.
We are told that gender is now subjectively determined by one’s personal belief. It is not objectively determined like sex, race, ethnic origin, age or colour.
This shows that gender rights are very similar to religious rights. Both are protected based on a personal belief and thus both must be subject to the same checks and balances. It is these checks and balances which address some, although not all, of the concerns about gender rights.
Allow me to explain.
1. Rights based on religion or belief are protected only if the belief is sincerely held
First, because gender rights are based on a belief, the belief must be sincerely held. This is already true with religious rights.
In 2004, in Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem, the Supreme Court of Canada noted that:
Sincerity of belief simply implies an honesty of belief and the court’s role is to ensure that a presently asserted belief is in good faith, neither fictitious nor capricious, and that it is not an artifice.
In 2015, in Mouvement laïque québécois v. Saguenay (City), the Supreme Court wrote:
To conclude that an infringement has occurred, the Tribunal must be satisfied that the complainant’s belief is sincere...
With belief based rights it is not sufficient to simply claim to have a belief. The belief must be verifiable.
Regarding trans rights, the need for verification of gender identity is not without precedence. In 2006, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario acknowledged that gender identity may need to be verified. They established six steps which could be taken by law enforcement officers in order to do so.
In 2015, the BC Human Rights Tribunal in Dawson v. Vancouver Police Board, which was a case involving a trans woman and the Vancouver Police, affirmed this, stating:
To demonstrate prima facie discrimination, complainants must show that they have a characteristic protected from discrimination...
The requirement for complainants to verify that they have a characteristic needing protection from discrimination ensures that the law protects those who actually need it, while not empowering impostors who would abuse this protection.
This will not prevent individuals from pretending to be trans, in order to access private spaces which they would otherwise not be entitled to do. But it does ensure that the law differentiates between those who are authentically trans and those who are not.
To put it plainly: Trans rights belong to genuine trans persons, not those who would pretend to be trans in order to harm someone.
In my view, if Bill C 16 explicitly affirmed this fact it would help address, not all, but a significant portion of the privacy and security concerns.
2. The state can neither impose nor endorse religion or belief
The second reason it is important to note that gender rights are based on belief is: Canadians have a constitutional right to belief or non belief and Parliament is forbidden from legislating or endorsing belief.
In the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2015 decision on Mouvement laïque québécois v. Saguenay (City), the court said the following:
... the state must not interfere in religion and beliefs. The state must instead remain neutral in this regard, which means that it must neither favour nor hinder any particular belief and this same holds true for non belief.
The court ruled that the state is obligated to create neither coercion nor exclusion through state endorsement of a religion or a belief. In other words, discrimination against trans persons is prohibited in the same way that discrimination is prohibited against Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists or other beliefs. Each person is free to have their own beliefs and to express them.
Furthermore, neither federal nor provincial legislation can mandate others to comply with a belief system in either word or action. The state protects the right to believe but does not endorse or compel belief.
This means that the state cannot constitutionally require people to use certain pronouns, and yet without amendment that is exactly what Bill C 16 will do.
Crossing the Line
Fellow senators, this is where Bill C 16 crosses the line: In seeking to protect rights, it threatens to endorse and impose a belief system that many Canadians simply do not share.
In so doing, it will trample on existing rights which will undoubtedly lead to future Supreme Court challenges.
It is my hope that the Senate committee examining Bill C 16 will consider the merits of amending the bill to correct this serious problem.FRENCH PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy has challenged Google’s plans to digitise the world’s classic books by declaring that he will not allow his country to be stripped of its literary heritage for any company’s benefit.
Addressing concerns about Google’s aim of scanning out-of-copyright titles and providing them in searchable form online, Mr Sarkozy said that France would increase funding for its own digitisation project. “We won’t let ourselves be stripped of our heritage for the benefit of a big company, no matter how friendly, big or American it is,” he said.
Speaking at a public meeting in Alsace, he said France’s national digitisation project – Gallica – would be one of the projects financed by a national loan, which is due to inject billions of euro into strategic investments next year.
“We are not going to be stripped of what generations and generations have produced in the French language, just because we weren’t capable of funding our own digitisation project,” he said.
It is not the first time that France has challenged Google. In 2005, French and German leaders announced that they would work together to develop a multimedia search engine called Quaero (Latin for “I search“) that many saw as a direct attack on the American firm. Progress has been slow on the project due to lack of funds.
The president’s remarks came the day after his culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, told Google’s vice-president, David Drummond, of France’s “concern” about the company’s project. Mr Mitterrand, a champion of the state-funded programme, said that although he was not hostile to the idea of a public-private partnership on book-scanning, he was conscious of “the risks inherent in such co-operation”.
Marc Tessier, a former president of France Télévision who is leading France’s own book-scanning venture, is due to report next week on the possibility of a partnership with a private company.
Google has already scanned thousands of French works still under copyright, and a verdict is expected next week in a case brought against the company by France’s third largest publisher, Le Seuil.
It accused Google of illegally copying, storing and publishing thousands of its works and is seeking €15 million in damages.
Warning that it was important for publishing to avoid the sort of damage that illegal downloads have caused to the music and film industries, French prime minister François Fillon last month established a commission to look at how the sector can adapt.
In an open letter, Mr Fillon listed several possible strategies, including a project to scan the contents of Europe’s libraries; applying internet piracy laws to the publishing sector; asking publishers to propose ways of policing download; and developing the market for legal digital books.
Mr Fillon said France would not accept another cultural industry being “threatened by looting”.
France’s government has proposed some of the world’s strictest online piracy legislation, and in September parliament approved a law that will allow authorities to disconnect repeat illegal downloaders.These are the top ten of the varieties I have reviewed thus far. It was originally released on Foodiggity.com on January 9th, 2012 as an exclusive guest post I did. Now, here it is on The Ramen Rater for your perusal with links to all of the corresponding reviews! Enjoy!
UPDATE: The 2013 list is available HERE.
Number 10 – Singapore – Koka Instant Non-Fried Noodles Spicy Black Pepper Flavour
This stuff is amazing; it contains a block of instant noodles that are exceedingly light and very low in fat. This doesn’t end up with low in taste though, especially with its garnish pack’s mention that the veggies in there vary depending on the season of production! It has a nice peppery taste and a little heat but not overwhelmingly so. This is a real treat and goes great with eggs. Original Review
Number 9 – Hong Kong – Doll Instant Noodle Artificial Chicken Flavour
Yeah I know – chicken instant noodles. How boring! Not this one – the broth is very good – it warms one’s innards on a cold day like nothing else. This is especially good with an egg or two added with about 45 seconds remaining as it cooks in the pot – makes the broth even heartier. A very relaxing bowl of noodles. Original Review
Number 8 – Japan – Sapporo Ichiban Shio Ramen Japanese Style Noodles
This is a very recent addition to the Top Ten list. Having tried Shio instant noodle varieties in the past, I had a feeling this would be a good one, and it truly was. The noodles were very hearty and the broth had an almost buttery flavor. I found this one very good with some baked chicken, green onions and hard boiled egg. Comes with a little packet of sesame seeds! Original Review
Number 7 – Korea – Nong Shim Shin Ramyun Black Premium Noodle Soup
Twenty years after the introduction of the well-known Shin Ramyun, Nong Shim brought out Shin Ramyun Black. A huge block of noodles, a veggie packet that also has freeze dried beef, red spicy seasoning and onion and oxtail soup packets make this a culinary onslaught of epic proportion. This was best enjoyed using a recipe from Eat Your Kimchi’s site which involved adding an egg, bok choy and a single slice of processed cheese. The beef pieces spring to life and the whole thing is excellent. Original Review
Number 6 – Japan – Myojo Hyoubanya no Chukasoba Japanese Style Noodles Oriental Flavor
A very good, very traditional instant noodle from Japan. Noodles are a little chewy and the broth has hints of seafood. Was enjoyable with a couple eggs cooked with the noodles and a little baked chicken with salt and pepper. Original Review
Number 5 – Indonesia – Mie Sedaap Instant Kari Spesial Bumbu Kari Kental
Like spicy? Like curry? This one from Indonesia fills both criteria and then some. The noodles are good but the real star here is the broth; a bit greasy and so flavorful. Not only a hot curry taste but had sweetness as well. Was excellent with a couple fried eggs. Original Review
Number 4 – Japan – Sapporo Ichiban Japanese Style Noodles Chow Mein
This stuff is great. It’s cooked with a small amount of water as the noodles gobble it all up. The flavor is sweet and salty and pure enjoyable. What’s more is a packet of ground seaweed is included which makes it all the more enjoyable. Goes well with a little bit of roast beef and some chopped onions. Original Review
Number 3 – Japan – Nissin Yakisoba – with Mayonnaise / Mustard Packet
Yakisoba is a very commonly enjoyed dish in Japan – and this variety puts a unique twist on it. You fill the box with boiling water and then afterwards, there’s a little drain spout to get rid of excess water. Add the flavoring and stir – then comes the fun as there’s a little packet that dispenses mayonnaise out of one reservoir and mustard out of the other! This is quite good – especially the vegetables. Nothing to add to this one – enjoy in its native state! Original Review
Number 2 – Indonesia – Indomie Mi Goreng Rasa Ayam Panggang Jumbo Barbecue Chicken Flavour Fried Instant Noodles
First off, it’s a jumbo pack, which is helpful as this is such a great tasting package of instant noodles. Second, it comes with a whopping five seasonings – from sweet soy sauce to spicy chili sauce. The noodles are served drained without a broth. The flavorings in concert with a couple fried eggs, some pickled ginger and fried shallots make this one not to miss. Original Review
Number 1 – Indonesia – Indomie Special Fried Curly Noodles Special Quality Instant Noodles
Truly the best instant noodles I’ve ever had. I love these – the noodles are flat and very tasty. The seasonings provide a broad range of flavors. Spicy, sweet, full of good flavor. I enjoyed this bowl with some turkey, fried eggs, pickled ginger, fried shallot and Sriracha (Red Rooster) sauce around Thanksgiving. Original Review
Hans ‘The Ramen Rater’ Lienesch
Web – https://www.theramenrater.com
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Here below is the original 2011 Top Ten List, which was in effect from March 30th, 2011 to January 9th, 2012.
So after being hounded by numerous fans of this site, here’s what you’ve all been waiting for: my top ten list. I know there are going to be some disagreements on this one and that’s just fine with me. I know I’m not the only one who’s passionate about instant noodles, although that statement seems a little silly on its own. So please submit your own top tens in the comments section below and share them with others. Anyways, enjoy this list – hopefully you go out and try some of these if you haven’t before. Click on the titles for the full Ramen Rater reviews.
This list will change from time to time since, hey – I’m always trying out new stuff! So keep an eye out for changes and updates. I’ll post them on the front page as well.(Photo: Getty Images) Bernie Parent will be in the Flyers' net during the Winter Classic Alumni Game.
The Philadelphia Flyers bolstered their goaltending over the summer by signing Ilya Bryzgalov. On Wednesday, they did it again by bringing in a Hall-of-Fame goaltender to play in the Winter Classic Alumni Game. Bernie Parent, who won the Hart Trophy, Conn Smythe Trophy and Stanley Cup with the Flyers in 1974 and 1975, will suit up against the Rangers' alumni on Dec. 31 at Citizens Bank Park.Parent confirmed he would be playing with a post on his official Twitter account.The 66-year-old Parent had been listed as an ambassador for |
, and the SFPD has not released any additional information on the investigation.
6th Street Assault
On February 3rd at 3:35am, a 48-year-old man was assaulted on 6th Street. The suspect, a 40-year-old female, started a verbal altercation with the victim, then picked up a glass bottle from the ground and struck the victim in the head. The victim lost consciousness and woke to find the suspect gone. He was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries. No arrests were made.
Cellphone Swiped
At 1:50am February 2nd on the 600 block of Mission Street, a 22-year-old victim was robbed of his cellphone. A male suspect, 25-35 years of age, approached the victim and asked to use his phone. The suspect then walked away with the device. The victim attempted to recover his phone, and the suspect pushed him. The victim reported minor injuries; no arrest was made.
Western SoMa Stabbing
A 47-year-old man was stabbed in the upper torso at 10:31pm February 2nd at 11th and Harrison. The victim and a man, age 20-30, reportedly engaged in a verbal altercation. When the victim walked away, the suspect stabbed him and fled on foot. The victim was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The suspect was not apprehended.
The SFPD Southern Station's next police-community meeting will take place at 6:30pm February 22nd in the South Beach Harbor community room at Pier 40. For more information, call the station at (415) 575-6000.Since the completion of the NFL Draft, there has been a lot of talk about how fourth round pick Evan Boehm could be the starting center for the Arizona Cardinals in 2016. He has been called "a sneaky good draft pick."
But starting quarterback Carson Palmer is pumping the brakes a bit.
Appearing as a guest on the Doug and Wolf Show on Arizona Sports 98.7, Palmer explained the difficulty Boehm will have winning the job.
There were a couple of reasons. One is the difficulty of the position.
"In this offense, the scheme we run, center is an extremely difficult position to play," Palmer explained. "There's so much communication, so many things that go on at the line of scrimmage within this scheme which make it extremely difficult."
The other reason is there is a guy playing ahead of him in whom the coaches and players trust - A.Q. Shipley.
"A.Q. Shipley has been waiting in the wings for a long time (to start)," Palmer said about Shipley, who has started some in his career and was real close to being the starting center last year coming out of camp. "He played in one game last year and played really well in Philly. That game we ran the ball really effectively. We kind of did whatever we wanted and A.Q. came in and played really well."
Palmer said it will be "an uphill battle" to beat out Shipley.
That said, Palmer is excited about the player Boehm could be. He said outside linebacker Markus Golden, who was Boehm's teammate at Missouri, came up to him and said, "you're going to love that center," something that Palmer loves to hear. Palmer really likes when former opponents or teammates give glowing reviews of his teammates.
Palmer didn't close the door on the possibility of having a rookie center. But with what he said, praising Shipley and explaining the difficulty if the task Boehm will have, it sets the table for fans to be impressed with what the Cards have in Boehm.
"It's going to be tough for him, there's no doubt," Palmer said. "Being a rookie on the offensive line, especially at center, especially in this offense, it's going to be difficult and it's going to be a great battle all through training camp."After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the San Diego Padres. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Kansas City / Minnesota / New York AL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.
Batters
The Padres entered the 2015 season having placed a sizable wager against the importance of outfield defense, choosing to deploy a unit consisting of Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, and Justin Upton. It didn’t pay off particularly well: San Diego outfielders produced a collective -23.6 UZR, third-worst among all major-league clubs, while recording merely the 12th-best offensive line (107 wRC+) — i.e. not enough to compensate for the unit’s defensive shortcomings. Overall, the aforementioned triumvirate posted a combined 4.6 WAR, or 1.8 WAR per 600 plate appearances. Not terrible, that, but also not commensurate with the club’s financial investment in them.
Defense will be less of an issue for the team this year, according to Dan Szymborski’s computer. Jon Jay and Melvin Upton are both projected to provide slightly above-average defense as center fielders — and, owing to how the game is traditionally played, only one of them is likely to occupy center at any given time, meaning the second will probably be playing a very capable left field alongside the first. Travis Jankowski (439 PA, +8 DEF in CF) and the newly acquired Manuel Margot (518 PA, +7 DEF in CF) are also candidates to prevent runs at an above-average rate.
The flaw for the current iteration of the Padres isn’t so much outfield defense as it is almost all the other aspects of the club. This is perhaps best expressed by observing how Derek Norris (468 PA, 2.9 zWAR) receives the top projection among San Diego’s position players. Norris absolutely has his virtues. To say that he’s not an ideal franchise cornerstone, however, is to say a correct thing.
Pitchers
The 2015 season marked the ninth consecutive one in which right-hander James Shields recorded at least 200 innings — and the first (of those nine) in which he failed to post at least two wins. Likely because ZiPS is designed to rain figuratively all over figurative parades, it projects Shields’ 200-inning streak to end. It also projects him to cross the two-win threshold again, though. He and Tyson Ross (178.0 IP, 3.3 zWAR) are the foundation of the rotation. Meanwhile, ZiPS is not optimistic about right-hander Andrew Cashner (155.2 IP, 1.5 zWAR).
With regard to the bullpen, one would be hard-pressed to deny its existence — or that it would seem to benefit greatly from the presence of left-hander Drew Pomeranz, who’s projected for a swing role, inside of it.
Bench/Prospects
The aforementioned Jankowski and Margot profile as the club’s top rookie-eligible players, each expected to parlay a combination of above-average speed and defense into a roughly average overall package (the latter’s more solidly average than the former’s). Beyond them, Rule 5 outfielder Jabari Blash (442 PA, 1.1 zWAR) appears capable, as well, of serving as a useful bench player. Among pitchers, there’s less about which to get excited. One notes, however, that recently signed left-hander Buddy Baumann (74.1 IP, 0.5 zWAR), the author of zero major-league innings ever, resembles a useful bullpen piece.
Depth Chart
Below is a rough depth chart for the present incarnation of the Padres, with rounded projected WAR totals for each player. For caveats regarding WAR values see disclaimer at bottom of post. Click to embiggen image.
Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here at site and author’s own haphazard reasoning.
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Disclaimer: ZiPS projections are computer-based projections of performance. Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors — many of the players listed above are unlikely to play in the majors at all in 2016. ZiPS is projecting equivalent production — a.240 ZiPS projection may end up being.280 in AAA or.300 in AA, for example. Whether or not a player will play is one of many non-statistical factors one has to take into account when predicting the future.
Players are listed with their most recent teams unless Dan has made a mistake. This is very possible as a lot of minor-league signings are generally unreported in the offseason.
ZiPS is projecting based on the AL having a 3.93 ERA and the NL having a 3.75 ERA.
Players that are expected to be out due to injury are still projected. More information is always better than less information and a computer isn’t what should be projecting the injury status of, for example, a pitcher with Tommy John surgery.
Regarding ERA+ vs. ERA- (and FIP+ vs. FIP-) and the differences therein: as Patriot notes here, they are not simply mirror images of each other. Writes Patriot: “ERA+ does not tell you that a pitcher’s ERA was X% less or more than the league’s ERA. It tells you that the league’s ERA was X% less or more than the pitcher’s ERA.”
Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in full release of ZiPS. Finally, Szymborski will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on depth chart to produce projected team WAR.EarthBound, the venerated sci-fi role-playing game from Shigesato Itoi, is now available on the Wii U Virtual Console for $9.99 along with a digital Player's Guide, Nintendo announced during a Nintendo Direct presentation today.
Nintendo said in April that it would release EarthBound on Virtual Console this year; it launched in Japan in March.
The company is also digitizing the EarthBound Player's Guide, which shipped with copies of the original 1994 SNES title. The extensive resource will be available on the game's website, and according to Nintendo's Bill Trinen, the company has optimized it for viewing on the GamePad so it can be used as a handy resource while playing the game.
Update: The Nintendo Direct session included a trailer to mark the Virtual Console launch of EarthBound. You can watch the trailer below. The Player's Guide is also now available on the newly launched EarthBound website.During the festival Kumiko and Kousaka decided to go hiking which lead to a beautifully executed scene of the two characters sharing a moment that cemented their friendship. The most apparent visual aspect of this scene was the strong usage of lighting on Kousaka in comparison to Kumiko. The lighting on Kousaka made her look ethereal and created a sense of reverence that epitomized her desire to be special.
Another visual aspect in this scene that was not as conspicuous as the lighting was the meaningful use of the city lights backdrop. It was used to both differentiate the characters and connect them towards the end of the scene.
The city lights backdrop were used for Kousaka’s solo shots, while Kumiko’s were set against a dull background. This contrast in vibrancy formed a perception of differing personalities between the two. The colorful city lights reinforced Kousaka’s ambitiousness. The bland background complemented Kumiko’s understated and reserved nature.
As the scene progressed Kousaka pointed out the similarity that they share, which is their indifference towards conformity. Kumiko attended a high school away from her former classmates in order to have a new start. While Kousaka decided not to join a school with a more relevant music club in order to shine on her own. Coming to this mutual understanding established the bond between the two. This moment of burgeoning friendship was wonderfully captured with a wide shot of Kumiko and Kousaka finally sharing the vibrant city lights together. The city lights were once used to differentiate the two but in a single shot it became an imagery of their connection.
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One minor nitpick is the composition of the shot above. I understand the intention behind it. The juxtaposition of Kousaka against the two stars shining in a seemingly cloudy night symbolizes her drive to stand out and shine amongst the crowd. It’s just that the large negative space with her head at the edge of the bottom of the frame is aesthetically off-putting. It created a floating head effect as if she’s been decapitated by the frame.
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A look back at Episode 7
The scene that really stood out was the one where Aoi decided to quit the music club right in the middle of rehearsal. In the beginning of the scene she was shot inconspicuously, really she was almost unnoticeable. By doing this it made her decision to quit less telegraphed, which helped maintain tension and drama.
In the first shot above, Aoi is in the foreground but way off center, blurred and half cut-out by the left edge of the frame. Also in this shot Noboru, the music teacher, was the one moving the most and naturally that would draw the attention away from Aoi. It then cut to the second shot. It’s a wide shot where she’s at right edge of the frame and again hardly noticeable.
The blending in of Aoi amongst the crowd made the scene less straightforward. Her inconspicuousness also helped make the moment when she was finally singled out (shot above) more impactful. The suddenness of the shift of emphasis on her was a nice dramatic touch.by Vince Brusio Hellboy finds himself embroiled in the turmoil of the Cold War in Hellboy And The B.P.R.D.—Occult Intelligence #1 ( JUL170096 ) from Dark Horse Comics, and we’ve got writer Chris Roberson on board to give us an exclusive interview for the book. The debate this time is what constitutes “intelligence.” Is the thing slipping under the ocean intelligent? Is it intelligent to find out? In this latest Hellboy series, Chris Roberson explains there may be a new way of looking at the occult. Hellboy And The B.P.R.D.—Occult Intelligence #1 ( JUL170096 ) is in comic shops September 13. ********** Vince Brusio : Chris, what’s the background scenery for Hellboy And The B.P.R.D.—Occult Intelligence? The front cover sort of has an Indiana Jones feel to it, and we here at PREVIEWSworld want to know if that Ark of the Covenant was unboxed. Not that we’re asking you to spoil anything, but does this 3-issue series venture into territory where we might see Hellboy running in front of a giant bowling ball with an idol in his hand? Chris Roberson : No giant bowling balls this time out, but don’t rule out Hellboy having to deal with a giant SOMETHING. But any resemblance to everyone’s favorite adventuring archaeologist is purely coincidental. Cover artist Paolo Rivera was actually going for a more “Cold War spy thriller” vibe with the covers for this storyline, which gets to the heart of the kinds of stories that we’re starting to tell with the series. Vince Brusio : How does this mini-series figure into the continuity of Hellboy’s association with the B.P.R.D.? For those who may be new readers, can you give them a leg up? If they looked at a timeline, what would they see? Chris Roberson : Hellboy became a field agent of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense in 1952, about eight years after he first appeared on Earth, so by 1956 he’s been out in the field for just a few years, but he feels like a seasoned veteran of the team. As he will soon discover, though, he still has a lot to learn. Vince Brusio : A lot of YouTube videos will attest to the number of people that swear they’ve captured UFOs both exiting and entering the ocean. The preview for the book on page 49 of the July PREVIEWS teases us with such a possibility. Yet, the book’s title is “occult” intelligence. Not “alien” intelligence. So a sea monster of some sort is much more likely a culprit for the pilot’s strange sighting. But might there be some connection between extraterrestrial life and the occult? Is it possible to cross that bridge? Chris Roberson : We’ve played around with possible connections between aliens and UFOs and the occult in series like The Visitor: How And Why He Stayed And the earlier Hellboy & The B.P.R.D. storyline, “Black Sun,” but in the current story we’re playing around with the double meaning of “occult,” both in the sense of something that is hidden from view (monsters, perhaps?), and something that involves the supernatural. As for the “intelligence” part of the equation, that has multiple meanings as well. Vince Brusio : Did you find yourself being careful with the plotting and pacing of this story? Getting into theories of the occult can be heady stuff, and sometimes getting too cerebral can bog down the pacing of a story. What are your thoughts on finding the right mix of balancing theories with compatible sequence of actions? Is there any mapping done before you attempt to conceptualize the right dialogue? And does Mike Mignola pull that lever, or do you both share that chore? Chris Roberson : It varies from project to project, but usually a story begins with conversations that I have with Mike or with our editors, Scott Allie and Katii O’Brien, starting with a germ of an idea and gradually developing it into a rough outline, that we bat back and forth until everyone is happy with how it has come together. And as much fun as it is to dig deep into weird theories or historical oddities, when you’ve got Hellboy in the mix it’s always important to bring some kind of monster or baddie on stage for him to punch! Vince Brusio : What does Brian Churilla bring to the table for this series? If you could sit down at a keyboard, and write at length about what Brian is doing visually, what would you tout? And does he stay on target with your expectations, or is he known at times to pull the carpet out from under your feet, and show you something you never saw coming? Chris Roberson : I’ve been extraordinarily lucky with the artists that I’ve collaborated with on the various Hellboy titles, and there isn’t a single one of them that hasn’t far outstripped my expectations of what they would deliver, and I am invariably thrilled with the results. But working with Brian is an even greater thrill, as he puts SO much time and thought into every aspect of a page, from the design of the characters and creatures, to the layout of the panels and the way that the action leads the eye across the page. I’ve been a fan of his for years now, but I feel confident in saying that the work he’s doing on this book is the best stuff that he’s done to date. ********** Vince Brusio writes about comics, and writes comics. He is the long-serving Editor of PREVIEWSworld.com, the creator of PUSSYCATS, and encourages everyone to keep the faith...and keep reading comics.Mel Gibson shouted terrifying epithets at his houseguests during a rampage at his home in Costa Rica in December, according to a recording obtained by TheWrap.
Houseguest and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas provided the recording. (Editor’s note: Recording and quotations below contain highly offensive language.)
Eszterhas told TheWrap on Wednesday that he released the recording because “Gibson called me a liar. And I also have some reason to believe he’s creating a PR blitz questioning my truthfulness.”
Also read: Mel Gibson to 'Get the Gringo' Producer: Funny, You Don't Look Jewish
During the rampage, Gibson shouts at Eszterhas for not having delivered a script of “The Maccabees,” their joint movie project:
“Why don’t I have a first draft of 'The Maccabees'? What the fuck have you been doing?” he bellows. (Photograph above by Nick Eszterhas.)
About his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, Gibson shouts, “I am earning money for a filthy little cocksucker who takes advantage of me!”
Read the full transcript of the tape here.
A spokesman for Gibson did not respond to an email seeking comment.
But mostly the recording captures an unhinged, angry Gibson storming around his Costa Rica property, knocking over a totem pole. According to Eszterhas (pictured below) and his family, Gibson also threw a cellphone.
The recording, about two and a half minutes long, captures only part of an angry bender described by Eszterhas in a letter published by TheWrap. It was recorded on an iPod on Dec. 7, 2011, by Eszterhas’ 15-year-old son Nick, who was with his parents, Joe and Naomi.
Also read: Joe Eszterhas: Why I Released The Mel Gibson Rant (Exclusive, Video)
Other houseguests present at the time were screenwriter Randall Wallace, his girlfriend Elizabeth Topp and Gibson friend Brad Hillstrom, according to Eszterhas. House staff and their children also were present.
The release of the recording follows a public dispute between Gibson and Eszterhas. The screenwriter wrote a nine-page letter obtained by TheWrap, accusing the movie star of making continual anti-Semitic remarks, threatening violence to Grigorieva and detailing out-of-control behavior, including the rampage he described in detail.
Also read: Scene of the Rant: Mel Gibson's Costa Rican Hideaway (Slideshow)
The movie star responded in a letter that much of Eszterhas’ allegations were “utter fabrications.”
According to Eszterhas' letter, Gibson's rant began unexpectedly, as the guests had gathered for before-dinner drinks, and Gibson happened to look at a photo of himself holding his baby daughter Luci in which he was gray and balding:
The letter reads:
"You were staring at the photograph of you and Luci, your beautiful little girl … and you suddenly exploded. You hurled your cellphone into a wall and started to scream, 'I look so fucking old! I look horrible! That fucking whore is destroying me! She’s taking my looks! I hate her! She’s destroying my life!'
"You jumped up, screaming full-throated: 'Look at me!! Fucking look at me! Look how terrible I look! Answer me, God! Why did you turn your back on me!? Fuck you! Fuck you!' You stepped a few feet away and screamed into the sky, 'I’m not gonna take it up the ass anymore and say, ‘Thank you, your honor!’”
According to the letter, Gibson ran around the side of the house to a downstairs, open-air billiard room — all of which can be heard on the recording. His houseguests, shocked and terrified, stayed in the dining room.
The recording shows that Gibson is out of control and needs psychiatric treatment.
Also read: Joe Eszterhas to Mel Gibson: ‘Don’t Call Me a Liar, I Have a Tape’ (Exclusive)
“The bottom line is it shows to me he badly needs help,” Eszterhas told TheWrap. “My interest isn’t to damage him with this tape but to prevent damage being done to others, starting with Jews, including Oksana and now, I’m sure, me. I strongly believe that unless he seeks and receives some kind of psychiatric help, someone is going to get hurt.”
Also read: Mel Gibson on Oksana Grigorieva: 'I'm Going to Have Her Killed,' Letter Says
Eszterhas added that his son Nick “was adamant I release this tape. He said, ‘I know how frightened we all were. No one has the right to treat another human being that way. This tape shows him the way he really is.’”
Here's the recording and the transcript.Faust852 Profile Joined February 2012 Luxembourg 4004 Posts #41 Looks like pros don't really want to go to Russia :}
Cinek357 Profile Joined October 2012 Poland 119 Posts #42 On August 06 2014 23:16 Xoronius wrote:
And again I ask: What does that have to do with esports? This tournament is not benefitting Russia as a nation or the russian army or politics.
It kinda does. Same as DH Bucharest helps to promote Romania and DH Valencia helps to promote Spain. These kind of tournaments show host country in a good light.
It works the same as World Cup 2018 or Winter Olympics 2014 and this is exactly what Russian army or politics want. E-sports is just way smaller, so they probably don't even know about Dreamhack taking place in Russia, but it helps Russian politics the same way as other sport events do. It kinda does. Same as DH Bucharest helps to promote Romania and DH Valencia helps to promote Spain. These kind of tournaments show host country in a good light.It works the same as World Cup 2018 or Winter Olympics 2014 and this is exactly what Russian army or politics want. E-sports is just way smaller, so they probably don't even know about Dreamhack taking place in Russia, but it helps Russian politics the same way as other sport events do.
Xoronius Profile Joined July 2011 Germany 6360 Posts #43 On August 06 2014 23:43 Cinek357 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 06 2014 23:16 Xoronius wrote:
And again I ask: What does that have to do with esports? This tournament is not benefitting Russia as a nation or the russian army or politics.
It kinda does. Same as DH Bucharest helps to promote Romania and DH Valencia helps to promote Spain. These kind of tournaments show host country in a good light.
It works the same as World Cup 2018 or Winter Olympics 2014 and this is exactly what Russian army or politics want. E-sports is just way smaller, so they probably don't even know about Dreamhack taking place in Russia, but it helps Russian politics the same way as other sport events do. It kinda does. Same as DH Bucharest helps to promote Romania and DH Valencia helps to promote Spain. These kind of tournaments show host country in a good light.It works the same as World Cup 2018 or Winter Olympics 2014 and this is exactly what Russian army or politics want. E-sports is just way smaller, so they probably don't even know about Dreamhack taking place in Russia, but it helps Russian politics the same way as other sport events do.
If this would be correct, the effect would be pretty neglectable due to the size of DH compared to olympics/world cup/whatever. However, I don't think, that it has quite the same effect. The will be no important personalities there, who could be beneficial for local buissness. There are no big TV productions, who give 15-min long introductions about the country and the town, the event is held in, before they cut to the actual event. There will be indoor esports, which is hardly distinguishable from other indoor esports, except for the fact, that the chants will be in russian and the cheerfulls might be in cyrillic. I don't think, that there is much of an impact. If this would be correct, the effect would be pretty neglectable due to the size of DH compared to olympics/world cup/whatever. However, I don't think, that it has quite the same effect. The will be no important personalities there, who could be beneficial for local buissness. There are no big TV productions, who give 15-min long introductions about the country and the town, the event is held in, before they cut to the actual event. There will be indoor esports, which is hardly distinguishable from other indoor esports, except for the fact, that the chants will be in russian and the cheerfulls might be in cyrillic. I don't think, that there is much of an impact.
y0su Profile Blog Joined September 2011 Finland 7868 Posts #44 ZhuGeLiang fighting! Past 2 Blizzcon winners were 14th seed... next year only top 8 will qualify!! twitch.tv/y0su @y0su_
Xoronius Profile Joined July 2011 Germany 6360 Posts #45 Guys, Brat_OK just started streaming. Maybe we will see that short comeback for DH.
TotalBiscuit Profile Blog Joined March 2010 United Kingdom 5415 Posts Last Edited: 2014-08-06 18:39:14 #46 On August 06 2014 23:39 Faust852 wrote:
Looks like pros don't really want to go to Russia :}
We're not sending players for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Russias rampant homophobia. Not only is it morally repugnant, but it puts our players at risk. Korean males are culturally very comfortable with being close to each other. Holding hands, sitting on others laps etc, not at all uncommon. In Russia this could be mistaken for gay behavior and may result in misunderstandings that could even lead to violence. There are plenty of incidents where gay or "we thought he was gay" people have been beaten in Russia. Secondly, Russias belligerence in how they're acting with the Ukraine is reason enough to keep our players out on both moral grounds and with concern to their own safety.
EDIT: Since this is now linked on Reddit and they probably won't read my followup post. I'm reposting that here.
It's just a really sad state of affairs. I have quite a lot of Russian fans, so does the team, but the safety of the players has to come first. The political reasoning isn't even that important, almost every country does something objectionable. Should we not send players to the US because of the arguably illegal wars its waged in the past or the whole spying on its own citizens thing? You'd be short on tournaments to go to if you started doing that. The homophobic violence however is a very real thing and don't count on thugs to know the difference between gay people and typical Korean male social closeness. This homophobia, pushed by those in power, is deliberately divisive. Unite the country by persecuting a minority within it, differentiate yourselves from other countries that are more accepting, utilize the galvinisation against said minority as a banner to rally behind and in turn, rally against countries who the population now perceives as different and "the enemy". It's sad that this can still work in the internet age, though I think we are getting to the point where it is losing its effectiveness. It's hard to view other people in other countries as enemies when you interact with them every day online and see that they're just another human being like us.
So the primary reason for not sending our players is the safety concern. If we had someone on the ground who spoke Russian that we could trust we would probably be more open to the idea, but we don't, so we'd rather not send our players into that environment. Not sending our players should not be considered a boycott of the event, we just want to risk our players well-being when there are other events they could attend that don't carry those risks.
We're not sending players for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Russias rampant homophobia. Not only is it morally repugnant, but it puts our players at risk. Korean males are culturally very comfortable with being close to each other. Holding hands, sitting on others laps etc, not at all uncommon. In Russia this could be mistaken for gay behavior and may result in misunderstandings that could even lead to violence. There are plenty of incidents where gay or "we thought he was gay" people have been beaten in Russia. Secondly, Russias belligerence in how they're acting with the Ukraine is reason enough to keep our players out on both moral grounds and with concern to their own safety.EDIT: Since this is now linked on Reddit and they probably won't read my followup post. I'm reposting that here.It's just a really sad state of affairs. I have quite a lot of Russian fans, so does the team, but the safety of the players has to come first. The political reasoning isn't even that important, almost every country does something objectionable. Should we not send players to the US because of the arguably illegal wars its waged in the past or the whole spying on its own citizens thing? You'd be short on tournaments to go to if you started doing that. The homophobic violence however is a very real thing and don't count on thugs to know the difference between gay people and typical Korean male social closeness. This homophobia, pushed by those in power, is deliberately divisive. Unite the country by persecuting a minority within it, differentiate yourselves from other countries that are more accepting, utilize the galvinisation against said minority as a banner to rally behind and in turn, rally against countries who the population now perceives as different and "the enemy". It's sad that this can still work in the internet age, though I think we are getting to the point where it is losing its effectiveness. It's hard to view other people in other countries as enemies when you interact with them every day online and see that they're just another human being like us.So the primary reason for not sending our players is the safety concern. If we had someone on the ground who spoke Russian that we could trust we would probably be more open to the idea, but we don't, so we'd rather not send our players into that environment. Not sending our players should not be considered a boycott of the event, we just want to risk our players well-being when there are other events they could attend that don't carry those risks. Commentator Host of SHOUTcraft Clan Wars- http://www.mlg.tv/shoutcraft
sephiria Profile Blog Joined September 2012 105 Posts #47 On August 07 2014 00:27 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 06 2014 23:39 Faust852 wrote:
Looks like pros don't really want to go to Russia :}
We're not sending players for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Russias rampant homophobia. Not only is it morally repugnant, but it puts our players at risk. Korean males are culturally very comfortable with being close to each other. Holding hands, sitting on others laps etc, not at all uncommon. In Russia this could be mistaken for gay behavior and may result in misunderstandings that could even lead to violence. There are plenty of incidents where gay or "we thought he was gay" people have been beaten in Russia. Secondly, Russias belligerence in how they're acting with the Ukraine is reason enough to keep our players out on both moral grounds and with concern to their own safety.
We're not sending players for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Russias rampant homophobia. Not only is it morally repugnant, but it puts our players at risk. Korean males are culturally very comfortable with being close to each other. Holding hands, sitting on others laps etc, not at all uncommon. In Russia this could be mistaken for gay behavior and may result in misunderstandings that could even lead to violence. There are plenty of incidents where gay or "we thought he was gay" people have been beaten in Russia. Secondly, Russias belligerence in how they're acting with the Ukraine is reason enough to keep our players out on both moral grounds and with concern to their own safety.
before I read that post I thought not going there for political reasons was idiotic. you completely changed my mind on that, I kind of forgot the whole homophobia issue due to the mindless russiabashing in the face of natural geopolitical behaviour.
I am really glad you decide to not send players for the first reason though. I hope other teammanagers follow this line of argumentation and keep their players safe.
depending on the rest of the line up, I might even skip watching it. before I read that post I thought not going there for political reasons was idiotic. you completely changed my mind on that, I kind of forgot the whole homophobia issue due to the mindless russiabashing in the face of natural geopolitical behaviour.I am really glad you decide to not send players for the first reason though. I hope other teammanagers follow this line of argumentation and keep their players safe.depending on the rest of the line up, I might even skip watching it.
vult Profile Blog Joined February 2012 United States 8779 Posts #48 Hmm kinda weak list but I'm assuming they are releasing the local list first with a few big names sprinkled in before announcing the world-class players. Polt plz come back
Faefae Profile Joined June 2014 2202 Posts #49 depending on the rest of the line up, I might even skip watching it.
Made me laugh^^ Made me laugh^^ ForGG. 29/11/2014
Vo-one Profile Joined June 2003 Ukraine 456 Posts #50 On August 06 2014 23:16 Xoronius wrote:
And again I ask: What does that have to do with esports? This tournament is not benefitting Russia as a nation or the russian army or politics.
This kind of a situation has already happend to some musicians that went to Russia for their concerts or even to receive awards during the conflict. Now they're claimed as rats/traitors. So these players are known to what they will be called if they go.
"It's just a business, nothing personal"? Yeah, and nothing patriotical also. This kind of a situation has already happend to some musicians that went to Russia for their concerts or even to receive awards during the conflict. Now they're claimed as rats/traitors. So these players are known to what they will be called if they go."It's just a business, nothing personal"? Yeah, and nothing patriotical also.
TotalBiscuit Profile Blog Joined March 2010 United Kingdom 5415 Posts Last Edited: 2014-08-06 16:04:40 #51 On August 07 2014 00:37 sephiria wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 07 2014 00:27 TotalBiscuit wrote:
On August 06 2014 23:39 Faust852 wrote:
Looks like pros don't really want to go to Russia :}
We're not sending players for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Russias rampant homophobia. Not only is it morally repugnant, but it puts our players at risk. Korean males are culturally very comfortable with being close to each other. Holding hands, sitting on others laps etc, not at all uncommon. |
of Africa and the Middle East.
According to the complaint, some of the minor victims traveled from other states to have the procedure performed. The complaint alleges that the FGM procedure was performed on girls who were approximately six to eight years old.
Both defendants were arrested this morning and are scheduled to appear in federal court in Detroit this afternoon.
The defendants are alleged to have conspired with Jumana Nagarwala, M.D., who was already arrested in Detroit on April 12, and ordered detained on April 17, 2017, pending trial. There were fears she was going to flee the country after she was charged.
Nagarwala, Fakhruddin Attar and Farida Attar are believed to be the first people charged under 18 U.S.C. 116, which criminalizes FGM.
A lawyer for Nagarwala is defending her against the charges, saying that she agrees female genital mutilation is inappropriate. Attorney Shannon Smith says Nagarwala removed only mucous from two Minnesota girls in February and then handed the gauze to the family for burial as part of a religious ceremony.
The feds counter that she’s a threat to the public.
And investigators are concerned there could be more victims. The FBI’s Detroit Field Division has set up a tip line for anyone who has information pertaining to the illegal practice of FGM or Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, Fakhruddin Attar or Farida Attar at 1-800-CALL-FBI (225-5984). To submit an e-tip, please visit FBI.GOV/FGM.TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- A netizen on Breaking News Community (爆料公社) posted photos of a full scale, yellow paper model of a Lamborghini with intricate detail created to honor their ancestors, all to be burned up on Tomb Sweeping Day (清明節).
Breaking News Community user 翁寬大 posted what was described as a "limited edition lightweight bull," which is a full scale paper model of a Lamborghini sports car complete with tricked-out rims, spoiler, and a luxurious fake leather interior.
Rear of paper Lamborghini. (Photo posted by Breaking News Community user 翁寬大)
The purpose of this simulated sports car is to burn for one's ancestors so they can enjoy some fast and furious fun in the afterlife. In many countries and overseas Chinese communities where Tomb Sweeping is observed, the living burn all matter of paper objects at the grave sites of their ancestors on this day so that they can utilize them in the afterlife. Examples of offerings burned include joss paper, gold ingots, iPhones, houses, cars, mahjong sets, furniture, and even passports.
Interior of paper Lamborghini. (Photo posted by Breaking News Community user 翁寬大)
Tomb Sweeping day is usually on April 4 or 5, though in Taiwan since 1975 it has always been held on April 5 to coincide with Chiang Kai-shek's passing on that day.In the comic books, Deadpool is an equal-opportunity smart aleck — and flirt. That’s a sensibility that the producers of the new 20th Century Fox superhero movie, starring Ryan Reynolds, tried to re-create for the upcoming tentpole.
But while the big-screen version of Deadpool earns an R rating with graphic violence, profanity and sexual content, you won’t see this masked hero sharing a bed with another man.
That could change, particularly if the film — which is expected to dominate the box office this weekend — spawns sequels. On the red carpet at a New York screening for “Deadpool” on Monday, alongside hundreds of fans decked in red tights and masks, Reynolds said he’s aware that Deadpool identifies as pansexual.
“I love that about Deadpool,” said Reynolds. “I love that he can break any boundary. In the future, I hope we get to do that more,” he said, alluding to his character’s monogamous relationship with a woman (“Gotham” star Morena Baccarin).
Reynolds added that he thought it would be “nice” for Deadpool to have a boyfriend at some point. “I certainly wouldn’t be the guy standing in the way of that,” Reynolds said. “That would be great.”
Related ‘Deadpool’ Writers on Mocking Ryan Reynolds, the Joy of Leaked Footage
There are clues in “Deadpool” that its hero is just as interested in men as he is in women, but they are often handled with a wink rather than occupying a major plot line. Early in the movie, Deadpool suggests a mock fling with Wolverine and seems open to sexual experimentation during a sex montage (although the only partner in the scene is his girlfriend). “We knew that was part of the comics,” said one of the film’s screenwriters, Rhett Reese. “We wanted to honor that in the movie. But we did it in subtle ways.” Added producer Simon Kinberg: “There’s veiled references to it in this film. It’s in the DNA of the character.” Kinberg said he wouldn’t rule out showing Deadpool with a male companion in future installments.
But that would still be considered a major risk. Even though gay marriage is legal in the United States, the movie industry has been slow to develop projects anchored by queer characters. The first — and, so far, last — gay breakthrough romance is still 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain.” A recent study from GLAAD found that only 17.5% of studio releases in 2014 featured LGBT characters, and they usually appear in supporting roles.
One reason for the resistance to gay characters is that Hollywood is heavily reliant on box office from China, where attitudes about homosexuality are less tolerant. And Hollywood executives are generally slow to change, especially when it comes to diversity, as evidenced by the discussion over this year’s Oscars ceremony with all-white acting nominees. When Andrew Garfield suggested in a 2013 interview that Spider-Man could be gay, the creative team at Sony didn’t exactly endorse that idea for the upcoming reboot.
Deadpool could represent progress if future installments allow the character more freedom to be who he is. Ed Skrein, who plays the villain Ajax in the movie, said he wasn’t aware of the term “pansexual” until he got the part. “You know? This is 2016,” he said. “We all need to grow up. I’m going to be a spokesperson for pansexuality from here on out.”"Uncovered trashcan" fine at 3AM during high winds.
So how hard up is the City of Somerville for cash? So hard-up, it appears, that they issued an "uncovered trashcan" ticket at 3:00AM (yes, that's right, in the middle of the night) DURING a storm in which Somerville was experiencing high winds and rain. You all remember the one from a few nights ago.
My dad/landlord got a ticket in the mail yesterday, including a photograph of a trashcan on the ground with the lid off on the side of the house. Normally, our trashcans are locked tight with their covers, except, apparently, when high winds and rain knock them over. We are going to appeal the ticket. I just think it is outrageous that this was even issued. Trashcans were down all over the neighborhood, as well as roof shingles everywhere, and small to medium branches on the sidewalks and streets, etc.
Did anyone else get this fine or know of anyone else who had? I mean, if the trashcans weren't picked up and it was, say, 11AM, there may be some merit to the ticket. But since it was issued during the middle of the night and during an ongoing storm, it seems really bizarre.Blessed with a number of heritage monuments that display the incredible craftsmanship of ancient Indians, India is home to a host of architectural marvels that mesmerize tourists from across the globe.
A number of these heritage sites are thousands of years old! And interestingly, even till date, they stand tall with pride to boast of their solid foundation that haven’t let torrid times uproot their existence.
They shall remind the future generations that “old will always remain gold” and no modern infrastructure or equipment is competent enough in reproducing anything that may resemble any of these skilfully crafted monuments.
Khajuraho’s group of monuments, the Chausath Yogini Temple complex, the ancient Orccha township in Madhya Pradesh; the Brihadeeshwara Temple or the Tanjavur Periya Kovil in Tamil Nadu, the temples in the ancient kingdom of Hampi and the Badami Cave temples in Karnataka; the Konark Temple in Odissha, the Tungnath and the Kedarnath Temples in Uttarakhand are fine specimens of exemplary art.
Take a look at the architectural geniuses here:
Happy travelling and discovering the unseen beauties of India.Trinity College’s president announced that the school has lost 16 students and “roughly $200,000” in donations in response to a professor’s controversial Facebook comments.
As Campus Reform initially reported, Professor Johnny Williams appeared to endorse the idea that first responders to June’s congressional baseball shooting should have let the victims “fucking die” because they were white, sharing an anonymous article making that case titled “Let Them Fucking Die.”
"A number of past contributors also chose not to donate to the college this year in response to controversy.”
[RELATED: Prof advocates for ‘abolition of whiteness’]
Williams himself later suggested that he is “fed the fuck up with self-identified white’s daily violence directed at immigrants, Muslims, and sexually and racially oppressed people,” saying “the time is now to confront these inhuman assholes and end this now.”
“It is past time for the racially oppressed to do what people who believe themselves to be ‘white’ will not do, put end to the vectors of their destructive mythology of whiteness and their white supremacy system,” Williams wrote in a separate Facebook post, followed by a hashtag of “LetThemFuckingDie.”
After Campus Reform broke the news, Williams was placed on leave and has since agreed to remain on voluntary suspension until January, though Trinity President Joanne Berger-Sweeney spoke candidly about the damage his comments caused the university in a Monday statement.
“In the short term, we know that 16 students in the incoming Class of 2021 have withdrawn and cited this incident as the reason, and our admissions team has engaged in conversations with many others who had concerns,” she wrote in her statement, disclosing that “a number of past contributors also chose not to donate to the college this year in response to controversy.”
In total, Berger-Sweeney estimated the damages to be “roughly $200,000,” but asserted that the school “can and will recover from the financial cost of this incident.”
“In the meantime, I want to thank the members of our community who were on the front lines of managing the events of the Campus Reform incident, especially many staff members whose work and dedication during this very challenging situation have been truly exceptional,” her statement concluded.
[RELATED: Prof: ‘some white people may have to die’]
Trinity’s American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter, however, continues to express disappointment in Berger-Sweeney for failing to “defend Professor Williams from outside attack, or to acknowledge their own mishandling of the events.”
“President Berger-Sweeney’s statement confirms our suspicion that the administration’s primary concern has been the bottom line, rather than the protection of scholarly inquiry and academic freedom,” the AAUP claimed in a statement to The Hartford Courant. “Given that the administration continues to publicly admonish Professor Williams’ speech, and reduce this attack to a monetary crisis, we remain unconvinced that they will strongly defend our campus from such attacks in the future.”
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @AGockowskiIt only makes sense if you understand fallacies of composition. What is true of each part isn't necessarily true of the whole.
1. We each get paid too much; 2. Because of 1, we all get paid too little.
It's a very Hobbesian perspective. It's not a war of Us against Them; it's a war of All against All. Those who can only think in an Us against Them perspective will have the hardest time grasping it. You have to think in a Hobbesian perspective. Or representative agent model, as we call it nowadays. The distinction between the individual and the collective good is what's at issue, not the distinction between the good of one group of individuals and another group of individuals.
I have been thinking like this since I was 18, but I only understood it vaguely back then. I understood it better when I was 30, and started building macro models with monopolistic competition.
Each individual faces a downward-sloping demand curve. Taking other individuals' prices as given, the higher I set my price the lower the quantity I can sell. That's because we are not all identical. Nobody is a perfect substitute for anybody else. So we are not in perfect competition. So each individual faces a trade-off between price and quantity.
Microeconomists are with me so far; here's where I'm in danger of losing them.
But the demand curve facing all of us is horizontal. There is no trade-off between relative price and quantity at the aggregate level. The price of everything relative to everything must be one. And because the trade-off facing each individual is different from the trade-off facing all of us, each individual will choose a point on the trade-off that is bad for all individuals.
OK, let's go back and round up the stray microeconomists (and probably a few macroeconomists as well).
Every microeconomist knows that it's relative prices that should be on the vertical axis of demand curves. Suppose one individual wanted to sell more. Unless he is a perfect substitute for other individuals, he will need to lower his price relative to other individuals' prices. But if all individuals want to sell more, and all lower their prices, the average relative price does not change. If we aggregate up over individuals' downward-sloping demand curves, we get an Aggregate Demand curve, with the average relative price on the vertical axis, that is horizontal at one.
And now I've lost some macroeconomists too. Because I've drawn an AD curve with relative price on the axis, rather than the nominal price level. But don't worry. Remember that the AD curve is an equilibrium locus. It's a set of points at which output equals output demanded. We can ask what happens to the nominal price level as we move along that set of points, and that's the normal AD curve. But we can also ask what happens to relative prices as we move along that set of points, and that's the AD curve I'm talking about here.
When we talk about being paid too much, we should always understand this in real terms. What matters is not how many dollars we get paid; it's how much we can buy with those dollars we get paid. It's the relative price, not the nominal price that matters.
Because each individual faces a downward-sloping demand curve, but all individuals together face a horizontal aggregate demand curve, each individual will choose a price that is too high and a quantity that is too low. Because one individual's selling price is another individual's buying price, all would be better off if all cut prices and increased quantity. Prisoner's dilemma. The attempt by each individual to raise his own real income above the competitive equilibrium results in a lower real income for all.
If all prices are sticky, then an expansionary monetary policy, which increases aggregate demand, increases output and makes everyone better off. That's why booms are good, because it brings the economy closer to the competitive equilibrium. And why recessions are bad, because they take the economy further away from the competitive equilibrium.
And cartels, like labour unions, just make the problem worse. Because by joining together with similar sellers into a group, the demand curve facing the group is steeper than the demand curve facing the individual, since members of the group no longer compete against each other for buyers. So there is an even bigger difference between the downward-sloping trade-off facing the group of sellers and the horizontal trade-off facing us all.
Unions are bad for the very same reason that recessions are bad.
All New Keynesian macroeconomists have understood the above for the last 20 years. Which is why all New Keynesian macroeconomists are fundamentally opposed to cartels, labour unions, minimum wage laws, etc.. OK. It's why they should be opposed to such things.Turkey's Jewish community is using the occasion of Ramadan to highlight unity with the Muslim faith by hosting an outdoor iftar (fast-breaking meal) at a synagogue in Edirne, reported the Daily Sabah on Friday.
The feast was held outside the Great Edirne Synagogue, recently restored by the government, which stands in remembrance of the Jewish community that was forced from the city during the Thrace pogroms of the 1930s.
Just one Jewish family now resides in Edirne, but the event drew many from outside the city, including religious and political representatives such as Chief Rabbi sak Haleva and a Muslim mufti from Greece's Komotini.
Haleva, whose parents were originally from Edirne, addressed those in attendance in circular tables on the street outside the synagogue, calling Ramadan "a sacred month" and saying that Turkey's Jewish community lives in comfort and peace.
"Sharing our bread together in this iftar is perhaps the best example of how the coexistence fares well today," he said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also caught wind of the event and sent a message to the dinner's organizers, underlining the peaceful coexistence in Turkey, according to the Daily Sabah.
Mustafa Yeneroğlu, Parliament's human rights committee head, told the gathering that the Jewish community is a central element of Turkey regardless of the "policies of other countries." He stressed that the government would continue to fight anti-Semitism, saying that "Our struggle against the hatred, hate speech and hostility toward a community will not cease as we have an approach that sees different communities as elements enriching these lands."
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The statue of Ben Franklin, with its Victorian lampposts, is a nod to New York’s printing and publishing industry, still centered here at Printing House Square.
A treeless City Hall Park is mostly out of view on the left. But centered on the northern end are government buildings, courts, and City Hall, which employ politicians and big staffs that serve them.
Factor in the transit hub known then as the Park Row Terminal, which ferried people across the Brooklyn Bridge so they can pick up streetcars on either side and continue on their way.
And of course, at this time Park Row is still the center of the newspaper trade.
See the delivery wagons lined up in front of various newspaper buildings, ready to bring the latest edition of the news of the world to the city. (Here they are in a closer view from a black and white photo.)
[Photo: Teamster.org]
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A landlord bought a townhouse for £450,000 - then found it was piled five feet deep in tons of stinking rubbish after 40 years of hoarding.
Mehmet Koch, 33, thought he had picked up a bargain when the rambling property in Finsbury Park, north London at an auction without checking it out inside first.
But when he opened the door he discovered the four storey property’s 10 rooms were piled high with books, children’s toys, clothes, newspapers and old furniture.
Mr Koch, who bought the house - which used to belong to an elderly couple - with his brother Abbas, said: “There was no running water, no electricity and no gas. I thought I was having a nightmare, I have never seen anything like this before.
“We had come to see the property from the outside but the couple who live here would not let us in so we never saw inside, When we saw it, we just felt sorry for the people who lived here. I mean, how could anyone live like this in the 21st century?”
The 33-year-old said: “We just saw it and thought, ‘How the hell are we going to clean this up?’ We were just shocked.
“The house had been lived in since the 60s by an elderly couple, now in their 70s.
“I just had no idea what the inside of the house looked like. It’s a massive revelation.
“This was the first I saw of how bad it was as she never used to open the windows.”
However, angry scenes were sparked as workers began the clean-up operation after throwing everything into the front garden without arranging for a truck to collect it.
Islington council served notice on the landlords and the mess has since been removed.
Police were also heard rebuking locals after they started stealing items from the front garden of the house.
One neighbour said: “It’s shameless. It’s like stealing from a dead body. She was a lovely old woman and those are still her things.”
The woman and her husband are now said to be living in sheltered accommodation in the area.
The Koch brothers, who own about 10 premises as part of Kaya Properties, are now planning to turn the house into flats if they gain planning permission.There are now multiple polls that show Ron Paul has gained support and has a legitimate chance to come in first or second in Iowa and New Hampshire. I would now call Ron Paul one of three front-runners in both Iowa and New Hampshire alongside Mitt Romney and a third candidate, currently Newt Gingrich. If Ron Paul wins Iowa, which he might, all bets are off. Also, most analysts miss the fact that many states have open systems where independents, and in some cases Democrats, can vote for a Republican nominee. This could give a further boost to Paul.
It is now time to give Ron Paul the attention he deserves in debates and throughout the political community.
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For Paul this presents good news and new challenges as his positions are given the kind of wider attention I have called for. For example, his foreign policy positions could help him attract independents and some Democrats in open primary states, along with some Republicans, but they also conflict with the majority Republican view.The campaign gets very interesting if Newt Gingrich joins Herman Cain, Rick Perry andin collapsing, which would give Paul a head-to-head contest with Romney.I am not predicting Ron Paul is nominated, I am suggesting he deserves to be treated with the respect of now being a serious contender to win first or second place in Iowa and New Hampshire. I have always predicted that Paul will ultimately be one of three finalists for the Republican nomination, which will become a three-person race, with Ron Paul one of the three.
At a minimum Ron Paul is now a force to be reckoned with. His support has surged in multiple polls. His fundraising will probably surge even more. He has the potential to be a kingmaker if he is the third Republican left at the convention with no candidate having a majority of delegates.
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No doubt about it, a Ron Paul third-party candidacy would now be very formidable.It may be that before this is done, one of the most important questions in American politics will be whether Paul runs as a third-party candidate, especially if the race is betweenand Mitt Romney. Fasten your seatbelts.UPDATE - PayPal has offered an official response to today's protest:
We can’t comment on ongoing legal action. PayPal works with law enforcement around the world to protect our customers and their accounts. As we state in our privacy policy, PayPal works with law enforcement or government officials if we receive a subpoena or court order; if we need to do so to comply with law; or if we believe in good faith that illegal activity has occurred.
A number of supporters and commentators on Anonymous including NYU academic Gabriella Coleman have reported via Twitter this afternoon that people wanting to join the boycott were unable to close their PayPal accounts online, and had to call a number instead. A spokeswoman for PayPal was nonplussed by this news. "That's certainly not anything we've had reported to us," she said.
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Anonymous is challenging PayPal once again, except this time it's legal. The online collective of hacktivists and trolls released a statement on Pastebin at 9am GMT this morning, encouraging "anyone using PayPal to immediately close their accounts and consider an alternative."
The statement was also tweeted by a handful of well-known supporters. It was signed by "Lulz Security," a splinter group of six hackers, "Anonymous" and "AntiSec," which like Anonymous is more a movement than a group. People supporting the entities are taking action after the FBI last week arrested 14 people on charges related to alleged involvement in cyber attacks on PayPal's website last December as part of group action by Anonymous. According to Wired's Kevin Poulsen, the FBI worked off a list of 1,000 Internet IP addresses to find the most active participants in the attacks.
Those attacks were part of an event, orchestrated by Anonymous supporters, called Operation Payback, or Operation Avenge Assange, in retaliation for PayPal nixing its funding services to WikiLeaks last December. As part of the "op," hundreds of supporters downloaded a software application called Low Orbit Ion Cannon, which allowed them to become part of a large network of computers to spam PayPal's website with enough traffic to take it temporarily offline.
Supporters of Anonymous believe this technique, known as a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) should be considered a legitimate form of civil protest, akin to blocking the physical entrance to a store or organizational headquarters. Supporters of Anonymous come from all backgrounds, and are known to have used the name as a brand for all manner of forms of Internet vigilanteism, pranks and trolling. When the collective takes more political action however it tends to be veer towards libertarianism with a focus on freedom of information.
"What the FBI needs to learn is that there is a vast difference between adding one's voice to a chorus and digital sit-in with Low Orbit Ion Cannon, and controlling a large botnet of infected computers," this morning's official statement said. "And yet both of these are punishable with exactly the same fine and sentence."
LulzSec, a splinter group from Anonymous that disbanded after a 50-day hacking spree last month, added its voice to the chorus, posting the official "OpPayPal" statement through Twitter and recommending alternative payment methods such as MyBitCoin, Liberty Reserve, WebMoney, Neteller and Moneybookers, and to "start using prepaid credit and gift cards."
As of the time of writing it was unclear how well the boycott was taking off, and PayPal could not be reached for comment. However, this morning's Pastebin statement has had upwards of 34,000 views while the hashtag #oppayback is currently the second top trending topic on Twitter, according to Tweetdeck's Trends application.The SOAR P incorporates modifications and improvements to the M4 rifle that will among other things ensure enhanced reliability, accuracy, firepower, zero retention, ergonomics/ man machine interface, overall parts longevity, and increase service life. By incorporating the patented Independent Sear Disconnector reduced the cyclic rate of fire in full auto below 700 rpm. This allowed the weapon to be totally controllable in full-auto, reduced impact stress on the parts, increase accuracy and firepower, reducing the heat and increase the resiliency to cookoff, increase parts longevity and overall service life.
The soar P (Piston version of the soar), further increase the benefits of the SOAR by changing the gas system with a short stroke piston system with the independent sear disconnector enhancing the capability of the rifle to fire without draining the water in “over the beach” operations.The Supreme Court has adopted amendments to a rule to give judges the authority to issue warrants to remotely search computers whose locations are concealed using technology.
The proposed move had been criticized by civil rights groups and companies like Google that said it threatened to undermine the privacy rights and computer security of Internet users.
The top court has approved changes to the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure, including Rule 41, which with some exceptions prohibits a federal judge from issuing a search warrant outside of the judge’s district. The change in the rule was proposed by the Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure at the request of the Department of Justice.
“Remote searches of media or information that have been ‘concealed through technological means’ may take place anywhere in the world,” said Google in a filing to the committee in February last year. It pointed out that a magistrate judge in a court in Texas had denied an application for a Rule 41 warrant to permit U.S. law enforcement agents to hack a computer whose location was unknown, but whose IP address was most recently associated with a country in Southeast Asia.
Under the amendments, which comes into effect on Dec. 1 unless Congress passes legislation changing it, a magistrate judge with authority in any district, where activities related to a crime may have occurred, can issue a warrant to use remote access to search computers and other devices and seize or copy electronically stored information located within or outside that district, if the district where the computer or information is located has been concealed through technological means.
It provides for a similar warrant in investigations under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which involve protected computers that have been damaged without authorization and are located in five or more districts. This provision could allow investigators to obtain warrants to search a large number of computers in many districts simultaneously, if they are suspected to be part of a botnet or even if they are found to contain some malware or virus, according to critics of the provision.
The definition of a “damaged computer” under the CFAA is very broad and could be interpreted for example to include software infected with unwelcome code, malware or viruses, according to the Google filing.
In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, the focus now shifts to Congress. New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) has called on legislators to block the changes as they would for the first time “explicitly authorize law enforcement to secretly and remotely hack into targeted computers of both suspects and victims alike.”
“Under the proposed rules, the government would now be able to obtain a single warrant to access and search thousands or millions of computers at once; and the vast majority of the affected computers would belong to the victims, not the perpetrators, of a cybercrime,” said Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon in a statement on Thursday. Wyden said he planned to introduce legislation shortly to reverse the amendments.
U.S. Chief Justice John G. Roberts on Thursday transmitted the amended rules to Congress.
A federal judge in Massachusetts recently rejected evidence in a child pornography case that law enforcement obtained after hacking a child porn service on the Tor network, ruling that a judge in Virginia, who issued the warrant, could not authorize the search of property located outside the Eastern District of Virginia. The ruling is likely to give a boost to the FBI’s demand for a change to Rule 41.Why was 1973 the year UK radio changed forever?
With hundreds of radio stations now broadcasting across the country, it is difficult to imagine how uncrowded the airwaves were 40 years ago. BBC Radio had a domestic monopoly - with no legal commercial competition on UK soil.
That all changed on 8 October 1973 with the opening of the first Independent Local Radio station - LBC in London. Capital Radio, also in London, was next - and stations in Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester soon followed. Within a decade, over 40 stations were on air.
Here, as UK commercial radio celebrates a landmark birthday, spend a few minutes on a trip back in time to hear how it all started - and how the foundations of today's digital radio landscape were laid.
To see the enhanced content on this page, you need to have JavaScript enabled and Adobe Flash installed.
All copyrights acknowledged. Archive photos and audio courtesy Getty Images, Press Association, mds975.co.uk and aircheckdownloads.com.
With thanks to Ofcom, Paul Easton, Mike Smith, Neal Bowden, Alwyn Ladell.
Slideshow production by Paul Kerley. Publication date 8 October 2013.
Related:
Paul Easton - radio blog
Aircheck Downloads - fan site
MDS975 - fan site
More audio slideshows:
Wonderground underground - MacDonald Gill's maps
Above agriculture - a summer in the skies
Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2013Former West Ham boss Gianfranco Zola has been confirmed as the new manager of Championship side Watford.
The 45-year-old has signed a two-year deal to replace Sean Dyche, who was sacked by new owners the Pozzo family.
Zola was in charge of West Ham from 2008-2010 after an illustrious playing career in which he made over 300 appearances for Chelsea.
Zola's West Ham record Managed West Ham from September 2008 until May 2010
Was in charge for 80 games, winning 23, losing 36 and drawing 21
Led the Hammers to a ninth-place finish in the 2008-09 campaign before finishing the 2009-10 season 17th, five points clear of relegation
He is the second Italian to manage Watford, Gianluca Vialli having been in charge for the 2001-02 season.
The Pozzos, who also own Italian Serie A side Udinese and Spanish club Granada, were quick to open negotiations with Zola after completing a deal last Friday to buy the Hornets.
Watford's newly-appointed technical director Gianluca Nani told the club website: "Everyone knows how Gianfranco Zola likes football to be played.
"I think Watford's fans can expect an exciting and attacking style from his team. Gianfranco represents this project perfectly."
Former West Ham chief executive Scott Duxbury was involved in setting up the deal and will join the staff at Vicarage Road in the same role after having a close working relationship with Zola at Upton Park.
The Pozzos have already outlined a double ambition of taking the club back to the Premier League and making the Hornets financially self-sufficient.
They also plan to use what they describe as their "world-class scouting network" to bring new talent to the club, but insist they will not harm Watford's distinctive identity.
It followed concerns recently expressed by the Watford Supporters' Trust that the club could be used as a platform to give experience to Italian youngsters.I got this awesome gift box from my gifter and it brightened up my day. I was a little worried at first because I didn't notice it all day but for some reason the UPS guy put it on my back porch instead of the front. I was sweeping off my back porch and finally saw it! When I opened it I was very surprised to see that my gifter knew all my favorite candies! YUMM! Im sorry to say that the elephant statue must have broken in shipping because it was in a million pieces :( BUT GOOD JOB! from what I could see I REALLY liked it. I have this unhealthy obsession with elephants and it would have made a great addition to my collection. Thank you so much! Happy arbitrary day!Reflex Focused Initiative System
The Rationale
In response to the initiative system tweeted by Mike Mearls, and later followed up with an Unearthed Arcana publication, there have been a variety of tweaks, takes, and offshoots of initiative systems released by the community. The common feature of these systems is that they attempt to model the speed of various weapon types and actions by using differently sized dice according to actions chosen in advance by players.
Arguments for a different system
To shake up the default initiative system in which turn order becomes predictable after the first round.
To inject an opportunity for more tactical decisions.
To minimize the relative power of and reliance on the Dexterity ability.
Criticism of speed based systems
Rolling multiple different dice each turn slows down combat and adds unsatisfying amounts of dice math for some players.
Adding more and larger dice can punish players for using certain types of actions or abilities, which have been rewarded to them for leveling.
Treating the ability to take multiple rapid actions in a single turn as one larger, slower action is incongruous.
Risk of lost turns due to a change in circumstances between declaring actions and resolving them is unsatisfying.
Analysis of default initiative
5th Edition already models speed in many ways. A combat turn represents a fixed amount of time (6 seconds). This is treated as enough time to move, make one significant action (Action) and make one minor action (Bonus Action). The speed at which these potential choices resolve is already modeled in a variety of ways:
Movement speed: modeled by speed score defined by racial traits and class features.
Weapon type or size: modeled by weapon type proficiency and the racial size trait.
Weapon attack speed: modeled by the Extra Attack class feature and Two Weapon Fighting mechanics.
Spellcasting speed: modeled by the casting time requirement in spell descriptions.
Creating additional layers of speed calculation for these properties through dice rolls is then redundant. If the speed of movement, attacking, and magic is already modeled, what should initiative attempt to model? The speed of reflexes that grant an edge in combat.
The System
Initiative is the measure of your character’s reflexes. Fast reflexes are dependent on both physical reflex and awareness of your surroundings.
To determine initiative, roll a d20 and add your dexterity modifier and your wisdom modifier. The DM starts with the 30 count and counts down. The creature with the highest initiative will act first each round. On a tie, creatures with higher modifier totals act first.
Tracking Your Roll Recording this number is recommended, as it can change in this system. Using dice as indicators is a good alternative to writing it down.
Any time a creature takes damage, if it hasn’t taken its turn yet this round, reduce that creature’s initiative count by one. If the creature is critically hit, reduce that creature’s initiative by two instead.
Dynamic Initiative Since initiative is not set in stone at the start of the round, the turn order can be changed dynamically by repeatedly damaging a specific target to make it act later in the round.
At the start of each round, every creature rolls a new initiative. Any creature that suffered damage |
" trail. You don't have to listen to them. You don't even have to respect them.But wouldn't it be cool if you did anyway? Wouldn't it be better if you listened to and respected the wishes of trail builders, even when their demands seem completely ridiculous, even when it means missing out on that ride or that jump or that sweet photo? If that sounds completely crazy, read on and I'll explain why I think you should give a little more patience, deference, and respect to your local trail builders, even if they're grumpy and confusing and weird and mean.One of my favorite trails of all time, one of the trails in Scappoose, Oregon, is illegal. The trail is short, but it’s mega-technical, unrelenting, and fun as hell. It was originally built without permission on private land, it was open for three or four years, and after a multi-year negotiation with the landowners that ultimately proved fruitless, it’s now illegal. Sheriffs patrol the road that parallels the trail, and they give out hefty tickets to riders caught trespassing. It’s a bummer, but it’s a pretty standard storyline for the trails where I live.It's almost impossible to get approval for any sort of mountain bike trail anywhere near Portland, and asking to legally build a downhill specific trail might as well be a joke - just ask the guys that have spent three years in court trying to get approval to build the Timberline bike park. Out of the twenty downhill trails near Portland, only two were built legally and with permission from the land owner. Every other trail, whether on private land or public, was built without permission. There have been success stories, of course. Blackrock Freeride area has become a big success, as has the Cold Creek recreational area in nearby SW Washington. The trail in Riverview Natural Area has the potential to be the first legal downhill trail in the city of Portland. Still, each of those trails was originally built without permission. Out of a quick tally of 20 downhill trails in the Portland area, only four are currently legal. Eight other trails have been plowed, and eight remain in a tenuous semi-secret/semi-public status.New downhill trails are not welcome here in this part of the Northwest, and that fact fundamentally affects our local trail culture. A lot of trails are built in secret and ridden by small, exclusive groups on an invite-only basis. Shit hits the fan when unknown riders show up, especially when it’s a whole truck full of people. Oregon isn't unique in this secret trail culture, either. I've seen it in Bellingham, Whistler, San Luis Obispo, SoCal, and Colorado, to name a few. It happens in BMX trail culture, in surfing, and in snowboarding. It’s a pretty common phenomenon.And a lot of people just don't get it. Especially to new riders, the whole thing seems unnecessary, unwelcoming, and elitist. And I'll admit, the "secret trail culture" thing can get a little out of hand, and there's probably room on both sides of the aisle for a little more "understanding" and olive branches and crap like that. And there's probably a good discussion to be had in all this: do we really need to be so secretive about our trails? Is this what we want mountain biking to be? What would Jesus or Slayer or the Fonz do? But that's not the discussion that happens. Here is every "discussion" I've ever had or ever witnessed between trail builders and random riders:You politely (or not) ask someone to park far away from the trailhead, or talk quietly near the houses, or don't invite random people, or don't shoot photos or post a helmet cam video of the trail on Facebook, or whatever. They absolutely lose it and start arguing about "freedom of speech" this and "public land" that and probably they're even going to cite the Magna Carta or the Geneva Convention in their impassioned defense of why they can do whatever they want on a trail someone else built. Maybe they'll cite their years of experience as a lawyer or hostage negotiator or amateur frame builder, or how they used to race pro back in the day. But after everything else is said and done, every one of these discussions always ends on this doozie:To which I typically respond:You're 100% correct when you say that "it's not your land, so it's not your trail." The trail builder and other trail users probably cannot claim ownership of the trail, and they probably have no legal authority.But that information, while true, is also useless and non-prescriptive. Saying "it's not your land, so it's not your trail" is the moral equivalent of playing "I'm not touching you" with your older brother on family road trips. What this person is literally suggesting is that because a trail builder doesn't legally own the trail, somehow that gives everyone the moral justification to do whatever they want on the trail, with impunity. And again, legally that may be true, but the thing you missed in your massive oversimplification is that:Or you should. Having a grumpy trail boss sucks, but the only thing worse is having no trail boss at all. Without a trail boss, one of two things will happen: either there will be no maintenance and future building, or all maintenance and building will be patchwork, random, and inconsistent.We’ve all ridden trails that were built by committee, and they’re horrible. Having lots of people that are willing to help with a trail is great, but not if they can’t agree to a common vision or won’t let one guy run the show. Some sections will end up being sweet, but most sections will be horrible. In the end some sections drain badly, others are awkward and slow, rocks get removed in one section, but in another section they’re piled up to make “a new rock garden,” and the whole trail ends up feeling like trail building decisions were made by throwing darts at a wall of bad options. And there will almost certainly be ladder bridges.Even worse are trails where the trail builder abandons the trail, and nobody maintains it. Puddles get wider, ruts get deeper, berms get more blown out, and jumps collapse. Yeah, it sucks, but it doesn’t suck enough for any one person to step up and fix it alone. So no one fixes it, and it keeps sucking. Somehow random ladder bridges seem to show up in this scenario, as well. Come to think of it, I'm starting to think ladder bridges just grow on trails naturally, like weeds.In short, you need a trail boss.I’m not sure, but the fact that we’re arguing about this leads me to believe that eitheryou’re relatively new to this game, and you’ve never built a trail, oryou’ve been riding for, like, 40 years, but for whatever reason life has made you super bitter and you live to argue with people like trail builders. About everything. You tell everyone about how long you’ve been riding and how you’ve “earned your miles” and how you used to travel with Palmer back in '99, but in all those years you never actually built a trail. Sure, you leaned on a shovel for three hours at a trail day four years ago, but that’s not exactly what we’re looking for.Either way, if we were interviewing for the position of “trail boss,” you probably wouldn’t make the cut. The person that's currently in the lead for that position is the guy who actually built the trail. Here’s a quick look at the score board, as far as I can tell. Let me know if I left anything out:And **spoiler alert** you’re probably not going to agree with everything that guy says or does. Even if you have the best, nicest trail builder in the world, some of the decisions he makes will probably drive you crazy. There will be lines you don’t like or sections that are too hard or rules that seem arbitrary, and what's even crazier is that you might even be right from time to time. If you have an open, receptive trail builder, he might listen to and incorporate your input. If he doesn’t, though, that’s just part of the deal. If you're having trouble swallowing this hard pill, please remember item #2: "You probably still want someone to be the trail boss."Really, if the rules at this trail spot don’t agree with you, you can build your own illegal trail spot at any time, and then you can institute your own rules. Or if you think rules are bad, you can build your own illegal trail spot and have no rules, and anyone can ride or build anything all the time. Or if you think illegal trail spots are bad, you can not build your own spot, and not come back to this one. There are a host of reasonable options open to you, and there's nothing forcing you to deal with any one trail spot or builder.Of course, these are just my opinions, and they do not reflect the official stance of Pinkbike. Trail building is a serious issue for mountain biking, but I think it's widely misunderstood by the public and by mountain bikers. It seems like a lot of people think trails magically appear when the trail fairy comes to town, and as long as that attitude persists, it makes it almost impossible to have a meaningful dialogue about this stuff. The truth is that real people spent weeks, months, or years building every trail you ride, and I think those people deserve your respect and deference when you ride. Figuring out "whose" trail it is. well, that's sort of the least important part of the whole equation.-Charlie SponselAll photos that aren't from Dumb and Dumber or Skibowl were taken by the talented and ruggedly handsome Tim Zimmerman.“We’re going to blink and there’ll be 100 Orthodox women rabbis in America that have been given ordination”. –R. Adam Mintz, professor of Talmud, Yeshivat Maharat
Within the week, three Orthodox-identified rabbinical ordination programs for women granted semicha (ordination) to their graduating classes. (Please see here and here.) While the mainstream organs of Orthodoxy do not recognize or approve of the ordination of women (here are RCA statements about the matter), the reasons for not accepting the legitimacy of semicha for women remain a mystery to some.
Various articles have been published about the topic (please see here for R. Hershel Schachter’s article); I would like to take one approach and provide some elaboration.
Halachic analysis of contemporary rabbinical ordination of women was first put forth by R. Saul Lieberman (please see here for R. Gil Student’s important presentation thereof), who in 1979 expressed his opposition to such on the part of Jewish Theological Seminary.
Although R. Lieberman’s tenure at JTS was the subject of controversy and was certainly not viewed favorably by Orthodox leadership, R. Lieberman was Orthodox and was very well-versed in our topic; his ruling on it is thus quite pivotal and precedential. R. Lieberman’s position was discussed in my initial article on rabbinical ordination for women, but that article focused more on the definition of Mesorah (Torah tradition). Let us turn here to the actual issue of semicha for women.
R. Lieberman demonstrates that even though modern-day semicha is not the original semicha that was conferred by Moshe upon Yehoshua and that continued to be conferred upon subsequent scholars until one-and-a-half a millennia ago, modern-day semicha is most certainly a carryover and model of the original semicha. The original semicha empowered one to serve as dayan, rabbinic judge, and that is exactly what contemporary semicha represents, as evidenced in the earliest of rabbinic literature that discusses the purpose and function of contemporary semicha. Since women cannot serve as rabbinic judges (Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 7:4, with the exception of cases of binding arbitration, in which the status of dayan is forgone [Sanhedrin 24, Rambam Hil. Sanhederin 7:2] – and modern-day semicha is decidedly not modeled on this), the rabbinical ordination of women is not valid and is distortive of the very essence of semicha. To grant semicha to women makes no sense, and to do so would “make ourselves objects of derision and jest”, proclaimed R. Lieberman.
The end of the matter is that it is clear from the sources that being called by the title “rav” (“Rabbi he shall be called”) reflects on the fitness to issue legal decisions and to judge, and we should not empty the title “rav” of its meaning from the way it has been understood by the Jewish people throughout the generations. Since a woman is not fit to judge, and she cannot become qualified for this…
Those who promote the ordination of women as rabbis either erroneously assert that modern-day semicha is a novel contrivance that has no controlling precedent, or they turn to the example of Devorah the Prophetess, who judged the Jewish People. (Shoftim 4:4) However, Devorah did not have semicha and did not sit on the Sanhedrin. Rishonim (medieval halachic authorities) explain that she either was a leader and teacher, that she practiced binding arbitration, that she provided instruction for dayanim, or the like. To use Devorah – someone who did not have semicha and did not qualify for it – as the precedent for women rabbis is quite a stretch.
Unfortunately, many of those involved with the ordination of women lack fealty to the fundamentals of Torah. For example, one of the women just ordained with “Maharat” semicha rejects halachic marriage, and she has created her own alternatives to Kiddushin and Nisu’in, halachic marriage, as presented in her book Tradition and Equality in Jewish Marriage: Beyond the Sanctification of Subordination.
One of the rabbis who ordained two women last week at an Orthodox-identified coed semicha program has written that one need not believe that the Torah reflects accurate facts and that it was dictated to Moshe via oral prophecy. This rabbi, who prominently touts his Orthodox credentials, has written that God did not necessarily speak to Moshe in a literal sense, but that the entirety of Torah was a non-historical development in which God communicated by placing His existence and truth in man’s heart:
The significance of the biblical narrative according to this tradition rests not in its historical accuracy but in the underlying spiritual content. The purpose of the Torah, according to the “sod” tradition is not to convey historical truths but rather to gesture toward a deeper and more profound spiritual reality. It is possible, then, to accept that the Torah in its current form is the product of historical circumstance and a prolonged editorial process while simultaneously stubbornly asserting the religious belief that it none the less enshrouds Divine revelation. God stirs our hearts and He stirs in our hearts; that is the revelation. The rest is interpretation.
This rabbi’s theology is extremely close, if not identical, to the Conservative movement’s notion of a divinely-inspired Torah – which is hence not literal, not fully binding, and is subject to evolving revelation/modification, for it was not actually commanded to Moshe at Sinai.
Inclusion and acceptance of rabbis who proffer heretical views has sadly become de rigueur in the “Open Orthodox” rabbinate, whether dealing with the ordination of women or anything else. One musmach of Open Orthodoxy, whose apostasy is well-known (please see here for older material, and here, here, here, etc. for more recent assertions of this rabbi that the Torah was written by men), was recently honored by International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF), the Open Orthodox rabbinic organization (whose vice president is a female rabbi), to serve as editor of a new book about the halachic significance of brain death. Apparently, IRF is not bothered by the fact that the editor of its new halachic publication denies the Torah’s singular divine authorship.
The chair of the department of Talmud at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) recently reposted his approach to Torah She-b’al Peh, the Oral Law:
Chazal were the R. Riskin’s of their time. They too were committed to creating a yiddishkeit which is in constant dialogue with their ethical sensibilities. They read Torah with a critical lens and whenever they encountered a perceived injustice they did whatever they could (within legitimate boundaries) to undo the challenging misread. This week’s parsha is a perfect example. Simply read, the biblical sotah procedure seems capricious and patriarchal. The rabbis, incorporating Divinely ordained hermeneutics, drastically revised the procedure. The result: a process that is sensitive and somewhat egalitarian. They were the progressives of their time, and, relative to their milieu, quite radical. They too were vilified, but in the end they prevailed. Ultimately their enterprise received the divine imprimatur. It is because of their courage that Rabbinic Judaism is still around today. Their interpretations allowed Judaism to survive, thrive and ultimately triumph.
This rabbi describes Chazal, the Sages of the Talmud, as revising Torah law to meet their own sense of ethics, and that the hermeneutic tools for this are divinely-sourced, granting Chazal poetic license, as it were, to reform Biblical Law that they find objectionable. This radical approach to halachic authorship is clearly contradicted by the Rambam in his Introduction to Mishneh Torah and his Introduction to Perek Chelek, Yes, Chazal have at their disposal certain legislative tools, but reforming the interpretation of Biblical Law to conform to human ethics is not in the arsenal and violates the divine character of Torah Law. Please read the referenced words of the Rambam and see for yourself.
Although it does not pose the stark theological objections discussed heretofore, a YCT rabbinical student and his bride recently created a novel wedding ceremony, whose link was proudly posted in various fora by YCT rabbinic leadership:
We made a list of particular needs that we had, and researched potential solutions. We wanted the women to feel involved during the tisch, we wanted the bedeken to be a moment where we each covered the other, and we wanted female participation under the chuppah. As I was marched in, on my brothers’ shoulders, for the bedeken I covered Marti’s face, and she too covered me. She replaced my regular kippah, with a new kippah that she made for me. As I kneeled in front of her, it was one of the holiest moments of my life. Our good friend, Rabbi Rachel Silverman, recited it (an eighth beracha, for the Sheva Berachos) for us under the chuppah.
It is regrettable that Open Orthodoxy is becoming the new Conservative movement, but that is precisely what is happening. Denial of a Singular Divine Author of the Torah, denial of the objective truth of Torah She-b’al Peh, ordaining women rabbis, creating gender-modified rituals, and so much more; the “Orthodoxy” has been swallowed up by the “Open”.
The Torah requires the Jew to subordinate his ideologies and actions to God, to the objectively true and authentic mandate of Sinai. Reshaping Judaism as we see fit has no place in this mandate. Let us recommit to Hashem and the eternal, unchanging charge of Sinai, and pray that all of our brothers and sisters will join us.Jeanine Pirro was stopped by New York State police near Ithaca for going 119mph in a 65mph zone
Fox News Channel host Jeanine Pirro has been issued a speeding ticket for driving 119 mph in a 65 mph zone in upstate New York.
The former Westchester County district attorney was stopped by a trooper on Sunday afternoon in Tioga County.
A state police spokesman says he doesn't know what type of car the 66-year-old Pirro was driving or whether she had any passengers.
Pirro says in a statement through Fox News Channel as seen by the New York Daily News she had been driving for hours to visit her ailing mother and didn't realize how fast she was going. She says she will 'pay the consequences.'
The ticket is returnable January 8. Pirro is host of the Fox News Channel show Justice with Judge Jeanine.
A conviction of more than 40 mph above the speed limit could result in 11 points on a person's driver's license.
When a driver reaches 11 points their license will be suspended. As a driver receives more points on their license, their insurance could also go up.
Pirro currently serves as host of the Fox News Channel show 'Justice With Judge Jeanine.'
She recently interviewed President Trump and reportedly met with him at the White House.
She also served as Westchster County district attorney after serving three years as a county judge.Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved Protesters block traffic in Portland over what they call "prison slave labor." September 9, 2016 (KOIN)
Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved Protesters block traffic in Portland over what they call "prison slave labor." September 9, 2016 (KOIN)
KOIN 6 News Staff - PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- On the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison riot, protesters took to the streets of downtown Portland to decry what they called "slave labor" from companies that profit from prison workers.
Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved An anarchy symbol keyed into a Portland Police vehicle during a protest downtown on September 9, 2016. (KOIN)
Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved An anarchy symbol keyed into a Portland Police vehicle during a protest downtown on September 9, 2016. (KOIN)
The protest began around 4 p.m. Friday and immediately snarled traffic and blocked MAX lines. Protesters also demonstrated against white supremacy. The crowd began blocking traffic at 6th and Main before moving toward the Justice Center.
Portland police said some demonstrators threw projectiles at authorities. Protesters took over the AT&T store on 3rd and Yamhill, refusing to leave when the manager asked them to get out. They claim the communications giant exploits prison workers.
The crowd made its way through downtown from Pioneer Square toward the Justice Center, where Portland Police lined the street, warning that arrests would be made if anyone entered the street.
At one point, a man damaged a woman's car with a flag pole. Police are hoping to identify that person, as well as those responsible for keying an anarchy symbol into a police vehicle and someone who stood on top of one.
Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved James Mathew Mattox in his booking photo on September 9, 2016. (MCSO)
Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved James Mathew Mattox in his booking photo on September 9, 2016. (MCSO)
James Mathew Mattox, 27, was arrested and booked into the Multnomah County Jail on charges of Criminal Mischief, interfering with a peace officer and harassment.
Police said 2 other men were cited to appear in court, one for disorderly conduct and interfering with a peace officer and the other for resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and interfering with a peace officer.
Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved Portland Police standing at SW 3rd and Yamhill blocking protesters on September 9, 2016. (KOIN)
Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved Portland Police standing at SW 3rd and Yamhill blocking protesters on September 9, 2016. (KOIN)
"They were thrown down by no less than 5 cops jumped on the guy," protester Diane Keefauver said.
In a press release from the organizing groups, this protest coincides with the National Prisoner Strike.
The strike, "led and organized by prisoners in states across the America" is on the same day as the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion.
The issue is that prisoners "are often forced to work against their will and are typically paid less than 25 cents an hour to do everything from fight wildfires, make telemarketing calls, and sew McDonald’s uniforms."
Several visitors from Camas chimed in on what they witnessed Friday.
"They got warned and they were not listening and standing in the street," Tristan Fisher said.
"It's cool if its going to be non-violent and peaceful but you can't be breaking public property," Jonathan Hayes said.
This van just came in, people scattering - appears as if at least one person is being arrested #KOIN6News pic.twitter.com/kdyCl7VibM — Cole Miller (@ColeKOIN) September 10, 2016
Numerous reports of threats, intimidation and damage to cars and property by demonstrators. Arrests may happen as needed. — Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) September 10, 2016
A look east down Yamhill - @PortlandPolice saying those not on sidewalks are subject to arrest #KOIN6News pic.twitter.com/0r4jYlNGzT — Cole Miller (@ColeKOIN) September 10, 2016
On September 9, 1971, a 4-day revolt at the Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo began. The prisoners rioted over overcrowding and other issues, and seized control of the state prison.
The New York State Police reclaimed most of the prison that same day, but 1281 convicts held 39 prison guards and employees hostage for 4 days.
The convicts were given an ultimatum on September 13, ordering them to surrender. When they didn't police stormed the facility and killed 29 inmates and 10 hostages, wounding 89 more people.
Attica was the worst prison riot in American history, with 43 people dead.
Here's the protest at SW6/Main - people here calling for end to 'prison slavery' #KOIN6News pic.twitter.com/68rJfkDdhR — Cole Miller (@ColeKOIN) September 9, 2016
The organizers of the Portland protest included Black Lives Matter Portland, Showing Up for Racial Justice PDX, Portland Anarchist Black Cross, Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee.Looking at a banana from a design perspective, one immediately notices the fruit is highly ergonomic and sophisticated: Bananas fit perfectly in the human hand, they come with a non-slip surface, a bio-degradable packaging that is easy to open, and they have an advanced informative skin that turns yellow when the product is ready for consumption – green means not yet, brown means too late.
The design of the banana is so good, some evangelists – like the one in the video – present it as evidence that an 'intelligent designer' must have created the fruit. These evangelists however, makes a quintessential mistake on the static origins of 'nature', as they ignore that the bananas we eat today are hardly products of old nature. Rather, they are the result of thousands of years of domestication by people.
Archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence suggests that banana cultivation goes back to at least 5000 BCE. The design banana's we eat cannot even reproduce without the hand of man, as they have no seeds – they are all clones, which makes the species highly vulnerable to diseases.
Wild bananas are still around, yet they are much less ergonomically adjusted for human consumption as they have have numerous large, hard seeds. Perhaps in the far future evangelists will present coke bottles as evidence for their 'intelligent designer' argument?
Related: A designers take on intelligent design, Banana Juice box, Banana inspired harddisk casing. Thanks Billy.FEATURE...
VA Taps Ancient Healing Methods
| Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
The Veterans Administration teams up with American Indian medicine men to use sweat lodges and talking circles to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder.
A man appears in the doorway – an unassuming figure, dressed in a work shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. He is a medicine man who has spent decades learning ancient Navajo healing techniques. He waits for the lead rider – the patient – to dismount and then ushers him inside.
For the next hour, the spiritual leader, Alfred Gibson, conducts an "enemy way" ceremony, a form of Navajo therapy that cleanses physically and mentally ill individuals by forcing them to confront their pain.
The technique is increasingly being used across the American West to help native American soldiers deal with the traumas of war.
While healers on Indian reservations have always employed such methods, the government offers most returning native American soldiers standard Western psychological counseling and medical help. Now, however, native American leaders and the Department of Veterans Affairs are teaming up to use both approaches in hopes of better serving the needs of Indian soldiers.
Mr. Gibson, for one, works during the week as a counselor at the Na'nizhoozhi Rehabilitation Center, a treatment facility in Gallup, N.M., run by tribal entities and the local county government. To help patients battle addiction and psychological trauma, Na'nizhoozhi often pairs psychotherapy and medication with sweat lodge ceremonies and drumming sessions. But the goal, Gibson says, is always to "do away with the medication – to help patients learn the traditional ways of healing."
Similarly, Veterans Affairs hospitals throughout New Mexico now run special programs for native American vets that include talking circles, sweat lodge ceremonies, and gourd dances. "We have to allow native Americans the opportunity to explore the culture that has been damaged, if not taken away," says Dr. James Gillies, a psychologist in the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) clinic at the VA Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M. "To be a soul doctor is to embrace the souls of the people you work with."
Native American vets have a real need for this kind of attention. Tribal members join the military at higher per capita rates than almost any other minority group. They also tend to suffer disproportionately from the effects of war – as evidenced in high drug-abuse and suicide rates among returning soldiers. Studies have shown that native Americans who served in Vietnam were far more likely to struggle with PTSD than white soldiers.
Counselors and tribal leaders believe a more "holistic" approach to treating the problem – combining traditional and modern methods – should help a new generation of soldiers now returning from Iraq.
"The 'enemy way' ceremony rejuvenates them," says Gibson. "The songs, prayers, drumming, and herbs we use cleanse the body from the effects of war."
The morning after the ceremony, Gibson and I sit on a sagging couch in the empty hogan. I ask if he believes one healing ceremony can provide a long-term release from the psychological imprint of combat. Gibson says that a series of ceremonies are often required, each addressing a different aspect of the patient's illness. "And it depends on the individual," he says. "It's just like a person who's addicted to alcohol. If he wants to get help, he will get better. But if he's two ways about it, it won't help him."
Dr. Gillies sees the benefits of marrying both approaches. He says modern Western therapy teaches vets "how to think about trauma" in a systematic and linear fashion. The basic treatment asks combat veterans to talk about their painful experiences in war. "We ask them to slow [the experience] down," Gillies says. "To approach it again and again." Each time, the memory is supposed to be a little less painful.
The concept is similar to that behind the "enemy way" ceremony, but it lacks the cultural and spiritual foundation that forms the basis of Gibson's work. After working on the Acoma Pueblo reservation outside Albuquerque, Gillies began to see that the Indian veteran population responded to this added cultural component. They are dealing with what he calls "intergenerational trauma": The struggles they've faced as native Americans often compound the effects of their PTSD.
With its lamps and bookshelves, Gillies's office feels like a small study. The young-looking doctor has the kind of relaxed demeanor that puts his patients at ease. While traditional psychotherapy and medication have their place, he says, you also have to work "within the mythology, the ritual" of the people you're dealing with.
Twice a month, Gillies moderates a talking circle made up of mostly Vietnam-era native American vets. The meeting has no formal structure, and participants say there is less interruption than during normal group therapy sessions.
Gregory Gomez, an Apache Indian who served with the Marine Corps in Vietnam, participates in the talking group. He says it helps him be "a little more rested, a little stronger to deal with the outside society."
Mr. Gomez, a large, expressive man with a gray ponytail and a single red feather earring, has a degree in social work and is well versed in Western forms of therapy. He also participates in the VA's standard PTSD program and meets with Gillies for individual counseling. But the talking circle addresses what he calls his "Indian world-view." "We're dealing with our spiritual needs," he says. "In other groups, there's a void."
Gomez doesn't have an easy definition for what spirituality is. As he puts it: "It's 24/7, a way of life. It's not a religion, but [the notion that] we don't own anything in this world. Our job is to help Mother Earth."
The sweat lodge is another cleansing tool centered around the connection to Mother Earth. Gillies and his native American patients convinced the VA medical center in Albuquerque to build one on a sandy plot behind the PTSD clinic.
"It's a place for cleansing our soul," says Ambrose Willie, a reed-thin man who served with the Army in Vietnam. Mr. Willie surveys the construction site, scrutinizing a series of prairie dog holes. In his barely audible voice, he wonders how to remove the rodents. Ultimately, he decides that prairie dogs and humans can cohabitate. The sweat lodge "teaches us to live in harmony with our surroundings, " he says.
Willie explains that the main elements of the sweat lodge – fire, water, and stone – represent the basic elements of nature. He and Gomez have long anticipated the lodge's completion. They believe it can bring them one step closer to mental stability. "When we leave the doorway," Willie says, "our mind, body, and spirit are one."View Caption Hide Caption A portrait of Briante Weber #12 of the Miami Heat on September 26, 2016 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Rob Foldy/Getty Images)
There are a lot of questions surrounding this new-look Heat roster.
Who is going to start? Who is going to replace Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh? Is Hassan Whiteside going to live up to his max contract?
Despite all of the uncertainty, the Heat’s 15-man regular-season roster is pretty much set. With Miami’s current 20-man roster featuring 15 guaranteed contracts and five non-guaranteed contracts, those non-guaranteed players — center Keith Benson, forward Stefan Jankovic, shooting guard Rodney McGruder, point guard Briante Weber and forward Okaro White – seem to be on the chopping block.
But there is one player in that group who has a realistic chance of making the regular-season roster over one of the Heat’s guaranteed players. The 23-year-old Weber is competing with 34-year-old Beno Udrih to be Goran Dragic’s backup at point guard.
“I’m a competitor,” Weber said. “It’s a competition at the end of the day, but we’re just trying to make each other better. It’s not my decision. It’s the coach’s decision, so I just take care of what I can take care of and I control what I can control and that’s my play and the way I play the game and how I do things to affect the game.”
[Heat look at trip to Houston to avoid Hurricane Matthew as ‘extended training camp’]
[Hassan Whiteside’s motor could push Heat’s transition game into another gear]
Weber is off to a good start. While Udrih sat out the preseason opener with a tight back, Weber was active as usual with four points, three rebounds, five assists and two steals in 21 minutes off the bench Tuesday night.
“I see development in him, no question,” Heat guard Wayne Ellington said. “He’s developed that offensive tool where he can slow down and he can see things better. He can also knock down the shot. His perimeter shot looks smooth and fluid, and he’s knocking it down so far.”
Those are solid stats to begin the preseason, but it’s another number that makes Weber’s performance even more impressive. He finished the preseason opener with a 5 to 1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
That’s an important stat for Weber, who finished with a 2.25 to 1 assist-to-turnover ratio in 28 games with the Heat D-League affiliate, Sioux Falls Skyforce, last season. Weber would have ranked 36th in the NBA in that category last season.
In four seasons at VCU on the college level, Weber finished with a 2.03 to 1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
“He’s getting more organized and intentional offensively,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of Weber. “’That’s a big important part of his development, getting your group organized and get them in the proper spots and the proper sets. He’s a natural leader and he has a great voice out on the court.”
Weber’s defense is always there, as he finished his college career as VCU’s all-time steals leader with 374 steals before suffering a torn ACL, MCL and meniscus during his senior season in January 2015 that ended his college career.
At 6-foot-2, 165 pounds, Weber is a versatile defender who can pressure point guards and even switch onto bigger players without much of an issue.
“He’s super unique defensively,” Spoelstra said of Weber. “He makes plays that you can’t teach and you typically don’t see. That part, he’s already had that and it’s one of the reasons we really liked him.”
If Weber does make the regular-season roster, defense will likely be a big reason as the Heat could use a standout defender as their backup point guard with players like Toronto’s Kyle Lowry, Boston’s Isaiah Thomas, Charlotte’s Kemba Walker and Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving in the Eastern Conference. Players Udrih guarded last season shot 0.8 percent above their normal shooting percentage (43.6 percent).
“I love Bri, man,” Heat guard Dion Waiters said. “He’s high energy and he’s the same person every day. You know what he’s going to bring with his high level intensity and that defense. He’s just a guy who’s going to leave it all out there.”
And even though Weber signed with the Heat in April just before |
71.28% increase from the year prior. As the largest source of foreign-born permanent residents in Bosnia, China is unique from the next top nine sending countries and is the only country situated outside of Europe and the Middle East. Immigrants from China also make up a significant proportion of migrants whose residency permits were revoked in 2016. More interestingly, no Chinese residents in Bosnia have applied for citizenship since 2014. While immigration to Bosnia itself is unremarkable and has been continuous throughout history, the unique characteristic of Chinese immigration calls for deeper analysis.
Current Framework for Discussion
Chinese presence in Bosnia has largely been discussed in terms of the overarching economic relationship between the two countries. Formalized financial cooperation has been in effect since 2012 through the “1+16” Framework, which refers to a number of agreements and mechanisms between the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) and China. An example of this framework in action can be seen with the 350 million euro investment from the China Development Bank to help construct the controversial Stanari Thermal Power Plant located just outside of Banja Luka. A consequence of the transitional state of the economy, Bosnia’s financial instability and growing debt has drawn the attention of Chinese investors.
Bosnia has also implemented the expansion of Chinese tourism throughout its cities. Partnering with Serbia and Hungary, the country also began working on a joint program in early March 2017 to help facilitate Chinese tourism between the Balkan states. In addition to its geographical beauty and rich cultural history, Bosnia, and Sarajevo more specifically, is especially attractive to Chinese tourists given the overwhelming popularity of the 1972 Yugoslav film, Walter Defends Sarajevo. In addition to demonstrating the brotherhood and unity of the Yugoslav people during World War II, the film contains beautiful panoramas of the Sarajevan landscape. Having garnered such continued success with its Chinese audience, a remake of the film is currently in-production by China Star Media and is expected for release in the next few years.
Still Open for Business
Traditional discourse regarding the Chinese in Bosnia has consistently overlooked the presence of economic migrants who have been living in the country since the end of the Bosnian War. As is the case in many other parts of the world, Chinese immigrants can typically be characterized as entrepreneurial migrants, setting up family-run small businesses wherever they choose to settle. It can be easy for many Bosnian natives to take for granted the establishment of Chinese businesses throughout the country; the kineska radnja has already become akin to the general store.
Stepping into one of these kineska radnjas can be slightly disorienting given the incredible magnitude of items for sale. From Bosnian national flags to discount makeup, second-hand clothing to every electronic gadget imaginable, these stores are typically a cross between a pawnshop and a wholesale supplier. However, once you step into one kineska radnja, it is as though you have stepped into every kineska radnja; despite what initially appears to be an eclectic collection, it quickly becomes apparent that each store sells nearly identical goods. “Many of us [Chinese] come from the Zhejiang province. Every couple months, I return to China to pick up goods for my store and others,” said Xiaohui* from Wenzhou. Now in his mid-30s, he had not considered moving to Bosnia until he married his wife whose family had already set up a kineska radnja in Sarajevo in the early 2000s. He inherited his in-laws’ business and has now been running the store for the past six years. “Many Chinese are leaving Bosnia; they go back home [China] or they go to Tržnica Arizona in Bosnia’s Brčko District.” Citing a downturn in the economy and dwindling day-to-day business, Xiaohui worries about the future prospects of living in Bosnia. Despite the fact that his wife is a naturalized citizen, the couple has agreed that if they have children they will be raised in China, not in Bosnia.
Boqin* from Guangzhou, the 20-year-old niece of another kineska radnja owner, provides an additional reason why many Chinese migrants have decided to leave Sarajevo. Unlike her family’s business, other shop owners literally “packed up and left” as a result of accumulated debt owed to the government. She complains, “Many of us do not know how to deal with the taxation laws here. The government does not say anything. The embassy does not say anything. No one here explains any of it to us and then there is the language barrier as well.” The government’s failure to provide sufficient information about taxation policies or how those taxes will be spent has contributed to the mass exodus of kineski radnjas from Sarajevo; in order to avoid liability for enormous debts, many business owners have fled. “It is so peaceful here, but I am only here to work for my uncle. After I make enough money, I want to move back to China to start a family,” says Boqin. While older Chinese migrants find comfort in the peaceful environment and relaxed lifestyle of the region, their younger counterparts are more interested in returning to the bustling cities of urban China.
Grandmother Jun*, originally from Rui’an, has been in Bosnia for over fifteen years. Leaving her children back in China, she and her husband opened up their wholesale shoe store on Safeta Zajke at the turn of the last millennium. “After the war, the price of land was extremely cheap. Everyone from our city began moving over here because of the available opportunities,” says Jun. “I love it here. My son even moved here after he got married and brought my grandson.” When asked if her grandson would go to school in Bosnia, she expressed her preference that he go to a private school and, eventually, to an international college. None of the shopkeepers interviewed expressed an interest to send their children to a government-run public school in Bosnia.
A Better Deal?
The disappearance of the kineska radnja and of Chinese migrants from Bosnia is a bittersweet phenomenon. On one hand, the loss of Chinese general stores means that many consumers have lost access to cheap everyday goods. Issues related to taxation policy transparency and bureaucratic red tape are understood to be some of the primary factors driving out these Chinese businesses. As the country moves forward, the famous outlet malls comprised of kineska radnjas, such as that of the early 2000s on Safeta Zajke, exist only in memory. The ongoing emigration of the Chinese from Bosnia calls into question whether or not a “Chinatown” could ever be established in a similar fashion to those in her neighboring countries of Croatia and Serbia. On the other hand, the dwindling flow of Chinese migrants also has a silver lining. As the Bosnian economy continues to mature, larger corporations recognize the country’s investment potential. According to Jun, the establishment of private malls and businesses, like the BBI Center and the Sarajevo City Center, are responsible for the closure of many kineska radnjas. Reduced tariff rates for large imports of goods favors large corporations as opposed family-run, small businesses. However, the entry of the former allows consumers to purchase higher quality goods and represents the continued integration of Bosnia into the international market.
“My friends have all left, but I won’t leave,” emphasizes Jun. “I visit China during the holidays, yet I always return to Sarajevo. This is my home. This is my family’s home.”
*Names have been changed in order to protect the privacy of interviewed kineski radnja owners.
**Cover Photo: Hunter ZhaoDallas Cowboys lineman including tackle Tyron Smith (77), offensive guard La'el Collins (71), center Travis Frederick (72) and guard Zack Martin (70) huddle up in the first half against the New York Jets at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, Saturday, December 19, 2015.(Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News)
The Dallas Cowboys and "best offensive line" have been synonymous with one another the past few seasons. It's a claim that's no longer a hot take because it's mentioned so often.
But why are they considered to be the best in the NFL? Pro Football Focus' Mike Renner tried to figure that out recently. Here's what he came up with:
"It's a unit that blocked for castoff running backs and quarterbacks the majority of last season, yet still came away as PFF's highest-graded pass-blocking and run-blocking line," Renner said. "Unlike some recent top offensive lines -- like the 2012 San Francisco 49ers and the 2013 Philadelphia Eagles -- the Cowboys aren't doing it with anything innovative or different. They simply execute far better than any other team in the league."
Renner said having players like Tyron Smith and Travis Frederick help.
"It starts with not having any weaknesses along the offensive line," he said. "La'el Collins was their lowest-graded starter, and he still ranked only 43rd out of 66 starting guards last season. They combine that high floor with freakish top-tier talent. Everyone knows about left tackle Tyron Smith's dominance. Our highest-graded tackle last season, he can move like a tight end."
He also said that he made a realization about the Cowboys by looking at their line.
"The more I reviewed the Cowboys' 2015 performance, the more I understood why they were willing to eschew conventional wisdom by taking a running back -- Ohio State's Ezekiel Elliott -- in the top five of the draft. They gave their backs a clean run to the safety-level far too often to only average 4.7 yards per carry as a team. Getting a running back who combines vision with elusiveness and power will be a huge boon for the Cowboys' offense. The scary thing is that, with four starters at 25 years of age or younger, the unit could realistically be even better in 2016."
To view Renner's full article, as well as him breaking down the Cowboys' favorite two running plays, click here.Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
Every time we talk to a Hillary Clinton backer about our support for a third party candidate we get the same response: “That’s immoral! A vote for anyone other than Hillary is a vote for Donald Trump!”
Their argument is essentially that Trump is worse than Clinton, so if Hillary Clinton loses, third party voters are morally responsible for all the harm that will come as a result of a Trump presidency. We understand their fear of Trump, but Clinton supporters, like Ryan Stanton in his article “The Morality of Third Party Voting,” are presenting a simplistic and narrow view of the role of voting in the political process. From both a principled and consequentialist perspective, voting for third party candidates, like Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, is morally acceptable.
The Principled Case For Voting Third Party
Unless a politician acts in a way that is inconsistent with the information available to the voter when they casted their vote, voting for a politician implicates you in any harmful policy enacted by that politician. This is because political figures derive their legitimate power from the consent and votes of the people. If, for example, a politician receives 10 votes, then those 10 voters are equally culpable for the damage caused by the policies they supported. Whether a vote is cast out of ardent support or to support the lesser of two evils, it sanctions and lends a mandate to harmful politics all the same. Clinton’s hawkishness in foreign policy is well-documented. For those who prefer not to enable foreign coups, assassinations, and wars, it is perfectly moral to abstain from voting for Clinton.
The only people responsible for a candidate achieving office are the people who voted for that candidate. When Clinton supporters complain that third party voters are handing the election to Trump, the underlying argument is that we are morally responsible for events we could have prevented. This is a baseless principle if you take it to its logical end by examining its ramifications in our everyday lives. The average american spends roughly $1,000 dollars a year on coffee. The cost of reducing our coffee intake would have no severe impact on our lives, but 1250 children could have been dewormed with that $1000. Are we morally responsible for the suffering of those children because we had the means to prevent it? Those who hold third party voters responsible for the outcome of the election would have to say that we are simply because we choose to spend our money on coffee instead of charity.
The Super PAC supporting Clinton, Priorities USA Action, is launching a multi-million dollar digital campaign to scare third party voters into supporting Clinton. Other progressive bigwigs like Elizabeth Warren, Al Gore, and Bernie Sanders, are attempting to shame third party voters as well. When these groups argue that we should vote for the best candidate that has a “chance,” they implicitly claim that when an individual votes they should take into account the expected behavior of the rest of the electorate. By that very same logic, PACs and the Democratic establishment were wrong to support Clinton in the primaries. Whether or not criticisms of Clinton have merit, her current 42/56 favorability split is the lowest of any Democratic nominee in history. The public’s perception of her was well known prior to the primary. If Hillary’s camp wants to put the onus of collective outcomes on those who want to voice their beliefs, they should look in the mirror first. The Democratic establishment should have taken their own advice and accounted for group behavior and collective outcomes by not nominating a candidate that can’t even beat Donald Trump.
The Consequentialist Case for Voting Third Party
The principled reasons for voting third party are not enough for many. They believe that voting for a third party candidate is never acceptable because of the risk that doing so will swing the election to Trump. This argument simply isn’t persuasive because the statistical probability of a single vote making a difference is so low.
According to Nate Silver, Andrew Gelman, and Aaron Edlin, in 2008 a vote in the closest tossup states had a one in 10 million chance of deciding the election. This year, because of the relative unpredictability of the election due to the high number of undecided voters and the tightening of the race, the probability of your voting making a difference is likely larger, but still infinitesimally small. For a bit of perspective, you are many times more likely to be hit by lightning this year, a one in a million chance, than cast the deciding vote in an election even if the election is essentially a tossup.
Honestly, if the election is a tossup we can understand grudgingly voting for Clinton or Trump as opposed to a preferred third party candidate. It may give you some peace of mind. One of us may even end up doing so. But the fact that there is one world in which your vote could swing the election does not mean that you should always refuse to vote third party.
It’s very easy to tell if the election will be close or not. Using statistical analysis, pollsters can accurately predict the likelihood of a Trump or Clinton victory. Websites like FiveThirtyEight’s election forecast can tell us the probability of a victory for either side on election day. Cast your vote for Hillary if the election is a tossup, we understand that decision. But if the race is clearly going to be a blowout, according to professionals, you should vote for a third party candidate since your vote won’t make a difference to the two major candidates.
While your vote almost certainly will not matter in determining the outcome of this election, it could still make a huge difference for third parties. Every vote counts for the Libertarians and Greens. While third parties won’t win in 2016, crossing certain vote thresholds can empower them in future elections and enable them to increase the influence of their ideas.
The biggest threshold for third parties is the national 5% threshold. If a party crosses 5% in the national vote they will be given access to federal public funds during the next election. These funds would massively boost the power of third party candidates to raise their name recognition and get out the vote. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein have struggled in recent weeks chiefly because they don’t have the money to raise their name recognition above 50%.
Crossing thresholds in a few states will also massively benefit future candidates by giving them automatic ballot access. Currently third party candidates must collect signatures to get on the ballot in most states, an expensive and time consuming process that the two major parties rarely have to go through. If the Libertarian and Green Parties can gain automatic ballot access they’ll be able to free up substantial resources to contest elections that they would otherwise use on ballot access.
But let’s be realistic, unless there’s a major shock to the system, the Greens and Libertarians aren’t going to start winning elections any time soon. That’s alright though. When third parties historically have success the major parties don’t just wait around to get beaten. They take action to neutralize the threat. The major parties end up co-opting many of the major planks of the rising third parties in order to steal back voters. For instance, at the beginning of the 1990s both Republicans and Democrats were solidly pro-free trade. But after the success of Ross Perot in the mid-90s both parties began co-opting his protectionist rhetoric because of its widespread popularity. The success of the Reform Party actually helped create the relatively anti-free-trade stances of the major parties that we see today.
If you support the major issues that the Libertarian and Green Parties care about, voting for them is the best way to force the major parties to take your ideas seriously. A vote for a third party can help keep the major parties accountable and make them evolve to meet the changing desires of the electorate. Anti-incarceration Republicans can vote for Gary Johnson to send a message to the GOP and anti-corporate democrats can vote for Jill Stein to send a message to the Democrats.
Voting for a third party candidate is not immoral. If you believe that the Gary Johnson or Jill Stein have ideas worth fighting for you shouldn’t feel guilty about casting your ballot for them. Clinton supporters are attempting to shame third party voters using flawed arguments.
We realize it may seem easy to justify an appeal to third party supporters to vote for a major party if you look just at the next four years ahead of us, but the damage from consistently voting for the lesser of two evils is adding up. It’s how we got stuck with a disappointing choice between Trump and Clinton in the first place. Getting rid of the stigma surrounding voting for the third parties is absolutely essential to keeping our politicians accountable in the coming years.
Image courtesy of Getty Images.Game Director Paul Rustchynsky reveals what the team has been working on
Hi everyone. Following Shuhei’s message yesterday, I’m here give to you an update on DRIVECLUB direct from Evolution Studios. I’m proud to be leading the extremely talented and hard-working development team here at Evolution. As gamers first and foremost, we are determined to deliver the game we promised to the quality we know you expect.
We appreciate all of your support – it’s motivating and humbling for us to have such a vocal and supportive community. Your messages drive us to do everything we can to live up to our original ambition of making DRIVECLUB the game that invigorates the racing genre again.
Your great support deserves us to be open with you. I know we have been quiet for a while since we made the decision to delay the game, so I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know exactly why the team felt that DRIVECLUB needed more development. We wanted to make sure we got one important feature right.
The dynamic menu is key to how much fun you’re going to get out of the game because it is the glue that connects you to everyone else in the DRIVECLUB community. Whenever you fire up the game; between every race you play, and when you log in to DRIVECLUB on your phone or tablet, the dynamic menu has to be slick to ensure your experience is seamlessly connected. Essentially it’s where you discover what to play, and who to play with.
It’s also absolutely vital to our ambition of growing a vibrant network of millions of connected clubs, who all share the excitement of driving amazing cars together. Whether they play just to have fun, or to complete every challenge and beat their rivals in every race, it’s this connected community who will keep the game fresh and enjoyable well after launch, so it makes sense for the connectivity to be perfect.
No racing title has ever combined the development of a socially charged, multi-platform dynamic menu with all the other connected online elements that DRIVECLUB delivers. We know that what we are creating here is hugely ambitious and we’re proud of the fact that we’re getting close now because we’re a relatively small studio. The progress we’re making is great, so I’m looking forward to showing you more as development continues and prove that all the hard work has been worth it.
While that work goes on, the rest of the team here is relentless when it comes to exploiting the power and confidence of the PS4, so we’re also raising the bar even higher across other aspects of the game including:
Visuals – We’re constantly improving how stunning the game looks as we continue to optimise visuals and find new ways of pushing the PS4. You can see for yourself how it looks right now in the latest video we shared yesterday because all the footage was captured on PS4 from the game. It’ll look even better in October.
– We’re constantly improving how stunning the game looks as we continue to optimise visuals and find new ways of pushing the PS4. You can see for yourself how it looks right now in the latest video we shared yesterday because all the footage was captured on PS4 from the game. It’ll look even better in October. Audio – It’s absolutely state of the art. We’re continuing to refine the authentic sounds that we have for each and every car in the game and we’re going to put together videos that focus on this.
– It’s absolutely state of the art. We’re continuing to refine the authentic sounds that we have for each and every car in the game and we’re going to put together videos that focus on this. Driving – It already feels great to play and we’re continuing to add further layers to the physics to make it both more accessible for everybody and more sophisticated for experienced racers.
– It already feels great to play and we’re continuing to add further layers to the physics to make it both more accessible for everybody and more sophisticated for experienced racers. Clubs – We’re making it easier for you to keep up to speed with what’s going on in your club as part of the rework on the dynamic menus. We’ve also tweaked clubs to support up to 6 players instead of 12 (because the game is more fun with tightly-knit clubs and it paves the way for awesome 6 on 6 club races).
– We’re making it easier for you to keep up to speed with what’s going on in your club as part of the rework on the dynamic menus. We’ve also tweaked clubs to support up to 6 players instead of 12 (because the game is more fun with tightly-knit clubs and it paves the way for awesome 6 on 6 club races). Tour – The difficulty curve for the campaign mode is becoming even smoother as we continue to optimise the vehicle handling and also refine the game’s AI for non-player racers.
– The difficulty curve for the campaign mode is becoming even smoother as we continue to optimise the vehicle handling and also refine the game’s AI for non-player racers. Cars & Tracks – More time means more staggeringly detailed cars and exciting tracks too. If you haven’t already, check out the Ferrari in the video released yesterday. There are loads more exciting cars for us to reveal in the coming months.
I’d also like to confirm that the PS Plus Edition of the game will be available on the same day as the full release. Offering a selection of cars and tracks from the complete version, we think it’s the perfect way for those new to the genre to get an idea of what the full DRIVECLUB experience is all about. Look out for more details on the PS Plus Edition very soon.
Thanks again to everybody for your continued support; it really is a huge source of inspiration for the team. We appreciate that there’s a lot of anticipation and excitement for everything that DRIVECLUB promises to be, so we hope that you understand why we won’t compromise on quality to rush it to you.
It’s been a long and hard winter but it’s great that we can finally start sharing updates with you again about all of the cool things that DRIVECLUB does. We don’t anticipate another quiet period for a while so you can expect to see plenty more from us in the coming weeks leading up to E3 2014!
More soon™,
The DRIVECLUB team.The white trucks of humanitarian aid rumbled through Russia in a convoy stretching for miles, moving slowly southwards on the M4 highway, amid a landscape of fertile fields and Ladas stopped at the roadside – their boots overflowing with watermelons for sale.
But, while the trucks came to a halt well short of Ukraine's border, a different Russian convoy did make the crossing into Ukrainian territory late on Thursday evening.
The Guardian saw a column of 23 armoured personnel carriers, supported by fuel trucks and other logistics vehicles with official Russian military plates, travelling towards the border near the Russian town of Donetsk – about 200km away from Donetsk, Ukraine.
Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) So @RolandOliphant and I just saw a column of APCs and vehicles with official Russian military plates cross border into Ukraine.
After pausing by the side of the road until nightfall, the convoy crossed into Ukrainian territory, using a rough dirt track and clearly crossing through a gap in a barbed wire fence that demarcates the border. Armed men were visible in the gloom by the border fence as the column moved into Ukraine. Kiev has lost control of its side of the border in this area.
The trucks are unlikely to represent a full-scale official Russian invasion, and it was unclear how far they planned to travel inside Ukrainian territory and how long they would stay. But it was incontrovertible evidence of what Ukraine has long claimed – that Russian troops are active inside its borders.
It was also ironic given the attention to the huge convoy of humanitarian aid that moved slowly southwards on the M4 highway on Thursday. As the convoy moved closer to the stretch of border controlled by pro-Russian rebels it was hard to escape the feeling that Moscow's aid convoy had the potential to turn into a slow-motion disaster, perhaps even prompting a moment that could push Ukraine and Russia out of the messy conflict fought by proxies into full-blown, open engagement.
According to Moscow, the convoy is a goodwill gesture, packed with much-needed aid for the residents of eastern Ukraine. In Kiev's view, the convoy is at best a cynical ploy; at worst, a kind of Trojan centipede, winding its way into the country at a border point no longer controlled by Ukrainian forces, the nature of its cargo taken only on trust.
The humanitarian convoy stalled for 24 hours in the city of Voronezh during Wednesday, but set out at dawn on Thursday.
At one point, with President Vladimir Putin more than two hours late to address a gathering of top Russian officials in newly annexed Crimea, and the first lorries in the convoy taking the turnoff from the main M4 highway towards rebel-controlled Luhansk in Ukraine, there were whispers that perhaps Putin's announcement was being delayed to announce that the trucks would enter Ukraine whether or not the country's authorities gave the green light, a move Kiev has said would be seen as an invasion.
The aid convoy on the road in Russia. Photograph: Itar-Tass/Corbis
In the end, the convoy ground to a halt shortly after the turnoff, still about 20 miles from the border and, over a period of two hours, the vehicles parked in neat lines, throwing up clouds of dust.
Russia's foreign ministry has said there are 262 vehicles in the convoy, including 200 carrying aid. Some of the drivers put the number at 270. Already, the start of a field camp had been erected on the site, with a dozen large tents and a shower area where the men could wash off the grime and sweat of the long journey.
The trucks could be stacked with weapons, some said. Others claimed they could be carrying advance supplies for a later Russian invasion using the ground troops that have hovered in border areas. There was also a suggestion that the circus around the mysterious convoy could distract attention from other Russian moves, a fear apparently justified given the military column that crossed the borderon Thursday night.
The hundreds of men driving the trucks in the convoy were all dressed in identical khaki T-shirts, shorts and caps, and there was certainly something military about their bearing.
For some observers, the large convoy moving with obvious top-level coordination and accompanied by numerous vehicles with official Russian military plates brought back memories of the "little green men" involved in the annexation of Crimea back in March. Wearing green uniforms without insignia, those men claimed to be local volunteers, although they were clearly highly trained Russian special operatives. Despite denying their presence all through the annexation, Putin later admitted that Russian military units had been involved.
Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) Spent a couple of hours with the Russian convoy which has stopped, possibly for some time. Field camp being set up pic.twitter.com/UN1NTJSsbX
But, with their easy manner, lack of discipline and in some cases physiques that hinted more at beer halls than special forces training grounds, the "little brown men" of the aid convoy are clearly not the highly trained elite troops used in the annexation of Crimea.
In general, the men did not want to speak about who they were or how they had come to be involved in the convoy. One said he was a volunteer from a non-governmental organisation, but clammed up when asked for the name of the organisation.
"I'm being paid to do a job here, not to stand around talking to journalists," he said when pressed, and then looked sheepish when reminded he had just claimed to be an unpaid volunteer.
Others said they were military veterans but claimed not to be serving currently. It is possible the convoy was assembled using the semi-official method Russia has used to find volunteers to fight for rebel separatists in eastern Ukraine – phone calls from military veterans' organisations offering work.
Those at the site were dismissive of fears in Ukraine that the convoy may be carrying secret military cargo. Two of the men in brown, who would not give their names but said they were "in charge of the cargo", offered to open any of the trucks picked at random and show what was inside. Men scrambled to untie the cords securing the tarpaulin on two of the trucks chosen by the Guardian and other journalists at the site.
Inside one were white sacks filled with buckwheat, while the other contained stacked cardboard boxes. Three men pulled the tape from one of the boxes to reveal newly packed sleeping bags. As the tarpaulin was pulled away, the original military green of the trucks was revealed; their exteriors apparently only recently painted white.
Nobody would say how long they planned to be there: a few hours or several days. Neither was it clear whether a decision had been taken in Moscow to move only with approval from the International Committee of the Red Cross, or whether a decision would be made to move ahead regardless, if diplomatic wrangling takes too long.
Map of Russian convoy to Ukraine.
A lone car with diplomatic plates and Red Cross insignia arrived at the location of the convoy on Thursday afternoon. Two men inside confirmed they were Red Cross officials based in Moscow but refused to give any further information about whether they had travelled with the convoy, what plans there were for inspection, or whether more representatives were on the way. On Thursday evening, the organisation tweeted that "initial contact" with the convoy had been made, and there were "many practical details to be clarified".
The trucks do indeed appear to contain humanitarian aid, and there is undoubtedly a grim situation in major towns in eastern Ukraine, as thousands don't have water and electricity, and are sheltering in basements to avoid shelling. Nevertheless, Kiev's concern about the convoy, with its thinly disguised military undertones, is understandable. Two military helicopters accompanied the convoy south, and flew just a few dozen metres from the ground as it came to a halt. The head and tail of the convoy included a number of vehicles with official Russian military plates.
Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) Two helicopters accompanying the convoy, flying extremely low. Now sat in the fields alongside pic.twitter.com/yYTr7Vhp8C
Separately, there were several military transporters loaded with artillery and tanks visible on the main M4 road during the day. Locals say the sightings have been ever more frequent in recent months, with Ukraine accusing Moscow of shelling its territory from inside Russia, and transporting heavy weaponry across the border, including perhaps the BUK missile system which is believed to have been used to shoot down a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet last month.
The armoured column seen by the Guardian appeared to be further evidence of Russia's incursions, which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.Dear Friends and Colleagues,
As the dust settles on this week’s election, it is important for the bleeding disorders community to look forward, accept the challenges and opportunities that are ahead, and recognize our strength and past success in advocacy. Healthcare will continue to be an active issue in Washington, DC, and we count on you to engage with NHF in advocacy efforts on behalf of our community.
Here’s what we know about President-Elect Trump’s health policy platform: He has pledged to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but details of how this would be done are not clear. He has also supported changing Medicaid to give states a set sum of money and more flexibility about how to administer their programs. The few other health policy issues Trump campaigned on were allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines and lowering drug costs by allowing drugs to be imported from other countries.
Congressional Outlook: Any ACA policy changes will require cooperation and action by Congress, which in 2017 will look much like it did this year. As of today, the House will be composed of 239 Republicans and 193 Democrats; the Senate will have 51 Republicans and 48 Democrats (the Louisiana Senate race is still not settled). The close margin in the Senate will require legislation to be bipartisan, since 60 votes will be needed to end a filibuster and advance any bill there.
This all means that a wholesale repeal of every provision of the ACA is very unlikely, though significant changes will be considered. NHF actively advocated for the many patient protections that were included in ACA: the removal of lifetime and annual caps in insurance policies, and prohibition of pre-existing conditions exclusions. Based on Congressional support for these provisions, these protections that have greatly benefitted our community will likely stand.
The Strength of the Bleeding Disorders Community Endures. Our most important message is a reminder that our community has successfully advocated for issues of importance with both Democratic and Republican administrations, and we have champions on both sides of the aisle. NHF’s public policy team and chapters will continue their advocacy work for the community. But, we need you too! Join NHF for its Washington Days advocacy event on March 8-10, 2017. We will be releasing more information about registration and our Washington Days priorities in coming weeks.
Our community is composed of the strongest, most dedicated people and advocates around. We feel confident in our ability to meet any challenges working together.
Val Bias
Chief Executive Officer
National Hemophilia FoundationBobby Custer is in prison. He, in his words, had a "minor dalliance with a trust fund." He has lost his job, his license to practice law, his wife, his reputation, and his freedom. He has served four years of a seven year sentence when two FBI agents visit him in jail. They offer him a get-out-of-jail-free card under certain conditions and they demand an answer immediately. Bobby thinks of three more years and answers yes. He is transferred to a halfway house that very night, where he is to spend the next sixty day learning how to reintegrate into society. Then he is instructed to apply for an entry level job at the law firm of Denton, Allan, Sawyer, & Hinz, where he will be hired. He will be required to report back to the two agents. All goes as planned and Bobby is hired to drive witnesses to depositions and back home.
Bobby seems like a sympathetic character, at first, though he is a little free and loose on petty crime. But he is trying to make a new start and we should cut him a little slack, right? Uh, no. It seems, if you give Bobby an inch, he takes a mile. And he's always thinking, thinking about Bobby, that is. How he can turn everything to his advantage. And turn things he does. It's like watching a trainwreck! You can't turn the pages fast enough. It's an insanely fascinating story. That's the good stuff. The bad stuff is it ends in a cliff hanger. This didn't bother me too much because book two is free on Kindle Unlimited and I have Kindle Unlimited. You have to decide how you feel about it.
I loved the book and have already borrowed the second book. It's an exciting, entertaining story. I highly recommend it but it's up to you. And it's not just two books, I think it's four. You think about it. I'm going to be reading.Who owns How?
No, that’s not a line from a Dr. Seuss book or an Abbott and Costello routine.
It’s the question at the center of a bitter legal battle pitting a best-selling author and management guru against America’s largest Greek yogurt manufacturer.
The author, Dov Seidman, is in the business of helping companies create more ethical cultures. He has distilled that business to a single three-letter word: how. President Bill Clinton wrote the foreword to his book, “How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything.” (“This is a HOW book, not a how-to book,” it begins.)
Enter the yogurt maker, Chobani. Founded in 2005 by a Turkish immigrant who was turned off by the runny texture of American yogurt, Chobani recently got into the “How” business, too. The company is in the midst of an ambitious brand campaign intended to highlight the quality of its yogurt and the way it is made, including a straining process that makes it extra dense. It is built around the phrase “How Matters.”
To Mr. Seidman, who also uses “How Matters” in some of his materials, the campaign represents a frontal assault on the brand that his company, LRN, has spent 10 years building. Chobani has stolen his “How,” he says, and he wants it back. He is suing the company and its advertising agency, Droga5, asking a court to order Chobani to halt the campaign because it represents an infringement on his trademark for the word how.DENVER — Javier |
Hitler’s private secretary and replaced Hess as controller of his inner circle. Guilty on two charges, sentenced to death in absentia. Wilhelm Keitel. Commander of the Wehrmacht (army). Guilty on four charges, sentenced to death.
. Commander of the Wehrmacht (army). Guilty on four charges, sentenced to death. Karl Donitz. Head of the German navy. Guilty on two charges, sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.
The 12 men sentenced to death – except for the missing Bormann and Goering, who had suicided the night before – were executed on October 16th 1946. Although firing squads are usually employed for military executions, the IMT chose to hang the Nuremberg convicts, believing it more appropriate for their criminal conduct. Two American soldiers were selected to carry out the hangings, which took place in the gymnasium of the Nuremberg prison. Many of the hangings were carried out with short rope that caused prisoners to die a long, lingering death from suffocation, rather than an instantaneous death from a broken neck. Afterwards, their bodies were shipped to Munich and incinerated at Dachau, the site of many Nazi atrocities. The ashes were scattered over the River Isar. The seven Nazis given prison sentences were shipped to Spandau Prison in Berlin. This prison was run by the British, French, Americans and Russians in alternating three-month shifts, for the next 40 years. By 1966 there was only one remaining prisoner: Rudolf Hess. He was Spandau’s only inmate for 21 years, until his death in 1987, aged 91. Spandau was immediately bulldozed after Hess’ death, to prevent it becoming a shrine for neo-Nazis. The site is now occupied by an ALDI store.
1. The Allies were considering what to do with Nazi leader and war criminals post-war, as early as 1943.
2. They established war crimes tribunals in Nuremberg, the ceremonial home of the Nazi Party.
3. Trial procedures were set down in the London Charter, with the four Allied nations taking a lead role.
4. The tribunals utilised procedures from Western legal systems and heard a range of evidence.
5. In the main trial, 24 leading Nazis were tried, 18 found guilty and 12 sentenced to death.If you have ever been to or traveled through Arnolds Park, Iowa, chances are you have seen or at least heard of Mrs. Lady’s Mexican Food. Known for it’s large portions and low prices, this family-owned, cash-only restaurant has become a staple for those living in Dickinson County.
Carole Hinders has made an honest living owning and operating Mrs. Lady’s for the last 38 years. But in August of 2013, everything she saved–roughly $33,000–was seized by the Internal Revenue Service. Hinders has not been charged for tax evasion, or money laundering–in fact, one year later, she still has not been charged for any crime at all. The IRS claims her bank account was seized solely because she was depositing less than $10,000 at a time. Last time I checked, making small cash deposits into a personal checking account is not a crime.
According to the New York Times, the IRS seized Hinders’ honest living by enforcing an “increasingly controversial” law known as civil asset forfeiture. This law allows property to be seized if it is suspected of being connected to criminal activity. The problem is, law enforcement is not required to explain what the criminal activity is, much less prove that the person is guilty of such activity.
Under current law, law enforcement agencies may take property suspected of involvement in crime without ever charging, let alone convicting, the property owner. In addition, state agencies routinely use federal asset forfeiture laws; ignoring state regulations to confiscate and receive financial proceeds from forfeited property.
The government should never be able to take property from innocent Americans. That is a blatant violation of our Fifth Amendment rights. Clark Neily of the Institute for Justice put it best: “A dismaying combination of perverse incentives, unfair laws, and lack of oversight makes civil forfeiture one of the most dangerous and blatantly unconstitutional policies America has ever seen.”
When I took office, I swore to uphold the Constitution and protect our Bill of Rights. This is why I have introduced the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (FAIR) Act, which would protect the rights of citizens and restore the Fifth Amendment’s role in seizing property without due process of law.
The FAIR Act would change federal law and protect the rights of property owners by requiring that the government prove its case with clear and convincing evidence before forfeiting seized property–so that honest, hard-working Americans like Carole Hinders are not left broke or trapped with debt.
Under the FAIR Act, state law enforcement agencies will have to abide by state law when forfeiting seized property. Finally, the legislation would remove the profit incentive for forfeiture by redirecting forfeitures assets from the Attorney General’s Asset Forfeiture Fund to the Treasury’s General Fund.
The federal government has made it far too easy for government agencies to take and profit from the property of those who have not been convicted of a crime. The FAIR Act will ensure that government agencies no longer profit from taking the property of U.S. citizens without due process, while maintaining the ability of courts to order the surrender of proceeds of crime.
I will continue to do all I can to protect the rights of Americans and ensure that their Fifth Amendment rights are no longer infringed upon.Last week, researchers expanded the size of the mouse brain by giving rodents a piece of human DNA. Now another team has topped that feat, pinpointing a human gene that not only grows the mouse brain but also gives it the distinctive folds found in primate brains. The work suggests that scientists are finally beginning to unravel some of the evolutionary steps that boosted the cognitive powers of our species.
“This study represents a major milestone in our understanding of the developmental emergence of human uniqueness,” says Victor Borrell Franco, a neurobiologist at the Institute of Neurosciences in Alicante, Spain, who was not involved with the work.
The new study began when Wieland Huttner, a developmental neurobiologist at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, and his colleagues started closely examining aborted human fetal tissue and embryonic mice. “We specifically wanted to figure out which genes are active during the development of the cortex, the part of the brain that is greatly expanded in humans and other primates compared to rodents,” says Marta Florio, the Huttner graduate student who carried out the main part of the work.
That was harder than it sounded. Building a cortex requires several kinds of starting cells, or stem cells. The stem cells divide and sometimes specialize into other types of “intermediate” stem cells that in turn divide and form the neurons that make up brain tissue. To learn what genes are active in the two species, the team first had to develop a way to separate out the various types of cortical stem cells.
After months of work, the researchers finally hit upon a solution. They added distinctive fluorescent tags to stem cells so they could isolate each type of cortical cell. Then they surveyed the active genes in each variety of stem cell. The human tissue had 56 genes that their mouse counterparts lacked, the team found. The one that was the most active in dividing human fetal stem cells was ARHGAP11B, a gene already under suspicion for aiding human evolution.
Several years ago, another group had discovered that this gene had arisen after an ancestral gene made an incomplete copy of itself. Because humans had the additional version whereas chimps did not, they concluded that the duplication occurred after the human and chimp lineages split off. Neither mice nor chimps have ARHGAP11B, but modern humans and their ancient relatives, the Denisovans and Neandertals, do. “That it was a human-specific gene duplication made it very exciting,” Huttner says.
After their genetic comparison of human and mice highlighted the same gene, he and his colleagues decided to put ARHGAP11B into developing mice. The number of cortex stem cells nearly doubled in the animals, and their brains sometimes developed folds, the researchers report online today in Science. The folds are not seen in mice but are found in primates. The researchers further discovered that the inserted gene causes some of the mouse’s early brain stem cells to make more intermediate stem cells than the animals usually have. In addition, those intermediates divided more frequently than normal before beginning to convert into neurons. These various effects ultimately increased the size of the mouse brain.
The result “emphasizes the likelihood that this gene was indeed important during mammalian evolution for the design of a new brain, bigger and more complex,” Borrell Franco says. Most likely, he adds there are more genes that are also involved in this design waiting to be discovered.The Canadian public has responded to the Syrian refugee crisis with an outpouring of generosity, offering money and time at a rate that has left the country's often-neglected settlement workers feeling grateful but also overwhelmed.
The Canadian Council for Refugees is meeting in Hamilton for its twice-yearly national meeting, and the impending arrival of 25,000 Syrians dominated conversations, injecting a giddy, anxious energy to the event.
"I feel like I'm clinging to the edge of a runaway train," said Louisa Taylor, director of the Ottawa-based non-profit Refugee 613, at a workshop in the Sheraton hotel here. The Canadian Council of Refugees is an umbrella organization whose membership is made up of groups that help refugees and immigrants.
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Those who support the refugee influx are putting their money – and often their household appliances and second-hand clothes – where their mouths are. Ms. Taylor said that organizations across the country were receiving more donations than they knew what to do with.
"It's insane," Ms. Taylor said later. "Canadians are so mobilized, every single agency in this room is inundated with offers of help."
Sometimes the groundswell has created more problems than it solves, keeping settlement workers at bare-bones organizations busy answering e-mails and sorting through fresh donations.
"These agencies are not set up to have armies of volunteers," she added.
Calling it a "good problem," Ms. Taylor urged people to give cash rather than goods to refugee settlement groups, many of which lack the staff or money to funnel goods to Syrians.
Many at the conference emphasized that they didn't want the public to stop volunteering and donating, only that they should do so in a targeted way.
"The public should not be told to calm down," Ms. Taylor told a workshop on the Syrian refugees, urging her colleagues to capitalize on the new wave of sympathy for immigrants.
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But there was a palpable ambivalence about the sudden public interest among those who have been working for years and sometimes decades on refugees.
"These folks have worked on a topic that's been ignored at best and maligned at worst for years, and suddenly the country cares about what they're doing," Ms. Taylor said. "In addition to having this inundation of refugees, they're having an inundation of Canadians."
Others complained that the interest in Syrian refugees was disproportionate, relative to other refugee groups who are also imperilled and vulnerable.
"My feeling is that the Syrians are overshadowing everyone else," said Paul St. Clair, an immigration counsellor at the Toronto-based settlement group CultureLink who specializes in Roma people fleeing Hungary. "They are the sexy ones. It's like, 'I wanna talk to my neighbours and say I have Syrians here.'"
Mr. St. Clair volunteers with Toronto's Catholic archdiocese and says that when people are told that the church's Syrian refugees are accounted for, but there remain Iraqis who need help, the prospective donors lose interest.
"We hope it'll mean a greater interest in refugees, ongoing, and that it's not just the Syrians," he said.
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This wave of public enthusiasm for helping refugees is bigger than anything since the arrival of the Vietnamese boat people in the late 1970s, said Rob Shropshire, a refugee co-ordinator for the Presbyterian World Service & Development.
A sponsorship agreement holder, the church is trying to link sponsors with refugees, but has more generous Canadians lined up than needy Syrians.
"We have a bit of a queue," he said. "People have to be prepared to be patient."
Smiling, but looking slightly harried, Mr. Shropshire said his organization is just managing to keep up with the tide of new work.
"Our noses are at the waterline," he said.
But as he paced toward a lunch meeting, Mr. Shropshire said he was looking forward to another refugee surge.
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"25,000 should just be a start," he said.Just when I thought my personal record uptime of 160 days on a MacBook server was exciting, one of our readers blew my uptime away… by almost a year!
Seriously, Stephan Burlot‘s personal record uptime? A staggering 454 days with his iBook. Apparently the iBook monitors his homes electrical usage and runs Mac OS X 10.4.11, and so there is rarely a need to reboot the machine, and it basically never gets turned off. Stable, reliable, trouble free. How awesome is that?
If you didn’t know, uptime is just a measure of how long your computer has been running without a system reboot. A long system uptime is a geeky badge of honor of sorts, and obviously a nice sign of system stability. You can check your Mac uptime by typing ‘uptime’ into the Terminal. I’ve had some pretty impressive uptimes on Macs and Linux machines before, but at the moment this current Mac being typed on is at just 24 days… not bad, but certainly not into the hundreds or over a year! Obviously, stable servers will have longer uptimes than personal machines, so your mileage may vary. Anyway, just kind of fun geeky stuff.
Oh and if you have a whopper uptime, do share it with us in the comments. Or even if it’s not that impressive, it can still be worth sharing.In Eye Mario, the latest creation by Waterloo Labs, players can control a Nintendo game using only eye movement. The system, created using NI Multisim, Single-Board RIO and LabVIEW replaces the traditional Nintendo controller with a system that interprets eye movement as a means for controlling motion within Nintendo.
The system relies initially on the polarization of the human eye; depending on the direction of eye movement, small positive or negative voltages are generated. These voltages are then used to determine the direction of eye movement as a means to control motion.
The problem that the engineers at Waterloo Labs faced was that these voltage signals are extremely small. They needed a way to amplify (and then filter) these signals captured using the electrodes before they reached the Single-Board RIO (sbRIO), an OEM-ready board containing a real-time processor, Xilinx FPGA and 8 digital I/O lines, for further signal processing. To do this, the engineers at Waterloo Labs created a Human-to-Nintendo interface (a custom daughter card creation for the sbRIO) using NI Multisim to design and simulate the filter and amplifier circuitry. The design was then transferred to Ultiboard where the layout and routing was completed using the sbRIO Daughter Board Reference Design as their starting template, which includes pre-defined connectors and layouts to speed up the design process. You can read more about the Eye Mario system here.
This first video describes the system and demonstrates how it works. Very cool!
Click here to view the Video on Youtube
This next video describes the creation of the custom daughter card, which snaps on top of the sbRIO, allowing the filtering and amplification of the signals acquired by the electrodes. In addition to the sbRIO Daughter Board Reference Designs, you will also find sbRIO (as well as cRIO) connectors in the Multisim 11 database.
Click here to view the video on YouTube
To learn more about how the system communicates with Nintendo, check out the article Nintendo Communication in the "eyeMario" Video. Additionally, Waterloo Labs has posted their LabVIEW source code online for those of you who want to try it out for yourselves!
Learn more about Multisim
Learn more about LabVIEW
Learn more about Single-Board RIO (sbRIO)Until the Arts faculty showed up on Waterloo campus in the fall of 1960, there were almost zero females. In order to find dates for dances and social gatherings, the engineers often went to various nursing schools in the area.
Here is a nice little article about the expectations of the students in the summer before the Arts faculty arrived.
“University Expects More Co-eds in Fall
University of Waterloo male engineering students – 575 in number – are looking forward to September and the inauguration of an arts program which will mean the "blessed” influx of co-eds.
Only two female students were on campus during the past school year.
What is it like without females on the campus? “Pretty rough,” says David Mussham, third year civil engineer student from Toronto, giving experession to the adage, You Don’t Miss Them Until You Haven’t Got Them.
DOESN’T HAVE PROBLEM
Ian Oliver of Waterloo, in the same course, admits it must be rough, but says he doesn’t have the same problem. He’s married.
Oh, there were social activities, i.e. an engineering ball every three months. For these affairs the students depended upon business girls and nurses for dates.
But it was not the same thing, somehow, they say. The presence of co-eds on campus would add a certain atmosphere that is missing now.
And it would encourage more social activities, an integral part of college life, the boys say.
From the distaff side: What is it like to be one of the two girls surrounded by a “harem” of boys?
Annette Tilden of Harriston finds no particular embarrassment in the situation. She finds her fellow students readily accept her.
Miss Tilden is a chemical engineering student. The other girl registered is Elizabeth Cook, 112 Cherry St., a science student.
WILL BE HAPPIER
While they feel somewhat like the first women who surprised the world of education when registered at universities, Waterloo’s two co-eds think they will be happier when arts students enroll.
It is hoped that close to 100 girls will be among the students who register for the first year of the arts program to be inaugurated in the fall. A few more girls are also expected to register in science next year.
While it will still leave co-eds greatly outnumbered, the male students agree that it is a step in the right direction.“
-Kitchener-Waterloo Record, July 5, 1960
Always interesting is to note is that back in the day, they always used to post the address of your house after your name. Pretty sure that wouldn’t fly today.This interview is a follow-up to the article " Afghanistan: Opium, the CIA and the Karzai Administration", by Peter Dale Scott, Voltaire Network, 13 December 2010.
VoltaireNet: Professor Scott, as your work is not as widely known as it ought to be in French-speaking countries, could you please start by defining what “Deep politics” is, and explain the distinction between what you call the “Deep state” and the “Public state”?
Peter Dale Scott: The term “Deep state” comes from Turkey. They invented it after the wreck of a speeding Mercedes in 1996 in which the passengers were a Member of Parliament, a beauty queen, a local senior police captain, and an important drug trafficker in Turkey who was also the head of a criminal paramilitary organization – the Grey Wolves – that went around killing people. And it became very obvious in Turkey that there were a covert relationship between the police who officially were looking for this man – even though a policeman was there with him in the car – and these people who committed crimes on behalf of the state. The state that you commit crimes for is not a state that can show its hand to the people, it’s a hidden state, a covert structure. In Turkey, they called it the Deep state, [1] and I had been talking about deep politics for a long time so I used the term in The Road to 9/11. This is why I have defined deep politics as all those political practices and arrangements, deliberate or not, which are usually repressed rather than acknowledged. So the term “Deep state” – coming from Turkey – is not mine.
It refers to a parallel secret government, organized by the intelligence and security apparatus, financed by drugs, and engaging in illicit violence, to protect the status and interests of the military against threats from intellectuals, religious groups, and occasionally the constitutional government. In this book, I adapt the term somewhat to refer to the wider interface in America between the public, the constitutionally established state, and the deep forces behind it of wealth, power, and violence outside the government. You might call it the back door of the Public state, giving access to dark forces outside the law. The analogy with Turkey is not perfect, because what we see today in America is less a parallel structure than a wide zone or milieu of interaction between the public state and unseen dark forces, as I expound in my latest book The American War Machine. But this interaction is significant, and we need a name, such as Deep state, to describe it.
VoltaireNet: Your critically acclaimed book, The Road to 9/11, was published in 2007 under the Bush regime in the United States. In November 2010, you have published your latest body of work, The American War Machine, two years after Obama’s electoral victory; in your opinion, did the influence of the Deep state decrease in favor of the Public state after Mr. Obama’s election, or did it stay the same or even increase?
Peter Dale Scott: After almost two years of the Obama presidency, I have to conclude, regretfully, that the influence of the deep state, or more accurately what in my new book I call the American war machine, has continued to increase, just as it has under every US president since Kennedy. A key sign is the extent to which Obama, despite his campaign rhetoric, has continued to expand the scope of secrecy in US government, and especially to punish whistle-blowers: his campaign against Wikileaks and Julian Assange, who has not been charged yet with any crime, is without precedent in US history. I suspect that Washington’s fear of publicity is related to its awareness that US war policies are increasingly at odds with reality. In Afghanistan Obama appears to have capitulated to the efforts of General Petraeus and other generals to ensure that US troops do not begin to withdraw from combat in 2011, as originally foreseen when in 2009 Obama authorized a troop increase. Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, reports that during that protracted administration debate over whether to escalate in Afghanistan, CIA Director Leon Panetta advised Obama that “no Democratic president can go against military advice… So just do it. Do what they say.” Obama recently told US troops in Afghanistan that “you’re achieving your objectives, you will succeed in your mission.” This echo of earlier, fatuously optimistic statements from Petraeus explains why there were no realistic appraisal of the war’s progress inside the White House in December 2010, as was originally mandated.
Like Johnson before him, the president is now trapped in a quagmire war he dare not lose, and which threatens to spread to both Pakistan and Yemen, if not further. I suspect that the deep forces dominating both political parties are now so powerful, so affluent, and above all so invested in the profits from war-making, that a president is farther than ever from challenging this power – even as it becomes more and more clear that America’s era of world dominance, like Britain’s before it, is drawing to a close.
In addition Obama, without debate or review, has extended the domestic state of emergency proclaimed after 9/11, with its drastic limitations of civil rights (see below). In September 2010 the FBI raided the homes or offices of nonviolent human rights workers in Minneapolis and Chicago, citing a recent Supreme Court ruling that nonviolent first amendment speech and advocacy was a crime if "coordinated with" or "under the direction of" a foreign group designated as "terrorist." It is worth noting that, in nine years, Congress has not once met to discuss the State of Emergency declared by George W. Bush in response to 9/11, a State of Emergency that remains in effect today. Former Congressman Dan Hamburg and I appealed publicly in 2009, both to President Obama to terminate the emergency, and to Congress to hold the hearings required of them by statute. But Obama, without discussion, extended the 9/11 Emergency again on September 2009, and again a year later. Meanwhile Congress has continued to ignore its statutory obligations.
One Congressman explained to a constituent that the provisions of the National Emergencies Act have now been rendered inoperative by COG ("Continuity of Government"), a secret program to deal with running the state in the event of national emergency. The COG program was partially implemented on 9/11 by Dick Cheney, one of its main designers on a committee operating outside regular government since 1981. (See below for more details about COG). If it’s true that the National Emergencies Act have been rendered inoperative by COG, this would indicate that the constitutional system of checks and balances no longer applies, and also that secret decrees now override public legislation.
VoltaireNet: In this context, why doesn’t the U.S. Congress fulfill its legal obligations in overseeing the limitation of the secret powers of the Deep state – a limitation implemented after the Watergate scandal? What were the consequences of Nixon’s impeachment and the subsequent strengthening of Congress oversight on the secret operations of the United States intelligence agencies?
Peter Dale Scott: Nixon’s Vietnam strategy consisted of attempting to gain the other hand by making strategic deals with both the Soviet Union and China. This produced violent opposition from both hawks and doves in a deeply divided nation; and I believe that hawks from both the CIA and Pentagon were part of the engineered Watergate crisis that led to his resignation. In the aftermath, doves in the 1974 “McGovernite Congress” achieved a number of reforms in the name of more public politics, abolishing a state of emergency that had survived since the Korean War, and establishing Congressional and legal restraints on the CIA and other aspects of secret government. These reforms in turn immediately produced a concerted mobilization to overturn them, and restore the status quo ante. Underlying this political debate was a disagreement in the nation’s leadership between so-called “traders” and “Prussians,” as to whether America, in the wake of the Vietnam fiasco, should strive to return to its former role as a preeminent trading nation, or whether it should respond to the Vietnam defeat by a further buildup of its armed forces.
This struggle was simultaneously a struggle between moderates and militarists for control of the Republican Party. This culminated in the demise of Nixon and the gradual redirection of United States foreign policy in the Ford presidency from peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union towards plans for the weakening and destruction under Ronald Reagan of what Reagan called “the evil empire.” Thus in October 1975, the highly probable involvement of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in the palace revolution known by historians as “The Halloween Massacre” meant the defeat of Nelson Rockefeller’s moderate Republicanism, and its gradual replacement by the hard-edged anti-communism of Ronald Reagan. Essentially, it meant the reorganization of Ford’s team toward the demise of détente, along with America’s huge defense budgets in the 1980’s and again today.
Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, then heading the White House staff of President Gerald Ford and controlling the Department of Defense, played a key part in securing the ultimate triumph of the Prussians, by demoting Henry Kissinger and appointing George H.W. Bush as head of the CIA, where he arranged for a new, more alarmist estimate of the Soviet threat (which explains the correlated skyrocketing of defense budgets, and the demise of détente). Since then, we have observed an increasing influence of what Dwight D. Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex (in his farewell address of January 17th, 1961) on the United States’ political economy.
Today we have a new extended state of emergency, and Congressional oversight has become almost defunct. For example, legally mandated congressional oversight of the CIA’s covert operations has been successfully evaded by the creation in 1981 of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pentagon, which simply incorporates CIA personnel into its operations. JSOC, now known as the Special Operations Command, has become the locus of covert Pentagon operations, of the sort conducted under General Stanley McChrystal, before he was appointed the US commander in Afghanistan.
VoltaireNet: In the last question, you briefly invoked the important role played by Georges Bush Sr. in the demise of détente – a détente promoted by Henry Kissinger. Mr. Bush was the CIA head for a brief period though. Did the replacement of George H.W. Bush by the more moderate Admiral Stansfield Turner at the CIA increase the control of the secret operations led by different elements of the American Deep state?
Peter Dale Scott: No, it did not. It has been the contrary, because some of the key men who were squeezed out after Turner’s appointment found themselves a new home working for the so-called Safari Club, an off-the-books secret organization uniting the intelligence chiefs of several countries – including France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran – to supplement CIA actions with other anti-communist operations in Africa and the Third World over which the US Congress had no control. Then in 1978, Zbigniew Brzezinski – who was not part of the Safari Club – engineered an end run around Turner by organizing a special unit in the White House under Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense who was a junior CIA operative at the time. Under Brzezinski’s guidance, CIA officers contrived with the Iranian agency SAVAK to send Islamist agents to Afghanistan, destabilizing the country in a way which led to the 1980 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union.
The succeeding decade of covert CIA involvement in Afghanistan was crucial in converting that country into a centre for poppy culture, heroin trafficking, and jihadist Islamism. About the narcotics, there are some very good books about the CIA written a few years ago – one by Tim Weiner and one by John Prados. But because they talked to some CIA officers who showed them only a few recently declassified CIA documents – particularly Weiner – they don’t talk about the drugs. The narcotic connection is so deep its not mentioned in released CIA documents. But the collaboration of the CIA under William Casey with the drug-dealing Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) fostered the creation of a huge Afghan narco-economy, whose destabilizing consequences help explain why NATO soldiers, Afghans and Pakistanis are dying there today.
The BCCI was a huge global drug-laundering bank. It was corrupting – with its budgets, with its resources – leading politicians, presidents, prime ministers all over the world. And some of that money – it’s not much talked about, but it is true – was reaching politicians in the United States – politicians of both parties, which is one of the main reasons why we didn’t get a congressional investigation of BCCI. There was actually a Senate report that came out, under the names of one Republican, Hank Brown, and one Democrat, John Kerry. And Brown congratulated Kerry on having the courage to write that report when so many people in his party were affected by the BCCI. The latter was a big factor in creating the connexions with people like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was probably the leading heroin trafficker in the world during the 1980’s. He also became the leading recipient of CIA largesses supplemented by an equal amount of Saudi Arabian money. There’s something terribly wrong in a situation like this!
VoltaireNet: At the outcome of the presidential campaign of 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected in part on his pleas for a decrease in military spending and expanding détente with the Soviet Union. This did not happen in the four years of his presidency. Could you explain to us why? Did Zbigniew Brzezinski – whom you mentioned in the previous question – play any role in this then-unexpected hawkish foreign policy?
Born in Montreal in 1929, Peter Dale Scott is a former diplomat, a poet and a writer. He is also Professor emeritus of English literature at the University of California, Berkely. Known for his anti-war stance and his criticism of U.S. foreign policy dating back to the Vietnam War, Peter Dale Scott is an author and political analyst hailed by critics and acknowledged by his peers, including Daniel Ellsberg known as the "man who toppled Nixon".
Peter Dale Scott: The media presented Carter as a populist candidate, a peanut farmer from the South. But the deep reality was that Carter had been prepared for the presidency by Wall Street, and particularly by the Trilateral Commission that was funded by David Rockefeller, and directed by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski, a passionately anti-Soviet Pole, then became Carter’s national security adviser; and from the outset overruled Secretary of State Cyrus Vance repeatedly in pursuit of a more vigorous anti-Soviet foreign policy. In this Brzezinski went against the stated goals of the Trilateral Commission, of which President Carter had been a member. The underlying idea of the Trilateral Commission was a rather attractive picture of a multipolar world in which America would mediate between the Second World, which was the Soviet block, and the Third World, which was what we used to call in those days the underdeveloped or lesser developed countries… By the way I hate that term, because I lived in Thailand: in some ways they are very much more developed than we are!
When he was elected, Carter nominated a genuine trilateralist, Cyrus Vance, the Secretary of State, and he had as his National security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was determined to use the Deep state to inflict as much damage on the Soviet Union as he could. A lot of things which are thought of as the successes of the Reagan regime clearly had their origins under Brzezinski. And it was a total repudiation of what trilateralism stood for. Carter – the poor man – was elected promising cuts in the defence budget, and before he had left, he had committed the Defense Department to huge increases which we associate with the Reagan administration but were initiated before.
As a consequence, under the surface a massive campaign for increased defense spending, mobilized by wealthy military industrialists through the Committee on the Present Danger, brought public opinion to reinforce Brzezinski’s push for a more militant U.S. presence and policy, particularly in the Indian Ocean.
VoltaireNet: After being a very influential man under President Gerald Ford, Dick Cheney – allied with his mentor Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-president George Bush senior – has been since the onset of the Reagan presidency one of the key men in the development of the ultra-secret so-called “Continuity of Government” (COG) program. Could you explain to us what that program is? Has it ever been implemented, even partially?
Peter Dale Scott: From the beginning of the Reagan presidency in 1981, arrangements were made for a secret group outside government to work on so-called “Continuity of Government” or COG plans for running the state in the event of national emergency. Initially this was an extension of existing plans for a response to a nuclear attack which would decapitate the United States’ leadership, but before Reagan retired the terms were modified by his Executive Order 12686 of 1988 to cover any emergency.
The COG is another thing which we associate with Reagan but actually began under Carter, although Carter may have never been aware of it. The latter did create FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has always been charged with being the infrastructure for this COG planning. What is kind of shocking is that the COG plans were extreme plans, but that Congress didn’t know about them in the 1980’s. Only a small group of people – including Oliver North, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld – were secretly assigned to work on them by a 1981 top secret executive order from Reagan. The COG issue was first publicly brought up in 1987 during the Iran-Contra hearings, when congressman Jack Brooks asked Oliver North: “Colonel North, in your work at the N.S.C. were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?” Congressman Brooks further added: “I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed, by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency that would suspend the American constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was an area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.” Senator Inouye, the Chairman of this congressional commission, answered: “May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session” What Congressman Brooks was asking about was “continuity of government” (COG), and those arrangements for an executive session were never made.
Cheney and Rumsfeld – two key figure of the COG program – continued to participate in these very expensive plans and exercises for the next two decades, even though by the late 1990’s both men were corporate executives with no official government connection whatsoever. Reportedly the new target replacing the Soviet threat was terrorism, but some journalists have claimed that from the early 1980’s on there were major plans to deal with the kind of anti-war protests which (in the mind of Oliver North and those like him) had been responsible for the American defeat in Vietnam.
It is not disputed that on 9/11 COG plans were implemented, along with an officially proclaimed state of emergency that is still in effect after nine years, ignoring a post-Watergate law calling for either approval or termination of an emergency by Congress. The COG plans are a closely kept secret, but there were reports in the 1980’s that these involved warrantless surveillance and detention, and a permanent militarization of government. To some extent these changes have clearly been put in place since 9/11.
There is no way to determine how many of the constitutional changes since 9/11 can be traced to COG planning. However we do know that new COG planning measures were still being introduced in 2007, when President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51/HSPD-20). This Directive set out what FEMA later called “a new vision to ensure the continuity of our Government,” and was followed in August by a new National Continuity Policy Implementation |
andteller.com/
Author of books:
Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends ( 1989, magic, with Teller)
Penn & Teller's How to Play with Your Food ( 1992, magic, with Teller)
Penn & Teller's How to Play in Traffic ( 1997, magic, with Teller)
Sock ( 2004, novel)
How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker: The Wisdom of Dickie Richard ( 2005, magic, with Mickey D. Lynn)
God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and other Magical Tales ( 2011, non-fiction)
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Submit a correction or make a comment about this profileThose rumors that all-conquering burger chain Shake Shack will open a Houston location are starting to look more concrete.
Last week, the company replied to an inquiry about a Houston location by Tweeting: "No Houston Shack at the moment, but never say never!" The time when Houstonians are lining up ShackBurgers and fries may be sooner than people realize.
A dedicated CultureMap reader discovered that the same corporate agent who established Shake Shack The Domain Austin, LLC filed to create Shake Shack The Galleria Houston, LLC in April. Shake Shack's Domain location opened in August.
Both The Domain and The Galleria are owned by shopping center heavyweight Simon Property Group, and it looks like they're about to have the restaurant in common, too. A rendering on the Simon Properties website shows Shake Shack as one of the future tenants for the renovated Galleria III (first spotted by an eagle-eyed user of the Houston Architecture Info Forum).
Houston would be the third Texas city to host the burger chain that's grown from its first outpost in New York City's Madison Square Park into a global phenomenon with revenues that have grown at an astonishing rate. In addition to two locations in Austin, the company announced in October that it will open in Dallas in 2016.
This development also helps The Galleria keep pace with recently opened luxury shopping destination River Oaks District, which recently confirmed the rumor that Austin-based burger chain Hopdoddy will open there in 2016.
The ultimate question is, when will this happen? A retail source confirmed the rumor but couldn't comment on the record about the specifics. A representative for Simon described the rendering as "not accurate," adding, "We will keep you posted as soon as we have something to announce."
Shake Shack has yet to reply to CultureMap's request for comment. We will update this article as soon as more information is available.On each public performance date, a limited number of tickets for that night's performance will be distributed via mobile lottery through our digital partner, TodayTix.
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-----------------------Hip-hop has long been used as a vehicle for education – check out the countless children’s videos that teach fundamentals like spelling and math through rap. But ask any serious hip-hop head and they will attest to the fact that dissecting the culture – understanding something that bloomed from concrete and found its way into pop culture and beyond – is a science. The mainstream may not regard rap as particularly scholarly, but that could set to change with the advent of 9th Wonder's Hip-Hop Institute, a new interdisciplinary program based in the history department of North Carolina Central University, which he will launch this fall.
9th Wonder, born Patrick Douthit, became a “professor” at the college when he was named Artist in Residence in 2006. Prior to that, Douthit was an assistant professor at NCCU for a Hip-Hop 101 course taught by Play of the legendary rap duo Kid-N-Play. But the idea of teaching was not new to him.
“I went to school any way to become a history teacher,” Douthit explains, though he did not complete his studies, instead going on to produce for artists like Jay Z, Chris Brown and Erykah Badu. “In the area where I live [Raleigh, North Carolina] there are a lot of people I went to school with who ended up being teachers,” he says. “They would ask their friend who had just worked with Jay Z to come by to talk to their students. Once I got back into the classroom and talked to these kids, I realized this was why I wanted to teach in the first place. But I wasn’t teaching something they were learning in school; I was teaching hip-hop.”
Douthit is a trailblazer, but he is not alone in mixing hip-hop and academia. In 2010, rapper-producer and Ruff Ryders figurehead Swizz Beatz became the first Producer in Residence at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. That same year, UGK veteran Bun B became a professor at Rice University for hip-hop and religion/humanities. In 2013, the de facto leader of the Roots, Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson, became a professor at NYU for a course called Topics in Recorded Music: Classic Albums and currently teaches a course there on Prince.
“I started to see the deeper connection between hip-hop and the youth,” says Douthit, of his own research. “I started to look at the connection between the older generation and the younger generation and how I was the bridge for that. Then I started to look at vinyl sampling compared to literary licenses and I got deeper and deeper and deeper. While I was still making beats, I was still very much into the academic discourse of what hip-hop used to be and what it still is.” In 2010, he taught a course at Duke called Sampling Soul, flanked by Duke's African American studies professor, Dr Mark Anthony Neal.
In addition to setting up the Hip-Hop Institute, Douthit is currently a professor at Harvard University, a three-year fellowship where he is conducting his thesis on the samples that encompass his Top 10 albums and teaching a Standards of Hip-Hop course. It’s documented in his film The Hip-Hop Fellow.
“I look at hip-hop like I look at a foreign language,” he says. “You can’t really learn how to DJ and make beats and all that unless you get a crash course on hip-hop music. So the Hip-Hop Institute will start with a hip-hop history course.”
After that, the Institute will be broken into four schools, including Mass Communications, Law, History, and Music. Later, Science and Technology will be added to the roster. Along with the music and the business behind it, the writings of noted hip-hop journalists like Nelson George and Kevin Powell will be studied.
“Hip-hop journalism is an entirely different type of writing,” Douthit reasons. There will also be masterclasses given by artists and other hip-hop associates. “It’ll be a working center of hip-hop,” he adds.
The Hip-Hop Institute is a testament to the success of the genre, but it also provides a destination for artists and other hip-hop authoritarians who have questioned their own next steps in what has always been regarded as 'a young man’s game'. “I can honestly say it’s given my career a new life and a new sense of purpose,” says Douthit. “There are not too many cats doing what I’m doing. I’m hip-hop trained, but also academically trained.”
Douthit insists that he is confident in the Hip-Hop Institute's ability to prove that hip-hop has now entered a new school of thought. “Everything that people think hip-hop is not, it’s gonna be.”Submitted by Trina on Sat, 01/26/2008 - 00:50
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Anyone who knows me knows of my near-pathological love for The Wire. But long before I was resident Wire-ologist, I was a big fan of OZ - HBO's very first (yes, even before the fucking Sopranos) one-hour drama from the late 90s. With The Wire (aka the greatest piece of literature emerging from my lifetime) nearing the series' end, I wanted to offer this suggestion for a series, sharing many of its qualities as well as its actors, to queue up on your Netflix in order to avoid that hollowing feeling we will all inevitably experience in a few weeks. The actor crossovers alone should keep you satisfied. Who and what do they have in common?
Though I won't argue Oz is even close to The Wire's genius, with its tendencies of spelling out its moral message through narration, music constantly underscoring dramatic twists, and generally displaying very enjoyable drama-for-the-sake of drama, it's hard to ignore that Oz does share a lot of qualities. It could be said that it laid some foundation for such a show like The Wire to be made. Oz's creator, Tom Fontana,and co-executive producer, Barry Levinson, are the same guys behind the series adaptation of David Simon's most famed writing, Homicide [the book / the series], which contains about a jillion more crossovers from both The Wire and Oz. In short, this is all in the family.
First, the entire structure of the story is based on institutions (the most serious kind: prison) and the counter-institutions (criminal underworld) adapting in reaction to them. There are all the themes one expects from such a program--ineffective law enforcement bureaucracy, institutions trapping the men within them, the state of nature that results from social marginality, identity-based solidarity, survival, all that Freud ish, the value of human life reduced to money--basically, a paradoxical Lord of the Flies meets the (failed) panopticon of the State.
However, unlike The Wire, and largely through the structure of its Greek chorus-like narration, it occasionally provides some annoying liberal commentary on issues such as prisoners' rights, the death penalty, the racial/economic/general sociological underpinnings of who is incarcerated, which are not articulated subtly but rather all up in your face. Despite this difference, it doesn't avoid the fact that many of the prisoners are indeed sociopaths capable of horrifying acts, it doesn't venture to offer any easy answers, and it does contain complete dumbfounding moral ambiguities in almost all of its characters.
Before The Wire, Oz is one of the only shows I can think of that has so many recurring characters, to the point where there are many whose faces you constantly see but can't name. Ensemble cast is an understatement regarding either show. Like The Wire, Oz also has an overwhelming majority of male faces, but whatever it's prison. More notably, it is also one of the only shows that has a majority of black faces, playing not only criminal characters but also agents of the state and many other roles in between. It avoids the typical television trappings of a unified black identity, and it courageously complicates the idea of the simple black-white power dichotomy by placing complicit black characters throughout the state bureaucracy. Just as The Wire's arguably most stagnant institutional actor is the black Police Commissioner Ervin Burrell, Oz's prison is run by a (also moustachioed!) black Warden Leo Glynn (played by Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson).
Most importantly and most fun for us with enormous mental IMDB files, like most of us here at Cosmodrome, Oz featured many actors from The Wire. No coincidence since they shared the same CSA, Alexa Fogel. Since Oz ran from 1997-2003, and The Wire from 2002-2008, this has given a few actors, to varying degrees, a pretty good run on HBO criminal dramas. Many Oz actors went on to Law & Order (the sex one) and Lost, but I don't watch that shit as policy. In fact, before I started watching The Wire, I recall seeing commercials and thinking "Woah, they got Kenny Wangler AND Johnny Basil on the same show again?" How long I've come since then.
Though there are too many other notable cast members (invaluable IMDB files) to go through meaningfully, I gotta mention the inclusion of some (very) 90s rap stars, in addition to Method Man (below), and other musicians: Pepa (of Salt N' fame) as well as her babydaddy - Treach, LL Cool J, Master P, David Johansen aka the frontman of the New York Dolls aka Buster Poindexter-singer of "Hot Hot Hot", and that Cuban dude that knocked up Madonna the first time.
Finally, here is a list of actors I have observed to be appearing in both series, which is accurate up to episode 54/60 of The Wire. I will be sure to update again if there are any other sightings in the next six episodes.
"Now" indicates role on The Wire - generally using police ranks from circa third season
"Then" indicates role on Oz
(#) indicate number of episodes
Now: Avon Barksdale (38)
Then: Correctional Officer Gordon Wood (1)
played by Wood Harris
Now: Brianna Barksdale (12)
Then: Wife of then-head Muslim prisoner Hamid Khan* (1)
played by Michael Hyatt *Hamid Khan played by Ernie Hudson, Jr.!
Now: Preston "Bodie" Broadus (42)
Then: Kenny "Bricks" Wangler (23) - tried and convicted as an adult at age 16
played by JD Williams
Now: Bug's Daddy / Michael's Stepfather (3)
Then: Correctional Officer Adrian Johnson (15)
played by Cyrus Farmer
Now: Police Commissioner Ervin Burrell (47)
Then: Cornelius Keane - father of death-sentenced and recently-converted-Muslim Jefferson Keane (1)
played by Frankie Faison
Now: Sergeant Ellis Carver (56)
Then: Correctional Officer Clayton Hughes (17)
played by Seth Gilliam
Now: Melvin "Cheese" Wagstaff (10)
Then: Carlton "Tug" Daniels (4)
played by Method Man
Now: Lieutenant Cedric Daniels (56)
Then: "Desmond Mobay" aka undercover-narcotics-officer-turned-junkie Johnny Basil (12)
played by Lance Reddick
Now: Detective Lester Freamon (55)
Then: Afsana, blacktivist prison lobbyist (1)
played by Clarke Peters
Now: Detective Thomas "Herc" Halk (57)
Then: Ralph Galino (2)
played by Domenick Lombardozzi
Now: FBI Agent Ernst Kristos Koutris / Mole for The Greeks (3)
Then: Agamemnon "The Mole" Busmalis (31)
played by Tom Mardirosian *an Armenian apparently always cast as a Greek
Now: Brother Mouzone (7)
Then: Correctional Officer Reinhardt (1)
played by Michael Potts
Now: Mayor's Deputy Chief of Staff Norman Wilson (20)
Then: Unit Manager Martin Querns (8)
played by Reg E. Cathey
Now: Deputy Commissioner for Operations Bill Rawls (55)
Then: Edward "The Colonel" Galson (4)
played by John Doman
Now: Latino kid who gives Omar the "mala noticia" in the fifth season (1)
Then: Pablo Rosa (6)
played by Michael Rivera
Now: Triage* aka Tree aka Cheese's boy who says "Woof" (2)
Then: Johnny Post (3)
played by Tim McAdams
*Not confirmed anywhere. If anyone can help me find evidence of who played the character "Tree"/"Triage" (recall who he was here) in The Wire's third season, I would be obliged.Who will your #NBA team draft tomorrow? Find out here!
So with less than 24 hours before the Sixers select first in the 2017 draft, Celticsnuts has made an assessment of the players available to be drafted and feel comfortable predicting where they will end up in the first round. So without further ado, we present to you the 2017 Celticsnuts Mock Draft; FINAL EDITION:
1. Philadelphia: Markelle Fultz- Fultz is the consensus best player in this draft. He scores using change of direction, hesitation and an array of dribble moves that all are executed smoothly. Most associate athleticism with the ability to explode or accelerate, but Fultz showcases a different type of athleticism. Similar to James Harden, Fultz has the ability to decelerate/change directions quickly in order to beat his man. Fultz has a propensity to get exactly where he wants with the ball and has shown the ability to finish when he gets there. Markelle is in the conversation for the best point guard prospect to come out in the last ten years, no pg prospect has combined the ability to score in the pick & roll (1.01 PPP), shoot off the dribble (1.0 PPP), with plus height and wingspan (6’10”).
2. LA Lakers Lonzo Ball- Lonzo is truly one of those players who is easier to appreciate after you have watched all his game film. His basketball IQ is sky high, he has terrific court vision and he seems to step up to do whatever his team needs him to do. He is a consummate team leader and floor general. The worry with ball is twofold: First, can he get his shot off against NBA size and speed? He has a strange left to right release, which at the point of release is fine, but getting there is a roller-coaster. Due to his form, he rarely (never?) goes right to shoot. He typically relies on a nice step back move to create the space needed to fire away. Secondly, does he have the lateral quickness to get to into the paint and, more importantly, defend NBA point guards? Ball has terrific instincts and is disruptive in passing lanes, but I’m not sure he would be the one you want to try and D up an isolation play when the game is on the line.
Ball’s career could go either way, but his passing and floor leadership should translate. The Lakers are basically building for a future star-studded team (they hope to attract a rich FA class in 2018) and Lonzo work’s well as a pass-first player in that type of system. Magic Johnson, the Lakers GM, should be able to maximize his abilities. 3. Boston: Jayson Tatum- Danny Ainge, presumably, gets his man. The blockbuster trade between division rivals has left Philadelphia with the number one pick and Makrelle Fultz, however, Danny Ainge gets the player he wants as well as a future pick (LAL 2018 if 2-5, otherwise it becomes better of Phili/Sac in 2019, top 1 protected). While this trade has been a polarizing force among the Celtics’ fan base this week, there’s no doubt Danny Ainge doesn’t shy away from what he believes. From reports, Fultz was less explosive in workouts with them then they were anticipating and weren’t convinced he was a franchise cornerstone. In comes Jayson Tatum. The humble, hardworking, freshman star from Duke has an elite arsenal of isolation moves to combine with solid athleticism and good length. He has a developing jump shot which should translate to the NBA three-point line in time. He has a high release with good lift, and while he was inconsistent as a three-point shooter in college (34.2%), he was a marksman from the free throw line at 84.9% for the season. Tatum hasn’t yet developed as a creator, worrisome in the fast paced 5-out Brad Stevens system that relies on ball movement above all else, however I don’t believe he’s an unwilling passer which eases my concerns about his development. He has advanced footwork and solid athleticism, occasionally displaying serious hops. Tatum has strong hands and is aggressive rebounding the basketball on both ends, something the Celtics desperately need from their wings. He should immediately be able to come in and give the Celtics minutes as a scorer off the bench. There has been some concern about defensive breakdowns, but he has all the skills needed to succeed here. Tatum’s length (a reported 7 foot wingspan and near 9 foot standing reach) should continue to allow him to be impactful defending passing lanes, jump shots and drives, but he needs to stay engaged on that end to truly find long term success. Off the court, Tatum is well regarded as a high character prospect who, along with being a tireless worker, has intentions of setting up a nonprofit organization with his mother to help single mothers get on their feet. His work ethic is already gaining legend which should fit in perfectly with the young Celtics core.
4. Phoenix: Josh Jackson- Jackson is an elite athlete, who gives supreme effort. He can defend multiple positions, create off the dribble and finish on the break. In last year’s draft the Suns showed they prioritized athletes that can defend multiple position in Dragnan Bender and Marquese Chriss. Adding Josh Jackson to those two players gives Phoneix the ability to switch most screens, playing the positionless ball that has become so prominent in the modern NBA. If Jackson can smooth out his mechanics and become a consistent shooter, he could be a star. Jackson’s age and off the court behavior are red flags, but teams will hope he matures in a leadership role.
5. Sacramento: DeAaron Fox- The Sacramento Kings (and their fans) have been through a lot. It seems like every year it is reported that some prospects won’t work out with the them because of a lack of belief in their organization. Fox is the first player in recent memory who has expressed interest in going to Sacramento and the Kings are reported to reciprocate those feelings. Fox is lightning quick and could allow the Kings to move towards the pace that their owner has always wanted to play. With his defensive upside and creation abilities next to Buddy Hield’s shooting the Kings could have their back court for the next 10 years.
6. Orlando: Dennis Smith Jr.- Dennis Smith is boom or bust prospect. His athleticism, shooting and ability to score at all 3 levels gives him supreme upside. Unfortunately, Smith hasn’t show the leadership, effort and aptitude for team basketball to go along with his potential. Smith could become the best player in this draft or he could be a scorer who doesn’t drive his team towards wins. His lack of length also hinders his defensive upside, but a team like the Magic need talent in the worst way possible, and Smith has major upside if he can put it all together.
7. Minnesota: Jonathan Isaac- Jonathan Isaac is the perfect fit for Minnesota at 7. He has the upside to provide elite defense on a team that is deficient in that area. Isaac is extremely skinny right now, but he has the length to be the ideal modern day 4 once he fills out. If Isaac develops correctly he will be able to defend every position on the court, knock down the open 3, rebound and score in transition. Those attributes would be extremely welcome next to Karl Anthony-Towns and the rest of the baby Wolves.
8. New York: Malik Monk- The Knicks desperately need a young guard to pair long term with Porzingis and Hernangomez. Monk is one of, if not the most, explosive scorer in the draft and is an elite shooter who plays with a greenlight at all times. He reminds me a lot of Bradley Beal though I think he will carve out more of a lead guard role than Beal. Monk is an easy plug and play player, who should allow Porzingis more room to operate in isolation sets. While, Monk hasn’t shown much interest in, or skill, on the defensive end, he is a good enough athlete to step up on that side of the ball. Offensively, I expect Monk to be a 20PPG player and his stardom, as well as team success, will depend on his ability to run the point and play defense. DSJ & Frank Ntilikina are in play here, as well as Lauri Markannen if Phil Jackson moves Porzingis on draft day.
9. Dallas: Frank Ntilikina- Young, fast, and long. Ntilikina has excellent size for a pg with a height of 6’6′ and a wingspan over 7 feet according to multiple sources. He plays a significant role on a successful French team, and while his stats won’t jump out at you, he has a major impact as a distributor and disruptive defender. He dominated the U18s in Europe as a member of the French team, but at this point, teams are drafting him on potential, not immediate success. The Mavs desperately need an infusion of youth and could use a long guard to combine with Yogi Ferrell & Seth Curry at the point guard position. They would probably prefer not to be super patient with an aging Dirk nearing the end, but they need to find their next major piece to pair with Harrison Barnes. Ntilikina would have a great coach in Rick Carlisle who could groom him to be a successful maestro of the spread pick and roll system. The Mavericks are extremely interested in Frank, going so far as to hire his current coach to coach their summer league team.
10. Kings: Lauri Markannen- The Sacramento Kings, a fun team? A popular League Pass team? A winner? It’s possible King’s fans! With this draft, adding a future star PG in Fox and a perfect modern stretch 5 in Markannen, this team will suddenly be well balanced, young and explosive!
Markannen is a sweet shooting, heady PF/C with average athleticism but good coordination. He moves smoothly on both ends but does seem more comfortable facing the hoop rather than having his back to the basket. As a player who will get switched a lot in the pick and roll on both ends he needs to figure out how to score on smaller guards and defend on the perimeter. His potential though is pretty great and there is a chance he is the best player on the Kings when they are a playoff team down the road. Think about this starting five 2 year from now: Fox, Hield, 2018 draft pick, Skal Labissiere and Markannen. That is a team with good athleticism, shooting, and youth. This could actually have me seeing the Kings as an NBA playoff team by the 2020-2021 season! 11.Charlotte: Donovan Mitchell- Mitchell is a great athlete and a plus defender. He is a perfect fit for Steve Clifford who is an elite defensive coach. Mitchell has shown an improved 3 point stroke which is sorely needed for a Hornets team lacking space. Mitchell has the athleticism to eventually become an offensive creator off the dribble. Currently Kemba Walker is the only quality creator for Charlotte so Mitchell could provide the secondary creation that could really take their team to the next level.
12. Pistons: Luke Kennard- The ultimate workout warrior during this pre-draft period, Kennard has raised his value from end of the first round to late lottery. Kennard is an excellent shooter and fluid athlete (don’t let his hair-line fool you) who moves well without the ball. He should easily step into a complimentary role and feast on corner 3s. He’s the type of player you want within a rebuilding culture as he has a history of winning and competing hard at Duke. He can handle the rock and create for others, though, not a point guard, Kennard is better as an off the ball player. Defensively he has good effort but mediocre results. He has a wingspan shorter than his height and despite moving his feet well, cannot alter shots (especially with the size of NBA guards). I think his ceiling is higher than most do, but he needs to improve his transition scoring and on ball defense.
13. Denver: John Collins- At first glance, it appears that Collins might not have a fit in the current NBA. He is a big that doesn’t protect the rim, can’t defend multiple positions or shoot the 3. What Collins does have is a great feel for the game that allowed him to become one of the most efficient players in the NCAA last year. His basketball IQ and athleticism indicates that he will learn to become a good defender in the NBA, while his free throw shooting inspires confidence in his ability to extend his range beyond the 3 point line. In the end he might not have the specific tools the modern game calls for, but he has an understanding of the game that should allow him to perform at a high level.
14. Heat: Zach Collins- A blue collar workhorse of a big man, Collins does just about everything you would ask of him well. He played a limited role off the bench for an upper-class heavy Zags squad this past season, but in his limited role was active and impactful. He averaged 10, 6 and nearly 2 blocks in only 17 minutes a night. He displayed a soft shooting touch out to 17-18 feet and was a good free throw shooter (74.3% in a good sample size). He has solid lateral quickness allowing him to switch and recover in the pick and roll. I don’t think this is a star player, but it would be hard to not believe he will be an important contributor on a winning team. He fits the Heat’s need as a complimentary piece next to Whiteside in the frontcourt.
15. Portland: Og Anunoby- Anunoby has the natural tools to one day be an all NBA defender. He is big, strong and quick with extremely long arms. In a league where defending multiple positions is at a premium OG can do that better than any prospect in this year’s draft. His offensive game will need to develop and his medicals will need to show that he can return 100% from the knee injury that sidelined him during the NCAA season. Even if OG misses extended time this year, Portland has 3 firsts which allows them to gamble on a player who might not pay dividends right away.
16. Chicago: Harry Giles- The Bulls aren’t known for their willingness to draft based on potential. Every year Chicago seems to draft players with established college careers but if they are going to convince Jimmy Butler to stay long term they need to find a star to play next to him. If Giles can prove he is a healthy he provides the upside the Bulls need. Before his injuries Giles was considered the consensus best player in the class, due to his length, lateral quickness, effort and athleticism. If Giles can overcome multiple knee injuries he is the type of player that could return the bulls to prominence.
17. Milwaukee: Justin Jackson- The Milwaukee Bucks play a frenetic brand of defense that requires length and quickness. The Bucks are also a team that desperately needs perimeter shooting. Jackson is the marriage of what the Bucks do well and where they need to improve. Jackson will be able to defend and knock down 3’s from day one in order to help space the floor for Giannis “the Greek Freak”.
18. Indiana: Jawun Evans- Indiana comes out swinging with this one. Evans’ an excellent young player who spews confidence and toughness. He doesn’t wow with his athleticism nor his physical profile, but the young man just knows how to play. The Oklahoma State product improved a lot from his freshman to sophomore years, an encouraging sign of his work ethic. He is comfortable with the ball in his hands initiating the offense, is unselfish, but is a shoot first player. His shot isn’t elite yet, but it may get there. He has a nice release and shoots it as if he expects every one to find the bottom of the net.
Evans had a higher per 40 assists than Lonzo Ball and scored a shade over 19 a game in a competitive Big 12 conference, while leading his team to the best offense in the country. He is powerful and quick, which makes up for his lack of size & verticality. He has a bright future for whichever team takes a chance on him. I like this fit. 19. Atlanta: Ike Anigbogu- Anigbogu is a raw prospect with impressive tools. If he develops properly he will have the length to protect the rim, the strength to defend bigs in the post and the quickness to defend perimeter players on switches. He has even showed hints of a developing jumper in draft workouts. Maybe Anigbogu can attend Hawks university to develop the corner 3 and become the unicorn big that everyone around the league covets. He isn’t close to being an NBA contributor, but down the line this could be a steal!
20. Portland: Justin Patton- After redshirting for a year, Patton had a coming out party this past season. He spots solid length with a 7’3″ wingspan and a big 9’3″ standing reach. He projects as an elite shot blocker and rim runner. He is a project however and the Blazers will need to be patient with him for a couple season as he develops. The Blazers have 3 first round picks and are in a Warriors dominated Western Conference, so “punting” for a year while developing 3 first round picks isn’t the worst idea. Patton is a high ceiling, low floor guy and could go either way.
21. Oklahoma City: Terrence Ferguson- T-Ferg was all set to be a top NCAA prospect last year before deciding to forgo his season in order to get paid to play in Australia. Ferguson projects as an athletic 3-point shooter in the NBA, but struggled to deal with the strength of grown men playing abroad. His 3-point shooting is exactly what the Thunder need and if he can play enough defense to stay on the court he will be an immediate addition to the Thunder rotation.
22. Brooklyn: Jarrett Allen- I love Jarrett Allen and I’m not afraid to say it. This is a highly coordinated Center with an emerging face up game. His massive 7’5″ wingspan will allow him to protect the rim and make up ground on the perimeter. While he needs to fill out his thin frame, I don’t see this being an issue as he has the build to support more weight. He isn’t a crazy athlete, but has enough bounce to rim-run in the pick and roll as well to challenge guards around the hoop. His massive hands also allow him to grab rebounds like a vacuum. Brook Lopez should actually be a pretty good mentor for Allen. I expect him to be a limited minutes energy guy to start out, but has the potential to be a good starter once he develops.
23. Toronto: Bam Adebayo- Bam’s role in college was to throw down ferocious dunks and protect the rim. In pre-draft workouts/interviews he made sure to stress how his shooting was much better than it showed in college. Like Karl Anthony-Towns before him, Bam’s shooting was stifled in Kentucky’s system that forces bigs to stay in and around the paint. At the next level I believe Bam’s shooting and quickness could allow him to play some 4. Toronto’s depth chart at the 4 features 3 free agents and an unproven player so getting some depth in case free agency doesn’t go as planned is a good idea.
24. Utah: T.J. Leaf- Another blogger choosing the best available white player to head to Utah? Yeah, but it’s not about that! Leaf is a gifted scorer from the PF position and provides the Jazz with some positional flexibility up front. They have Gobert and Favors who will get the majority of minutes, but both of those players play mainly in the paint, while Leaf is going to find himself most effective on the perimeter. He is an above average rebounder who has shown toughness fighting for position. He isn’t much on the defensive end and needs to add a lot of strength, but he is the best available prospect for the Jazz at 24.
25. Orlando: Derrick White- White can handle the ball, defend and knock down the 3, but he will slip to the back of the first on draft night because he is a 23-year-old college senior. He will immediately give the Magic guard depth that they desperately need and could see some minutes next to Elfrid Payton.
26. Portland: Semi Ojeleye: After transferring from Duke to SMU, Ojeleye had a breakout season. He isn’t a spring chicken, he will turn 23 at the start of the next NBA season, but he has an NBA body. He displays great balance and explosiveness, with the ability to score at all levels of the offense. He rebounds and plays with energy though he hasn’t yet shown a strong aptitude for defense. Having the Jazz pass up on him at 24 was difficult for me, I think he fits well with many teams in the second half of this draft, but as the Blazers final pick in a draft that gives them a wealth of athletic players, he is an ideal choice. He could end up being a major piece for this team and it wouldn’t shock me to see a team take him 10 picks higher.
27. LA Lakers: Jordan Bell- The Lakers acquired this pick Tuesday afternoon along with Center Brook Lopez in exchange for former #2 overall pick DeAngelo Russell and Timofey Mozgov’s conract. With this pick the Lakers need to add some athleticism along their front lines to go with Larry Nance, Julius Randle, Ivica Zubac and the aforementioned Lopez. They could go with a high flying wing like Wesley Iwundu or Tyler Lydon, but an athletic power forward like Jordan Bell could be of use to them. Bell is a high flyer with a bouncy 38″ vertical to combine with a near 7 foot wingspan and a high motor. A |
the progress in the technology, as the company announced its 1.4 V breakthrough just one month ago. The results were recorded at the University of Iowa, where researchers are focused on further increasing the voltages and currents achievable from the inexpensive, solar hydrogen generation particles.
Hydrogen-generating particles
HyperSolar’s research is centred on developing a low-cost and submersible hydrogen production particle that can split water molecules using solar energy, emulating the core functions of photosynthesis. Each particle is a complete hydrogen generator that contains a novel high-voltage solar cell bonded to chemical catalysts by a proprietary encapsulation coating.
HyperSolar will now focus its efforts on increasing the hydrogen production efficiencies of these particles, by bonding the ideal fuel production catalyst to the low-cost, high-voltage solar cell.
More efficient hydrogen production
To achieve this, the company is currently exploring two parallel approaches. The first is to identify materials that interface with well known hydrogen production catalysts, such as the platinum on solar particles, to improve sunlight-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency.
The second is to pursue methods that further increase photo voltages of solar particles to greater than 1.7 V that allow integration of cheaper earth-abundant catalysts without significant loss in hydrogen production efficiency.
Research at Iowa and UCSB
‘Both the University of Iowa and University of California, Santa Barbara teams have been instrumental in spurring the speed at which our technology has developed, resulting in this voltage breakthrough,’ says Tim Young, CEO of HyperSolar.
He continues: ‘We are focused on identifying the next steps for the technology, that will make it possible for us to scale up to make a commercial technology that can produce hydrogen fuel at or near the point of distribution, using only water and sunlight.’Classes FAQS
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All you need is WiFi or a direct internet connection - no downloads or DVDs required! All classes stream directly to the device of your choosing.
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Whenever you're ready! There's no set start (or end) date here.
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Learn at your own pace. Some classes have a suggested timeline, but you are free to adjust to fit your own schedule.
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We really hope you love it! Unfortunately, we’re not able to offer refunds for the programs. If you’re on the fence, we strongly recommend that you watch the preview videos to get a sense of what the class is like before you buy.
Didn't find the answer you're looking for?
Email us at support@mindbodygreen.com. We're happy to answer all of your questions.Mark Zuckerberg had strong words for Facebook employees after finding out that someone has been crossing out "Black Lives Matter" on the walls at the company's Menlo Park, California, headquarters.
In an internal message shared with employees and obtained by Gizmodo, the CEO described repeated instances of the phrase "black lives matter" being crossed out and replaced with "all lives matter."
Zuckerberg noted he had previously addressed the issue with employees at a Q&A and said he now considered its continued occurrence "malicious."
“‘Black lives matter’ doesn’t mean other lives don’t — it’s simply asking that the black community also achieves the justice they deserve,” he wrote. "We've never had rules around what people can write on our walls — we expect everybody to treat each other with respect."
You can read his full message to employees below.
Image: Gizmodo
The walls at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park are adorned with motivational posters and handwritten messages, including by Black Lives Matter activists, who visited the campus a week ago.
BLM Sacramento with BLM Bay Area and Color of Change at a meeting with Facebook A photo posted by Black Lives Matter Sacramento (@blmsacramento) on Feb 11, 2016 at 10:36pm PST
#Facebook knows what's up! Love the posters up around campus! #BlackLivesMatter #BLM #FBHQ #Facebook #FacebookHQ A photo posted by Matthew Sena (@matthewslife90) on Feb 25, 2016 at 9:37am PST
Facebook, like other Silicon Valley companies, has struggled with diversity. According to the company's most recent data, just 2% of its U.S. employees are black.On Wednesday, the New York Times wrote about a Google-funded think tank terminating an entire team run by an anti-monopoly scholar who was critical of Google’s practices. It is an important story about how corporate interests, by virtue of their position inside key outlets of communication, can influence what information flows to the general public.
Now, The New York Times Company, the newspaper’s governing body, needs to figure out what to do about a similar problem at its own publication.
On Tuesday, ride-sharing company Uber announced the hiring of Dara Khosrowshahi as its new CEO, replacing Travis Kalanick. Khosrowshahi, an Iranian immigrant, previously spent 12 years as CEO of travel company Expedia.
He is also a member of the board of directors of the Times Company, a position he has held since 2015.
After the announcement, Times reporter Mike Isaac wrote a lengthy tick-tock of the Khosrowshahi hiring, but he did not disclose that the new CEO was a member of the Times Company’s board. The paper did disclose the relationship in other profiles of Khosrowshahi.
Linda Zebian, the Times Company’s executive director of communications, released a statement to The Intercept: “The fact that Dara Khosrowshahi is a board member of The New York Times Company will indeed be disclosed in every relevant article moving forward (the fact that it was not disclosed in the Aug. 29 article was an error, which we regret).” She added that “Mr. Khosrowshahi’s appointment will have no impact on our Uber coverage,” which suggests the new Uber CEO will not be stepping down from the board anytime soon.
As long as Khosrowshahi stays in place, questions will inevitably be raised about the paper’s deeper enterprise reporting into Uber’s business practices. The Times has generally done a credible job in covering Uber. It has broken unflattering news, such as venture capital firm Benchmark suing Kalanick and the use of a secret program called “Greyball” to deceive legal authorities who banned the service in certain locations. It has reported on a woman in India who was raped by an Uber driver and the company’s efforts to cover it up. A large interactive spread on Uber’s “psychological tricks” to boost ridership ran in April.
But none of those pieces were published while Uber had a presence on the Times Company’s board. And it will be difficult to gauge the organization’s transparency going forward without being privy to internal deliberations among the editorial staff.
The Times Company’s board of directors resembles most boards of publicly traded companies, featuring heavy doses of corporate interests. In addition to Khosrowshahi, leaders of three investment firms and a vice president with insurance giant AIG sit on the board. Furthermore, the one-time CEO of Pandora, a former executive vice president at Verizon, and an ex-vice president at Facebook also have seats. Robert Denham, a partner at the large law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, sits on the boards of both the Times Company and Chevron.
What sets this board apart from others is that is presides over an organization whose mission is to report, at times aggressively, on the very companies its board members represent. This discomfort was at the heart of why the New America Foundation fired Barry Lynn, the director of its Open Markets Program, for criticizing Google, a top funder.
There’s no indication the Times suppresses stories because of its board relationships. But at least one of them is worthy of attention. Last April, Verizon workers went on strike in the largest labor walkout in four years, and the Times saw fit to mention it only when then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders went out on the picket line during his campaign. Doreen Toben, the former Verizon executive on the Times Company’s board, left the telecom firm in 2009.
That gets at the bigger questions raised by the composition of the Times Company’s board. Rather than choose mostly public interest leaders or academics, as the publisher of the Tampa Bay Times has done, the company selected leading managers and investors for its board, which suggests a certain comfort with that milieu. According to a New York Times media kit for advertisers, the median household income for readers is $163,000 a year.
The Times has always claimed a hard separation between its business and editorial sides. But the environment in which the company operates could easily have an implicit bearing on story selection and devotion of resources. At the very least the connections should be consistently disclosed, which the company has promised to do.
Similar questions dogged Arianna Huffington, who sat on the Uber board when she was editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.Young Fathers have won this year’s Mercury Prize, picking up the gong for their album, ‘Dead’. They beat off competing entries from the likes of Jungle, Kate Tempest, Bombay Bicycle Club, Royal Blood and Anna Calvi, amongst others.
“We’re an odd group,” the band told DIY before the ceremony. ”It’s not something you can just sell to people and be like, ‘This is it’. This isn’t a guitar band. It’s not something that’s straight down the line.”
They were awarded the accolade at a ceremony in the Roundhouse, London this evening (Wednesday 29th October), which also saw live performances from each of the artists in the running.
The full list of nominees was as follows:
Anna Calvi - One Breath
Bombay Bicycle Club - So Long, See You Tomorrow
Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots
East India Youth - Total Strife Forever
FKA Twigs - LP1
GoGo Penguin - V2.0
Jungle - Jungle
Kate Tempest - Everybody Down
Nick Mulvey - First Mind
Polar Bear - In Each And Every One
Royal Blood - Royal Blood
Young Fathers - DeadGreen Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews twice suffered a Bennett’s fracture to his right thumb last season. Credit: Mark Hoffman
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Green Bay — The first time Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews broke his right thumb, people wondered why he couldn't wrap it up and play right away.
The second time he broke it, people were wondering why it was taking so long for him to be cleared to practice.
After two surgeries and nearly seven months of recovery Matthews still isn't 100%, but his injury is healed enough that he was able to practice Saturday, the first day of training camp. All he wore was a protective splint that allowed him to grab with all his fingers and thumb while restricting movement that might dislocate the thumb again.
It took him all off-season to return because the second surgery was far more complex than the first and involved taking part of a tendon in his wrist, passing it through a hole drilled in the thumb and wrapping it in a loop so that it ties down the joint and protects it from dislocating.
"It's called Eaton-Littler," Matthews said after practice Saturday. "They take some of your tendon, turn it around, drill through your bone, tie it up real tight. The simplest of explanations I say is it's almost like Tommy John (surgery), but for a joint that needs to move.
"It's a very invasive surgery. Not a lot of people know that."
The type of injury Matthews suffered last season — twice — is known as a Bennett's fracture and it occurs when blunt force travels down the thumb and causes a small part of the first metacarpal to break away from the hand. If not fused back together perfectly, the joint can become arthritic and make everyday things like buttoning a shirt very difficult, hand specialists say.
The first time Matthews broke it, it was while sacking Detroit quarterback Matthew Stafford at Lambeau Field on Oct. 6. He sat out four weeks after surgery and then attempted to play with a padded club over his entire hand.
It wasn't pretty.
"That Philadelphia game wasn't very fun," Matthews said of the Nov. 10 game. "I don't think we had a choice. It was me and Mike Neal were the only linebackers. It was kind of like, 'Yeah, we need you.'"
None of the specialists contacted for a story in the Journal Sentinel last October said they would recommend playing with a club four weeks after a Bennett's fracture, but all of them said six weeks was about average for proper healing to take place.
Matthews made it all the way to the 10th week before he suffered the same injury, this time while sacking Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. He appeared to hit the thumb on a helmet, causing terrific force to run down his thumb again. He didn't play another down the rest of the season.
The first time he had surgery wire was drilled into the bone to keep the two pieces firmly together and create a smooth bond. This time, an incision had to be made in his wrist so a tendon running down the arm to the underside of the hand could be sliced lengthwise, passed through a hole drilled in the thumb, pulled tightly around the base and sewn to the bone.
"Anytime you have that type of surgery, you have to treat it like a soft-tissue injury like an ACL because there's ligaments and tendons and all that in there, not just bones," Matthews said. "My timeline kind of goes along with those type of injuries."
In other words, Matthews needed the entire off-season to heal and get his right hand strong enough to play NFL football. He said he is not 100% yet, but he's working on improving his grip so he can toss aside blockers, grab running backs and most importantly haul down quarterbacks.
Last year, Matthews missed five regular-season games but still had 7½ sacks. He played 553 snaps, which means he had a sack once every 73.7 plays. In 2012 he missed four games and had 13 sacks in 867 snaps, or one every 66.7 snaps.
That's not a huge drop-off given he was playing one-handed much of the time, so the expectation that Matthews can inject life into the Packers defense is very much alive. He just needs to stay healthy.
If he does, it appears defensive coordinator Dom Capers has all kinds of plans for him. In just one day of practice he lined up Matthews in numerous places, usually opposite newcomer Julius Peppers. Capers wants Matthews in places where the offense can't lock in on him with their blocking assignments.
"He's an impact player," coach Mike McCarthy said. "I think any time you go through offense, defense, special teams, when you have an impact player you want to create targeting problems. It's a lot easier from an offensive perspective if you know exactly where the guys are lining up every time. So that's why we do it."
Matthews said having a pass-rushing threat like Peppers will help take some heat off him, but he said he has never worried about who was playing around him, only how he was performing. After missing 10 games in two years, including the San Francisco playoff game in January, the best thing Matthews can do is show up every week.
He is excited about Capers' plans for him.
"They definitely had me moving around from lining up in the middle of the field as a stack backer to the left, to the right, lining up in the slot, and just putting more of our playmakers on the field," Matthews said. "I think I bring a multitude of weapons to the game and I think I could do that through lining up all over the field.
"We'll see how that does moving forward, but I felt good about it today and hopefully it will only get better moving forward."The unstoppable Ali Ferzat reminds us why the Assad regime hates him
On August 25, the 60-year-old Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat was driving home from his office in Damascus when a car with tinted windows blocked the road. Men dragged Ferzat from his car, stuffed him in a van, beat him severely and broke both his hands in what they called "a warning" and dumped him on the side of the road.
"Once my fingers have healed, I'll go back," Ferzat told an interviewer in December, after finally leaving the hospital.
Above is a particularly trenchant cartoon from Ferzat,* a stunning indictment of Syria's absurd and self-defeating crackdown. Egyptian blogger Bassem Sabry called it "one of the most amazing cartoons I have ever seen." The man in the blindfold has Ferzat's unmistakable beard, though the cartoonist is using himself as a stand-in for Syrians as a whole.
Syrian security forces have so far killed over 5,000 civilians, including hundreds of children, and have imprisoned, tortured, and often killed many outspoken critics such as Ferzat. Syrian troops are believed to be defecting with increasing rapidity, creating a nascent insurgent movement. As Ferzat's cartoon suggests, President Bashar al-Assad's decision to wage total war on his own people may in fact be dooming his regime, a process of self-destabilization that seems to be accelerating.In the wake of the recent bill passed to defund Planned Parenthood, a bit of news surrounding Zuckberg is once again getting traction. Last year, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla donated Facebook shares valued at $992.2 million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation in Mountain View, California. Of course, one of the groups supported by the foundation is–you guessed it–Planned Parenthood. So, at least, he inadvertently did.
READ: I Stand with Planned Parenthood, Because It Saved My Life
Now that Zuckerberg and his physician wife are expecting a baby girl, it’s especially significant to note that they support an organization dedicated to accessible women’s healthcare. It’s no secret they struggled to conceive, and suffered several miscarriages. In an age where healthcare costs are on the rise, and the average American paycheck is on the decline, affordable healthcare is not something to be flippant about.
We’re proud of anyone who openly supports women’s rights, but it’s especially powerful when a public figure makes a bold statement. Hopefully, it will encourage others to do the same.
*Note: We have changed the original headline of this story to be less misleading.Clarifying Boko Haram’s Transnational Intentions, Using Content Analysis of Public Statements in 2012
Clarifying Boko Haram’s Transnational Intentions, Using Content Analysis of Public Statements in 2012
by Benjamin S. Eveslage
Abstract
To advance understanding of the dynamic global security threats emerging in West Africa, this article analyses the radical Islamic sect in Nigeria popularly called “Boko Haram”.This was done by addressing the question: What is the likelihood that Boko Haram will transnationalize? Current literature is inconclusive. On the one hand, some discuss Boko Haram as part of an international network of terror groups, and therefore a transnational threat, while others describe the Boko Haram conflict within a domestic or regional context. This article offers, for the first time, a systematic content analysis of the group’s public statements issued in 2012 to address this question. The analysis found Boko Haram to express itself in an intrinsically domestic orientation, and as such, transnationalization is unlikely. However, Boko Haram also exhibited a highly reactive modus operandi – highlighting concerns for increased transnationalization if international actors engage Boko Haram. In light of the analysis, policy recommendations are offered.
Providing a Context for Boko Haram
“You said I’m a global terrorist, then you are a terrorist in the next world,”[1] declared Abubakar Shekau to President Barack Obama in a YouTube video uploaded on August 4, 2012.
Abubakar Shekau is the leader of the radical Islamic terrorist organization based in Northeastern Nigeria popularly called “Boko Haram” which translates as “Western education is forbidden.” Around 2001, the sect was founded by Mohammed Yusuf and turned violent in 2009, to which the Nigerian government responded by severely repressing the group, killing many members, including Yusuf. Although Nigerian authorities initially believed Shekau was among those killed in 2009, he had survived and resurrected the sect in 2010. Boko Haram under Shekau’s leadership showcased a dramatic increase in violence and attracted heightened international concern. In August of 2011, Boko Haram orchestrated the bombing of the United Nations offices in Abuja and has continued to attack churches, government infrastructure, and other businesses and public targets. On July 21, 2012, the United States Department of State designated three of Boko Haram’s main leaders as “specially designated global terrorists,”[2] which led to the response by Shekau, as stated above. Although the Nigerian government has claimed Shekau’s death a number of times, he has continued to re-emerge refuting such claims in YouTube videos[3], and he still remains the known leader of the sect. A number of competing narratives on the Boko Haram sect complicate predictions regarding the group’s likelihood to transnationalize and posing a threat to international actors. Reviewing the influences, which have led to the sect’s emergence and growth, provides a context for Boko Haram’s current existence in Nigeria. With this lens, elaborated upon in the literature review, a content analysis of Boko Haram’s public statements in 2012 enhances understandings of the group’s ideology and likelihood to transnationalise. Both international and domestic policy recommendations are discussed.
Boko Haram as a Domestic Conflict Actor
An Identity-Based Conflict?
The narrative detailing Boko Haram’s formation is intertwined with the region’s transformations in political, economic, and social life, beginning before colonisation to the Nigerian state as it is today. From 1804, the Sokoto Caliphate governed a region encompassing much of Northern Nigeria, but also included parts of Niger and Northern Cameroon. The Sokoto Caliphate constituted the region’s first unified Islamic rule, which lasted for nearly 100 years. In 1903, the British colonial administration overthrew the Caliphate and implemented indirect control over the North and direct control over the South, meaning that Northern traditional Islamic leaders remained in considerable political power. The British colonial administration in Nigeria exacerbated differences between the country’s many ethnicities[4], which provided the foundation for ethno-centric political competition in the years after independence.[5] The experience of Islamic law governing Northern Nigeria during the Caliphate and continuing subserviently under colonisation impacted Nigeria in the years after the country’s unification in 1914 and since independence in 1960. Previous research indicates the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah, a 14th century theologian who stressed the political authority of Islamic law, now underpins Boko Haram’s ideology, among other Islamist movements in Nigeria.[6] This ideology, which Boko Haram subscribes to, has been used to criticise the validity of a secular state, non-Muslim state representation and corrupt Islamic leaders, favoring a return to Islamic authority in politics. In this context, a Sharia law-governed state has become an alternative to secular Nigeria, creating a basis for radical groups like Boko Haram to form and gather support, mainly from those who view the government as corrupt and ineffective.
In many ways the rise of Boko Haram, and its perpetuation, can be comprehended best by recognising the ethnic and religious conflicts in Nigeria and their interaction with national politics. In post-independence Northern Nigeria, a number of increasingly fundamentalist and extremist Islamic political movements swelled and waned.[7] These movements were also met by opposing Christian revivalist movements during the 1970s[8] that had an overall effect of politicising religious identities in Nigeria. One component of this politicisation process is explained through Nigeria’s legal status of “settlers” and “indigenes,” which often assumes ethnic or religious identities. This legal construct pinned, and currently pins, Muslims and Christians against each others in conflicts over land [9] by creating special privileges for those in the “indigene” status. Within this context, emerging violent Islamist groups drew on public support by embedding themselves within Muslim communities that have been affected by such structural disadvantages or violence, and responding by carrying out violence against Christians as well.[10] Violent religious confrontations have become characteristic in parts of Northern Nigeria, and today these conflicts occur within and outside the context of Boko Haram. After decades of government neglect of the development needs in the North, and especially since 2010 when Goodluck Jonathan, a Southerner and Christian, became president of Nigeria, Boko Haram has directly fought against the federal government with a goal of removing the current system and establishing Sharia law over the whole country.
A Weak States Conflict?
Another source of discontent, which Boko Haram precipitated from, is the disparity between Nigeria’s resource-rich environment and the disturbingly high poverty rates caused by corruption and poor management of the country’s resources, termed the relative deprivation theory.[11] Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with an estimated 160 million people; it boasts the sixth-largest known oil reserves; and is the third largest economy in Africa with annual economic growth rates ranging from 7 to 8% from 2009 to 2011.[12] Yet, this wealth has been has been experienced by very few. Throughout Nigeria’s recent history, revenues from oil were only directed to the wealthiest, while the livelihoods of subsistence-based populations were undercut by the loss in value against luxury imports.[13] It was the Northern subsistence-based populations that were most severely harmed by this economic dislocation, a process also called the Dutch disease.[14] As a result of this economic impact over time, in 2011 72% of Northern Muslims lived on less than $1.25 per day, while only 27% Southern Christians lived beneath this income level.[15] In Northern Nigeria, this economic dislocation profoundly affected a once-respected class of Islamic followers called the gardawa, both in their economic and social status. The capitalisation of Nigeria’s economy and resulting inflation rendered useless the minor economic contributions from the gardawaand the public began to view them as nuisances and potential thieves.[16] The marginalisation of the gardawa led some to seek radical solutions, which influenced the formation of extremist Islamist movements in Northern Nigeria. Members of a radical Islamic movement in Nigeria during the 1980s called the Maitatsine Uprising, and one member in particular, Mohammad Yusuf, who later went on to establish Boko Haram in 2001, were said to be of the gardawa.[17]
Compounding Nigeria’s unequal growth and poor governance was corruption on an unprecedented scale. General Sani Abacha (Nigerian military ruler 1993-1998) “used to send trucks round to the central bank with orders that they be filled with bank notes.”[18] Abacha reportedly looted more than a million U.S. dollars for every day of his 5-year tenure in office, totaling to 3 billion U.S. dollars.[19] Abacha, though exceptional, was not out of the ordinary. Estimates hold that between 1960 and 1999, Nigerian leaders siphoned more than $440 billion out of the economy.[20] Although Nigeria has made efforts to curtail corruption under a civilian government since 1999, corruption remains a large problem in the public’s perspective [21] and its lawmakers are some of the highest paid in the world.[22] Popular belief that Nigeria is corrupt makes the government an easy target for criticism, which Boko Haram leveraged to gain support from disadvantaged communities. Other more direct forms of coercion, though still in conjunction with anti-government rhetoric, were used for recruitment of vulnerable populations including adolescents and street children in urban areas of Northern Nigeria called almajiri. A spokesperson of The National Agency for the Prohibition for People Trafficking said, “These children are vulnerable to all sorts of social problems – abuse, violence. [They can] be cherry-picked for any vice that adults want to use them for.”[23] The youth vulnerability is perpetuated in some cases by deceptive teachings of radical mallams (Islamic instructors), who have become the only source of education for many almajiri – an outcome of complex historical processes.[24]
Although Boko Haram originated as a fundamentalist movement, the group only started incorporating violence after confrontation with government security forces. In 2005, the Nigerian military arrested Boko Haram’s founder Mohammed Yusuf among other followers. By 2007 a new president pardoned and released them[25], yet only until July 2009 when violence broke out between Boko Haram and government forces.[26] On July 21, 2009 security forces raided a Boko Haram facility after receiving notification the sect was manufacturing bombs. During the raid, a bomb exploded killing a number of Boko Haram members. Reprisal attacks from Boko Haram and government forces led to nearly 1,000 deaths. The violence dissipated only after the deaths of many Boko Haram members, the scattering of remaining members, and the public and extra-judicial killing of Yusuf by security services.[27] Sect operatives went underground with “a stark example of the ‘unjust’ secular state that they would rally behind – the brazen execution of their leader.”[28] By 2010, Boko Haram reemerged with Shekau at the helm and the sect began introducing more sophisticated weapons and operations, including vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) and suicide bombings.[29] In response to this increase in violence by Boko Haram, but also perpetuating it, was the crude crisis response by the state of Nigeria. In 2012 and continuing into 2013, reports from the media and international human rights organizations[30] documented that Nigeria’s anti-terrorist campaigns were belligerently killing Boko Haram members and innocent civilians. The engagement of government forces in indiscriminate killings, arrests, and destruction of property have further alienated the government from the public, playing into the hands of Boko Haram. In this case, where both the government and Boko Haram conduct violence against civilians to incite fear, it is important to define terrorism broadly enough to encompass state-sponsored terrorism, which is met by the definition of terrorism used in this article.[31]
Boko Haram as an International Threat
A number of researchers, politicians, and reporters argue Boko Haram is capable of orchestrating basic transnational operations due to linkages with Al-Qaeda affiliated organisations.[32] Reports from the United States House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security[33] and RUSI[34] (a British defense and security think tank) suggested Boko Haram poses a growing threat to the United States and United Kingdom. These reports highlighted Boko Haram’s violent resurgence and shift to more destructive weapons since 2009 to substantiate their warnings.
Historical and geographic factors also present transnational concerns. During the scramble for Africa in the nineteenth century, European powers drew the borders of many African states arbitrarily, which often divided ethnic groups – creating transnational ethnic linkages – or enclosed many different ethnic groups – fostering sub-national ethnic conflicts.[35] Boko Haram’s birth in Maiduguri, a city located in the Northeastern corner of Nigeria, bordered by Chad, Niger and Cameroon, places itself within a predominantly Hausa-speaking population that has linguistic, cultural, and ethnic ties to its neighbors – increasing the risk of conflict spillover. Additionally, a small portion of Boko Haram’s leadership is foreign born or has traveled outside Nigeria for extended periods of time, though a review of the other “foreign elements” within Boko Haram is worth elaborating upon.[36] Boko Haram is also embedded in what international security agencies term the “arc of instability,”[37] stretching across Saharan and Sahelian Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. It is feared that this area of unsecured borders and general un-governability will become a breeding-ground for Sahel and Sahara-based salafi-jihadi groups. Due to the proximity of some extremist groups in this region and their similar ideology, it is feared that their collaboration would result in the ability to launch globally threatening terrorist attacks.[38] Adding to this “perfect storm” was the collapse of Gaddafi’s Libya, unleashing a catalysing regional arms trade[39], and the vacuum of governance in Northern Mali. This is not to mention the low level of economic development, higher incidence of famine, and desertification in many areas of Western Africa that may sway local populations to support radical groups who claim to support their interests.
The ideology guiding Boko Haram members may also highlight the group’s intentions to attack internationally. The group’s popular name “Boko Haram”, which translates as “Western education is forbidden,” immediately highlights the group’s well-cited anti-Western ideology. However, “Boko Haram” is merely a popular name used by the media. Rather, the members of this sect call their organization, “Jama’atul Alhul Sunnah Lidda’wati wal Jihad,” translated in English as, “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.”[40] The word “jihad” in Boko Haram’s official name is also related to “religious struggle” as referenced by another name by which the group has been known.[41] Still, the title “Boko Haram” holds significance because its spokespersons have criticized Western education, democracy[42], and attacked a number of public and private schools in Nigeria.[43] In this way, Boko Haram incorporates anti-Western themes, at least in their domestic representations, into the group’s core salafi-jihadi ideology. Also, effects from globalization and colonization, both significantly of Western origin, were described previously as influencers of the marginalisation of some populations in Northern Nigeria and thus motivating Boko Haram.
Reviewing Methodologies for Analyzing the Statements of Terrorists
While prior research can help identify the influential factors behind Boko Haram’s rise and track the origins of its leadership, the group’s operations and intentions remain elusive. Due to the killing of the group’s original leadership in 2009, little has been discovered about its initial operations. Still very little information is known about the group due to its loose cell-like structure and high level of secrecy. In similar circumstances, where terrorist organisations have offered little information for researchers to understand their violent intentions, analyzing the sects’ proclaimed ideology has provided answers. Drake (1998), who used terrorist group ideology to understand targeting, noted, “Terrorists are rarely mindless or indiscriminate in their attacks, although they may appear to be to observers who have not examined their ideological beliefs.”[44] Drake’s observation, highlighting the link between terrorist ideology and targeting, remains an applicable tool to understand the connection between Boko Haram’s ideology and likelihood for transnationalisation. Given that most methods for learning about Boko Haram’s ideology are not viable (i.e. interviews, phone calls, etc.), only a few sources containing this information remain, such as the sect’s public statements.
Research has found that analyzing terrorist statements, including speeches and interviews, “holds great promise.”[45] Content analyses of such statements have not only helped to clarify a group’s ideology and potential targets as Drake (1998) detailed, but they can also show more complex relationships. Linguistic content analyses of material written by terrorists “have been used to uncover relationships between the nature of group rhetoric and the incidence of terrorist violence.”[46] Other researchers have used content analysis to measure the threat-level of statements[47], to extract political and ideological meanings[48], to identify how groups change their language before an attack[49], and to identify psychological differences between violent and nonviolent extremist groups.[50] Since 2010, Boko Haram has operated as a very decentralised organisation[51], leaving very few sources to analyze the group, short of its public statements. A systematic content analysis [52] of these valuable statements is missing from the current literature, which may offer insight into the uncharted territory of Boko Haram.
Methodology
For this article, a content analysis was conducted on the public statements Boko Haram issued in 2012. Numbering 26 statements in total, three of these were later excluded for various reasons[53], leaving 23 statements for analysis. These statements were accessible online and had been disseminated to the public by various methods, including publication on YouTube, in newspapers, and on printed leaflets dropped in Northern Nigerian cities. These written and spoken statements were translated by both Nigerian and international news sources and terrorism analysts.[54] A number of the transcribed English translations of Boko Haram’s statements are shown in Table 1 of the appendices, which includes the embedded coding and coding justifications. Some statements were found in their full-length original version, however a number of other statements were only represented in fragments of their original version. This was the case when news agencies only published portions of paraphrased or quoted content from the original statement delivered to them by Boko Haram. In these instances, multiple sources that published different fragments of the same Boko Haram statement were used to maximize the amount of text from the original statement. With the media’s bias to publish controversial content, particularly any threats and criticisms included in Boko Haram’s original statements, this research placed a high degree of certainty on receiving an accurate account of the threats that were issued in both full and partial-text statements.
Text rendered from the 23 statements was analyzed [55] for content that either met the definition of a criticism [56] or a threat [57] and was directed towards an international and/or domestic subject. The subjects of threats and criticisms in Boko Haram statements were grouped into 16 subject categories, 10 domestic (Nigerian) subjects and 6 international subjects. The categorisation of subjects is demonstrated in the hierarchical outline in Table 2. Per statement, every newly introduced subject receiving criticism was assigned a threat-level of one point. Threats were categorized as either a “vague threat” or “direct threat.” If the threat were conditional, if the threatened subject was not physical, if the threat admittedly lacked conceivable execution, or if the threat was practically impossible to execute, the threat was categorized as a “vague threat.” Per statement, every newly introduced subject with a “vague threat” was assigned a threat-level of two points. If the threat did not meet any of the four conditions of a “vague threat”, it was categorized as a “direct threat.” Per statement, every newly introduced subject receiving a “direct threat” was assigned a threat-level of three points.
Findings
In the statements analysed, 36 criticisms, 17 vague threats, and 17 direct threats were identified and coded. The vast majority of threats and criticisms were directed towards domestic subjects at |
shows, and now it’s turned into this whole fast slapathon.
John: Axl Rose told us that Guns ‘N Roses had the Chili Peppers in mind when they did “Rocket Queen.”
Flea: And Extreme’s “Get the Funk Out” is a huge Chili Pepper rip-off. But it’s so slick and glossy—there’s no dirt in it. It sounds like a studio creation. It’s the most unfunky shit I ever heard.
Lightin’ Meets Harpo
John: I got into character for this record the same way an actor would prepare for a part. I wouldn’t have anything to do with anything that didn’t involve positive vibrations for the creative spirit of the band. That applied to people as well as things like clocks, garbage cans, and ugly lights. If I knew there was going to be an Arsenio Hall billboard coming up down the street, I’d turn away from it so I didn’t have to see it. I tried hard to expose myself to humor and creativity of all types: film, paintings, music.
What music inspires you?
John: My favorite guitarists: Eddie Hazel from P-Funk, Robert Johnson, James Williamson of the Stooges, Snakefinger, D. Boon from the Minutemen, Lightin’ Hopkins, Leadbelly, Tom Verlaine, Danny Whitten from Crazy Horse, and Zander Schloss and Dix Denney from Thelonious Monster. But the most important inspiration is undoubtedly Zoot Horn Rollo’s playing on Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica. If I listen to it first thing in the morning, I’m assure a day of unbridled creativity.
What do those players have in common?
John: They weren’t thinking about coming off as cool guys—they just played every note like it meant something. A lot of people don’t understand how much it means to just beat the shit out of your guitar, to put every last ounce of energy and spirit into it. You should use it like a paintbrush, not a machine. It’s there for you to express yourself on.
Flea: John’s attitude is really pure, a reminder to me of why I started doing this in the first place. He gets the big picture so well, in terms of being able to love John Coltrane and two-chord punk rock with equal fervor.
The band’s musical philosophy seems largely based on perceiving those connections.
Flea: There are only two categories in music: soulful and non-soulful. Anything that has human emotion and spirit and is played with heart and sincerity is really happening. We can see the beauty in Eric Dolphy, the Ramones, and everything in between. We love anything that has a groove that makes you want to live. If you have an open mind, you can see the beauty in all kinds of music.
John: Not just music. Robert De Niro and Harpo Marx have influenced me as much as any guitar player. Think of how De Niro only says things that need to be said. He drops the unnecessary lines and gets his message across with small facial movements. The lesson for a guitarist is that you don’t have to play a million notes, all really loud. And Harpo, the funniest person who ever lived, said everything with facial expressions and noises. Every single gesture really meant something, and all of that translates musically.
Flea: The best thing I did to prepare for the record was to lose my phone book and break my foot, both of which happened right when we moved into the house. That helped me concentrate—I had no contact with anyone for a couple of months.
John: There are no such things as accidents.
Flea: Well, I would have much rather not broken my foot.
Sex Machines
John: I like to keep things simple. Those MESA/Boogie amps were too hard for me to understand. For most of the basics, I used two Marshalls: a guitar head for edge and a bass head for punch and low end. I split the signal with a DOD stereo chorus pedal. For some overdubs I used a Fender H.O.T. practice amp, but for a lot of parts, even solos, I just went straight into the board. You can get amazing, funky tones that way. In fact, a lot of my distortion is from overdriving the board.
My main guitar was a ’58 Strat, though I used a Les Paul reissue on a couple of things. I also have a ’57 Strat, which someone had screwed up by putting on those big stupid frets that everyone uses these days. I vomited and told them to make it fretless. That’s what I used for the “Mellowship Slinky” solo. Some people think those big frets help your vibrato, but I make a point of using as little vibrato as possible, though I might do it more if I had long, pretty black hair. And I didn’t use any whammy bar.
That’s a Coral Electric Sitar on “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” and I used an old Gibson lap steel for the solo at the beginning of “The Righteous and The Wicked.” My acoustic is a newish Martin steel-string. But my favorite guitar in the world is my old, fucked-up Fender Jaguar. The strings are all crusty, and the notes crap out when you bend them. I used it to write most of the music, and I became really attached to it.
My only effects were an [Electro-Harmonix] Big Muff and an Ibanez wah. I like the Ibanez because you can make adjustments without taking it apart, and it has a bass setting that sounds more like an envelope filter than a wah. I used that on “Naked in the Rain.”
Flea: I started using Music Man basses because they’re good and inexpensive. When I could afford one, I got a Spector, but it kept shorting out. I went back to the Music Mans because they’re so simple and pure, but I’ve had problems keeping their necks straight—I had to constantly adjust them on tour. For this record I wanted something really good for the studio with a variety of sounds, so I got a WAL, which I used for most of the 4-string songs, though I used the Music Man for 5-string and fretless stuff. I still think Music Man basses look coolest. Every amp I’ve ever had breaks. For this album I used a Galien-Krueger head with MESA/Boogie cabinets. I’m not especially into them—they’re just the shit I happen to play through now. There’s no effects except for an old Mu-Tron on “Sir Psycho Sexy” and some envelope filter on a couple of things. I used a combination of mike and direct for most of the album, though I used direct only on a few things.
One Doodad— Extra-Large, Please
Flea: Remember, we did our first gig as a joke. But the next time we played, there were lines around the block. We got signed really fast. We’d worked so hard at our previous projects—I’d been playing with Fear, and Hillel and Jack Sherman, our first guitarists, were really into their band, What Is This? But all these major labels instantly wanted to sign our joke band. We never had a happy relationship with EMI, who put out all our previous records. As soon as we could get off, we did. Everybody wanted us. We got a great deal with Warner Brothers—we all bought houses and shit.
I think selling music is beautiful. Sure, art is a totally spiritual thing that you regurgitate just from living, thinking, and breathing. But this is a business world. We make records and videos to promote our products so we can drive around on tour buses, make money, and then come home and swim in your pools. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are so popular with kids—they buy our T-shirts, buttons, posters, hats, and if we sold fuckin’ little doodads to hang on their underwear, they’d buy them too. And I love it—it’s so much better than if we weren’t making money. I never dreamed I’d have my own ping-pong table!
Some might fear your influence on young minds.
Flea: There’s such a wave of redneck right-wing morality sweeping the country. People have said we were sexists for singing “Party on Your Pussy,” or for Anthony making blatant sexual gestures. But if sex is important to someone, they should sing about it. I see nothing wrong with idolizing the female genitalia. But just because we like it doesn’t mean we’re homophobic—it would be terrible if people thought that.
But people who are neither right-wing nor sexually uptight might say you promote jock-headed attitudes.
Flea: Like we’re purveying this locker-room, “Fuck you, baby” thing? I’d say they should try to open their minds to everything we’re saying, as opposed to focusing on that one aspect. We delve into spiritual love for the female gender, as well as lustful sexual love.
Music is My Monster
John: Some guitarists have the idea that there are technical prerequisites to being a great player. But all it takes is the ability to make music with complete abandon and total concentration. Take Lou Reed’s playing with the Velvet Underground—to me that was twenty times better than that of most guys who practice twenty hours a day. As long as you’re excited about what you’re playing, and as long as it comes from your heart, it’s going to be great.
Flea: I think the key is the willingness to make the sacrifices to put music ahead of everything. When a musician makes music about his life, the sound of that life comes across on the records, whether it’s Miles Davis or the simplest punk rock. It’s important for every musician to remain humble in the face of music; to remember that you’re nothing more than an insignificant speck, but that music is a huge, monstrous universal thing. We’re all just fortunate enough to be part of it, to feed off of it and feed into it.
Well said.
Flea: Good. I got lucky.
The next week the Chili Peppers bid farewell to the funky hacienda with a huge blow-out. A few days later we meet at Flea’s place to listen to Rick Rubin’s final mixes. (There’s no street number outside—must be the place where the Mercedes with Black Flag and Bob Marley bumper stickers is parked.)
Up in Flea’s bedroom the windows are open to a spectacular smogless day, and the music blasts mega-decibel triumphant from the stereo. Flea’s stretched out on the bed, John lazes against the wall. They’re blissed—the mixes are spectacular. “This is really, really, good,” purrs Flea. “It sounds amazing,” nods John. “I’m so fuckin’ happy.”First, let's get one thing straight. Pets hate costumes.
I DON'T CARE IF YOU THINK YOUR DOG LOVES IT when you strap a Cowboy Barbie on his back, or YOUR KITTEH APPEARS TO ENJOY WEARING A PRINCESS TIARA. Someone needs to tell you, and it might as well be Cute Overload. Your pet pretty much hates it.
When we dress our pets up, it's for our own selfish enjoyment. So you might as well DO A STELLAR JOB, because your pet only benefits from a costume if that costume generates gobs of attention.
You owe your pet a damn good costume. Which brings me to the point. A LOT of you are SLACKING and/or CONFUSED out there. Think of the ANIMALS. Let me show you what's what. [Beckoning motion] First we have:
1. The Famous Human Costume
The Good: You always have to explain it. "He has a mini mohawk! He's Mr. T., SEE!?"
The Bad: Your pet still hates you if you don't step it up to make it recognizable
Exhibit A: Mr. T:
And a well-crafted Martha:
2. The Cutesy Hurl-a-Thon
The Good: You'll get a lot of "Awn, he looks adorable!" from other insane people
The Bad: Anne Geddes will come after you with enormous hedge clippers
Behold Bunny in a Lettuce Cup:
3. The Non Sequitur Costume
The Good: Often very well-crafted. Drugs and/or heavy wine use is almost always associated with each costume idea.
The Bad: Lots of WTF?...OK! reactions.
The "BoomBox":
The "Mix Tape":
The "Buttered Pupcorn":
The "Rice Krispy Treat":
The "Ham":
The "Metro Line"!?!?!?!
4. The "I Had it Lying Around" Costume
The Good: You finally clean up the house
The Bad: Your cat continues to hate you
There's the Boxed Wine Kitteh Leaf Thing:
And Aluminum Foil/Rubber Band Turtle 'Jaws';
5. The "My-pet-is-going-to-kill me-but-I'm-doing-it-anyway" Costume
The Good: Target Dog Costume Sales reach all-time high thanks to you
The Bad: Your pet kills you.
Nah, don't take the tag off. What's the point?
5. Build on Your Strengths Costume
The Good: A costume that takes advantage of and accentuates a particular pet attribute
The Bad: Your pet's "attribute" is on display (the fact he looks like a pimp cannot be helpful)
Behold the Golden Retriever Lion:
The Built-in Ewok Face:
The Fish in a Bowl that Happens to look like a Jack-o-Lantern:
The Cow-Spotted terrier:
The Suave Hedge:
The Built-in Wetsuit:
And the Dog that Happens to Look like a Pimp:
6. The Epic Transformation Costume
The Good: The pinnacle of a great costume—creative! imaginative! inspiring! Transforming!
The Bad: Everyone else instantly feels like crap when they see your genius
Behold...Elvis:
The Jumbo Dachshund Dog:
The Wizard of Oz:
The Croc Versus Pup: (more photos here)
The Fast Food Gang [Making gang doughnut symbol with hand]:
The Thanksgiving Turkey Decision: (That thought bubble is actually part of the costume):
And, our current favorite, the Headless Horseman:
7. The Just Plain Wrong Costume
Don't worry if costume types 1 through 6 don't encourage you. There is always type 7; just plain wrong. When in doubt, you can always create fake cleavage for your Boxer.
Huge thanks to all Sender-Inners over at the Martha Stewart/CuteOverload Costume Contest. Keep those submissions coming!
In no particular order: Oswald the Pug by kheilbrunn, The BoomBox and Mix Tape by lawlerc, Vino Paws by lvmyboys3, Elvis pup by sashimi54, Cat that's gonna kill by pastryprncess, hot dog vendor by StephanieJaxBeach, Oz by hrlollar Thanksgiving Decision by newfy, Ewok by raindropSJ, Cow by Breehan, Pumpkin Fish Tankie by piebispro, Martha Stewart Magazine by soulofart, Buttered Pupcorn by poc2u, Bulldog Pimpin' by cknlomein, Headless Horseman by newfy, Boxer St. Pauli Girl by hobie_utah Ham Dog by PaleBlue, Retreiver Lion by JeanninePC99, Terrier Scuba Diver by herrinkr and James Bond Hedgehog by jacqtav.Gordon Murphy, 65, was injured in alleged disturbance in Ardbeg Street in Govanhill on Sunday.
© HEMEDIA / SWNS Group
A man has been arrested after the death of a pensioner in Glasgow.
Gordon Murphy was injured following a disturbance in Ardbeg Street in Govanhill on Sunday.
The 65-year-old was taken by ambulance to the Victoria Infirmary where he died a short time later.
Police confirmed on Monday that a 42-year-old man has been detained in connection with the death.
He is expected to appear at Glasgow sheriff Court on Tuesday.
A spokesman for Police Scotland said: "At Around 00.05am on Sunday, December 21, a 65 year-old man was injured following a disturbance in Ardbeg Street, Govanhill.
"He was taken by ambulance to the Victoria Infirmary where he died a short time later.
"The man can now be named as Gordon Murphy, 65, of Ardbeg Street, Govanhill, Glasgow. Relatives are aware.
"A 42 year-old man has been arrested and is presently detained in police custody in connection with the death.
"A full report will be sent to the procurator fiscal."
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Tiruchirappalli[b] ( (help·info) ) (formerly Trichinopoly in English), also called Trichy, is a major tier II city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Tiruchirappalli District. Trichy is the fourth largest city as well as the fourth largest urban agglomeration in the state. Located 322 kilometres (200 mi) south of Chennai and 374 kilometres (232 mi) north of Kanyakumari, Tiruchirappalli sits almost at the geographic centre of the state. The Cauvery Delta begins 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west of the city where the Kaveri river splits into two, forming the island of Srirangam, which is now incorporated into the Tiruchirappalli City Municipal Corporation. Occupying 167.23 square kilometres (64.57 sq mi), the city was home to 916,857 people in 2011.[a]
Tiruchirappalli's recorded history begins in the 3rd century BC, when it was under the rule of the Cholas. The city has also been ruled by the Pandyas, Pallavas, Mutharaiyars, Vijayanagar Empire, Nayak Dynasty, the Carnatic state and the British. The most prominent historical monuments in Tiruchirappalli include the Rockfort, the Ranganathaswamy temple at Srirangam and the Jambukeswarar temple at Thiruvanaikaval. The archaeologically important town of Uraiyur, capital of the Early Cholas, is now a suburb of Tiruchirappalli. The city played a critical role in the Carnatic Wars (1746–1763) between the British and the French East India companies.
The city is an important educational centre in the state of Tamil Nadu and houses nationally recognised institutions such as Indian Institute of Management (IIMT), Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) and National Institute of Technology (NITT). Industrial units such as Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Golden Rock Railway Workshop, Ordnance Factory Tiruchirappalli (OFT) and Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project (HAPP) have their factories in the city. The presence of a large number of energy equipment manufacturing units in and around the city has earned it the title of "Energy Equipment and Fabrication Capital of India". Tiruchirappalli is internationally known for a brand of cheroot known as the Trichinopoly cigar, which was exported in large quantities to the United Kingdom during the 19th century.
A major road and railway hub in the state, the city is served by the Tiruchirappalli International Airport (TRZ) which operates flights to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Etymology [ edit ]
According to Hindu mythology, Tiruchirappalli derives its name from the three-headed demon Trishira, who meditated on the Hindu god Shiva near the present-day city to obtain favours from the god. An alternative derivation, not universally accepted, is that the source of the city's name is the Sanskrit word "Trishirapuram"—Trishira, meaning "three-headed", and palli or puram meaning "city".
Telugu scholar C. P. Brown has proposed that Tiruchirappalli might be a derivative of the word Chiruta-palli meaning "little town". Orientalists Henry Yule and Arthur Coke Burnell have speculated that the name may derive from a rock inscription carved in the 16th century in which Tiruchirappalli is written as Tiru-ssila-palli, meaning "holy-rock-town" in Tamil. Other scholars have suggested that the name Tiruchirappalli is a rewording of Tiru-chinna-palli, meaning "holy little town". The Madras Glossary gives the root as Tiruććināppalli or the "holy (tiru) village (palli) of the shina (Cissampelos pareira) plant".
Historically, Tiruchirappalli was commonly referred to in English as "Trichinopoly". The shortened forms "Trichy" or "Tiruchi" are used in common parlance and the full name Tiruchirapalli appears in official use by government and quasi-government departments but seldom by the native people.
History [ edit ]
Early and medieval history [ edit ]
Tiruchirappalli is one of the oldest inhabited cities in Tamil Nadu; its earliest settlements date back to the second millennium BC. Uraiyur, the capital of the Early Cholas for 600 years from the 3rd century BC onwards, is a suburb of present-day Tiruchirappalli. The city is referred to as Orthoura by the historian Ptolemy in his 2nd-century work Geography. The world's oldest surviving dam, the Kallanai (Lower Anaicut) about 18 kilometres (11 mi) from Uraiyur,[18] was built across the Kaveri River by Karikala Chola in the 2nd century AD.
The medieval history of Tiruchirappalli begins with the reign of the Pallava king Mahendravarman I, who ruled over South India in the 6th century AD and constructed the rock-cut cave-temples within the Rockfort. Following the downfall of the Pallavas in the 8th century, the city was conquered by the Medieval Cholas, who ruled until the 13th century.
Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah
After the decline of the Cholas, Tiruchirappalli was conquered by the Pandyas, who ruled from 1216 until their defeat in 1311 by Malik Kafur, the commander of Allauddin Khilji. The victorious armies of the Delhi Sultanate are believed to have plundered and ravaged the region. The idol of the Hindu god Ranganatha in the temple of Srirangam vanished at about this time and was not recovered and reinstated for more than fifty years. Tiruchirappalli was ruled by the Delhi and Madurai sultanates from 1311 to 1378, but by the middle of the 14th century the Madurai Sultanate had begun to fall apart. Gradually, the Vijayanagar Empire established supremacy over the northern parts of the kingdom, and Tiruchirappalli was taken by the Vijayanagar prince Kumara Kampanna Udaiyar in 1371. The Vijayanagar Empire ruled the region from 1378 until the 1530s, and played a prominent role in reviving Hinduism by reconstructing temples and monuments destroyed by the previous Muslim rulers. Following the collapse of the Vijayanagar Empire in the early part of the 16th century, the Madurai Nayak kingdom began to assert its independence. The city flourished during the reign of Vishwanatha Nayak (c. 1529–1564), who is said to have protected the area by constructing the Teppakulam and building walls around the Srirangam temple. His successor Kumara Krishnappa Nayaka made Tiruchirappalli his capital, and it served as the capital of the Madurai Nayak kingdom from 1616 to 1634 and from 1665 to 1736.
In 1736 the last Madurai Nayak ruler, Meenakshi, committed suicide, and Tiruchirappalli was conquered by Chanda Sahib. He ruled the kingdom from 1736 to 1741, when he was captured and imprisoned by the Marathas in the siege of Tiruchirappalli (1741) led by general Raghuji Bhonsle under the orders of Chhattrapati Shahu. Chanda Sahib remained prisoner for about eight years before making his escape from the Maratha Empire. Tiruchirappalli was administered by the Maratha general Murari Rao from 1741 to 1743, when it was acquired by the Nizam of Hyderabad, who bribed Rao to hand over the city. Nizam appointed Khwaja Abdullah as the ruler and returned to Golkonda. When the Nawab of the Carnatic Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah was dethroned by Chanda Sahib after the Battle of Ambur (1749), the former fled to Tiruchirappalli, where he set up his base. The subsequent siege of Tiruchirappalli (1751–1752) by Chanda Sahib took place during the Second Carnatic War between the British East India Company and Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah on one side and Chanda Sahib and the French East India Company on the other. The British were victorious and Wallajah was restored to the throne. During his reign he proposed renaming the city Natharnagar after the Sufi saint Nathar Vali, who is thought to have lived there in the 12th century AD. Tiruchirappalli was invaded by Nanjaraja Wodeyar in 1753 and Hyder Ali of the Mysore kingdom in 1780, both attacks repulsed by the troops of the British East India Company. A third invasion attempt, by Tipu Sultan—son of Hyder Ali—in 1793, was also unsuccessful; he was pursued by British forces led by William Medows, who thwarted the attack.
British rule [ edit ]
The Carnatic kingdom was annexed by the British in July 1801 as a consequence of the discovery of collusion between Tipu Sultan—an enemy of the British—and Umdat Ul-Umra, son of Wallajah and the Nawab at the time, during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War. Trichinopoly was incorporated into the Madras Presidency the same year, and the district of Trichinopoly was formed, with the city of Trichinopoly (or Tiruchirappalli) as its capital.
During the Company Raj and later the British Raj, Tiruchirappalli emerged as one of the most important cities in India. According to the 1871 Indian census—the first in British India—Tiruchirappalli had a population of 76,530, making it the second largest city in the presidency after the capital of Madras. It was known throughout the British Empire for its unique variety of cheroot, known as the Trichinopoly cigar. Tiruchirappalli was the first headquarters for the newly formed South Indian Railway Company in 1874 until its relocation to Madras in the early 20th century.[c][58]
Trichinopoly during the British Raj
The town and fort of Trichinopoly c. 1840
Rockfort and Teppakulam, c. 1860
Contemporary and modern history [ edit ]
Map of Tiruchirappalli town in 1955
Tiruchirappalli played an active role during the pre-independence era; there were a number of strikes and non-violent protests during the Quit India Movement, notably the South Indian Railway Strike that took place in 1928. The city was the base for the Vedaranyam salt march initiated by C. Rajagopalachari in parallel with the Dandi March in 1930.[61] Tiruchirappalli was an epicentre of the anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu when a team of Tamil language supporters gathered and organised a rally from the city to Madras in 1938.[62] Later in 1965, Tiruchirappalli was made the base of the "Madras state Anti-Hindi Conference" convened by C. Rajagopalachari. The population of Tiruchirappalli continued to grow rapidly, achieving a growth rate of 36.9% during the period 1941–51. After independence in 1947, Tiruchirappalli fell behind other cities such as Salem and Coimbatore in terms of growth.[68] Tiruchirappalli remained a part of Madras State, which was renamed Tamil Nadu in 1969. The city underwent extensive economic development in the 1960s with the commissioning of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited.[71] In the early 1980s, M. G. Ramachandran, then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu drafted a plan to move the state's administrative headquarters to Tiruchirappalli.[72] A satellite town was developed near Navalpattu on the outskirts of the city,[72] but the proposed move was shelved by successive governments.[73]
Like much of Tamil Nadu, Tiruchirappalli remains prone to communal tensions based on religion and ethnicity. There have been occasional outbreaks of violence against Sri Lankans. In 2009, the offices of a Sri Lankan airline were attacked in the city.[74][75] In September 2012, two groups of Sri Lankan pilgrims who had visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health in Velankanni and the Poondi Madha Basilica had their buses attacked in Tiruchirappalli by a group of Tamil activists.[76][77][78] Owing to a series of terrorist attacks in Indian cities since 2000, security has been increased at sites such as Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple.[79]
Geography and climate [ edit ]
Panorama of Tiruchirappalli showing Cauvery river and the Srirangam island.
Aerial photograph of Srirangam island, sandwiched between the rivers Kaveri and Kollidam
Tiruchirappalli is situated in central south-eastern India, almost at the geographic centre of the state of Tamil Nadu. The Cauvery Delta begins to form 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west of the city where the river divides into two streams—the Kaveri and the Kollidam—to form the island of Srirangam. By road it is 912 kilometres (567 mi) south of Hyderabad, 322 kilometres (200 mi) south-west of Chennai and 331 kilometres (206 mi) south-east of Bangalore.[82] The topology of Tiruchirappalli is almost flat, with an average elevation of 88 metres (289 ft). A few isolated hillocks rise above the surface,[83] the highest of which is the Rockfort; its estimated age of 3,800 million years makes it one of the oldest rocks in the world.[86] Other prominent hillocks include the Golden Rock, Khajamalai,[88] and one each at Uyyakondan Thirumalai and Thiruverumbur.[89]
The two major rivers draining Tiruchirappalli are the Kaveri and its tributary the Kollidam, but the city is also drained by the Uyyakondan Channel, Koraiyar and Kudamuritti river channels.[91] The land immediately surrounding the Kaveri River—which crosses Tiruchirappalli from west to east—consists of deposits of fertile alluvial soil on which crops such as finger millet and maize are cultivated. Further south, the surface is covered by poor-quality black soil. A belt of Cretaceous rock known as the Trichinopoly Group runs to the north-east of the city, and to the south-east there are layers of archaean rocks, granite and gneiss covered by a thin bed of conglomeratic laterite. The region falls under Seismic Zone III, which is moderately vulnerable to earthquakes.[95]
Urban structure [ edit ]
Panorama of Tiruchirappalli as seen from the top of the Rockfort.
The city of Tiruchirappalli lies on the plains between the Shevaroy Hills to the north and the Palani Hills to the south and south-west. Tiruchirappalli is completely surrounded by agricultural fields. Densely populated industrial and residential areas have recently been built in the northern part of the city, and the southern edge also has residential areas. The older part of Tiruchirappalli, within the Rockfort, is unplanned and congested while the adjoining newer sections are better executed. Many of the old houses in Srirangam were constructed according to the shilpa sastras, the canonical texts of Hindu temple architecture.
Climate [ edit ]
Tiruchirappalli experiences a tropical savanna climate—designated "Aw" under the Köppen climate classification—with no major change in temperature between summer and winter.[99][100] The climate is generally characterised by high temperature and low humidity. With an annual mean temperature of 28.9 °C (84.0 °F) and monthly average temperatures ranging between 25 °C (77 °F) and 32 °C (90 °F),[99] the city is the hottest in the state.[102] The warmest months are from April to June, when the city experiences frequent dust storms. As of November 2013, the highest temperature ever recorded in Tiruchirappalli was 43.9 °C (111.0 °F), which occurred on 2 May 1896;[104] the lowest was observed on 6 February 1884 at 13.9 °C (57.0 °F).[106] The high temperatures in the city have been attributed to the presence of two rivers—Kaveri and Kollidam—[d]and the absence of greenery around the city.[102] As Tiruchirappalli is on the Deccan Plateau the days are extremely warm and dry; evenings are cooler because of cold winds that blow from the south-east.[99] From June to September, the city experiences a moderate climate tempered by heavy rain and thundershowers. Rainfall is heaviest between October and December because of the north-east monsoon winds, and from December to February the climate is cool and moist.[99] The average annual rainfall is 841.9 mm (33.15 in),[107] slightly lower than the state's average of 945 mm (37.2 in).[108] Fog and dew are rare and occur only during the winter season.
Climate data for Tiruchirappalli Airport (1971–2000) Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Record high °C (°F) 35.6
(96.1) 40.0
(104.0) 42.2
(108.0) 42.8
(109.0) 43.3
(109.9) 43.9
(111.0) 41.1
(106.0) 40.6
(105.1) 40.6
(105.1) 38.9
(102.0) 36.7
(98.1) 35.6
(96.1) 43.9
(111.0) Average high °C (°F) 29.4
(84.9) 32.6
(90.7) 35.4
(95.7) 37.5
(99.5) 38.1
(100.6) 38.0
(100.4) 36.4
(97.5) 35.8
(96.4) 34.7
(94.5) 32.5
(90.5) 30.4
(86.7) 29.1
(84.4) 34.2
(93.6) Average low °C (°F) 20.3
(68.5) 21.3
(70.3) 23.2
(73.8) 26.1
(79.0) 26.5
(79.7) 26.8
(80.2) 26.1
(79.0) 25.7
(78.3) 24.8
(76.6) 24.1
(75.4) 22.8
(73.0) 21.2
(70.2) 24.1
(75.4) Record low °C (°F) 14.4
(57.9) 13.9
(57.0) 15.6
(60.1) 18.3
(64.9) 19.4
(66.9) 18.0
(64.4) 20.1
(68.2) 20.6
(69.1) 20.6
(69.1) 18.9
(66.0) 16.7
(62.1) 14.4
(57.9) 13.9
(57.0) Average precipitation mm (inches) 18.0
(0.71) 6.2
(0.24) 8.9
(0.35) 31.4
(1.24) 61.4
(2.42) 28.7
(1.13) 68.3
(2.69) 70.1
(2.76) 142.4
(5.61) 186.1
(7.33) 150.5
(5.93) 90.2
(3.55) 862.0
(33.94) Average rainy days 1.0 0.5 0.6 1.6 3.6 2.1 3.5 4.6 8.5 8.5 8 |
2008
|
Print This Email This Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean wants things to wrap up: this morning, on CNN's Wolf Blitzer, he said of the party's superdelegates: "I need them to say who theyre for starting now. Watch the video here. We cannot give up two or three months of active campaigning and healing time, the Democratic National Committee Chairman told CNNs Wolf Blitzer. Weve got to know who our nominee is.
After facing criticism for a mostly hands-off leadership style during much of the primary season, Dean has been steadily raising the rhetorical pressure on superdelegates. He said Thursday that roughly 65 percent of them have made their preference plain, but that more than 300 have yet to make up their minds.
The national party chair, who has remained neutral throughout the primary process, said again its his job to make sure both candidates feel they are treated fairly but not to tell either of them when to end their run. Watch the video here.Saudi women outraged at US TV host
Saudi women expressed outrage at Chelsea Handler, the American host of the TV show “Chelsea Lately,” when she swore at Saudi men for being able to receive notification by SMS of their wives’ travels abroad. Some are tired of explaining the situation to foreigners and others say Chelsea should have done her homework before going on air.
The 37-year-old American talk show host asserted that “they have this new policy in Saudi Arabia where if a woman leaves the country, the husband receives a text message,” before going on to use foul language to express her disdain.
She continued: “Talk about the worst marriage ever. You have to have a conversation every time you want to leave house? I don’t think so buddy; you’re lucky if I tell you where I’m going.”
Sabah Abdulmalik, a 42-year-old stay-at-home-mom said, “I would like to inform Chelsea that this is only a service that people can activate or decline and that this was not forced upon us,” said.
“This service was developed by the Saudi authorities and not by husbands who want to track their wives, so when she says such a word, she should know that it was not conceived of at a local level and that it’s a matter of choice,” she added.
Saudi fashion designer Reem AlKanhal says she respects freedom of speech but this crossed the line. “I think we have deeper problems than traveling, driving and covering our faces. They only focus on the aspects of our lives that make them laugh and we hate to be the butt of jokes on live television,” she said.
“We have female leaders and accomplished women but the international media does not like to shed light on this, choosing instead to brainwash their audience that we still live in tents and that we don’t have rights,” she added.
A female Saudi blogger who chose to remain anonymous said that Chelsea’s clip was offensive not only to Saudi women, but to Islam as well. “We learned that Muslim women should not leave the house without the approval of their husbands and I think it’s the right thing to do,” she said.
“Her words were very aggressive and we do not accept such attacks, especially using bad words knowing that this is not how we were raised and this is not normal to us in Arab, local TV shows and talk shows,” she added.
Sarah Essam, a 32-year-old mother of two, wonders how Chelsea thought she was defending Saudi women in making these statements. “I know that using shocking language and discussing controversial topics are surefire ways to attract a larger audience, but this is beyond disrespectful and she crossed the line,” she said.
“Thanks to her words, she actually made us defend our husbands and stand behind this service even if we don’t approve of it,” she added.
Mariam Hejazi, a 28-year-old banker, demanded an apology from Chelsea. “We have been tolerating the international media for a really long time. How can they judge a whole nation when funnily enough, it is their motto to “never judge a book by its cover,” she said.
“She should have done her homework as a TV host or journalist. She should have investigated further because if she did, she would have known that we were raised knowing we do not travel or leave the house without our husbands knowing and that the text messaging system is a service that can be accepted or declined,” she added.
Yasmine Abdulrazak, an English teacher at a college in Jeddah, thinks the clip was actually funny and did not feel offended by it. “I don’t know why we are always offended when people talk about us. Yes, the media highlights the negative things about Saudi Arabia and they always make women feel like we need a hero to save us,” she said.
“Chelsea is a comedian and her job is to mock people and attack others to make her audience laugh. We see her make fun of celebrities, politicians and nations but they do not express offense in the same way we did today,” she added.ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s first family soap opera was back on the front pages on Wednesday after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s wife said his party’s selection of women to run in European elections was a “shamelessly trashy” process.
Silvio Berlusconi and his wife Veronica Lario arrive for dinner with U.S. President George W. Bush at Villa Madama in Rome in this June 4, 2004 file photo. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi/Files
Veronica Berlusconi, who has publicly lamented her husband’s eye for younger women in the past, also accused him of going to the birthday bash of an 18-year-old woman in Naples but not attending the coming-of-age-parties of his own children.
Veronica, 52, who rarely appears with her husband, said she agreed with Italian newspapers’ descriptions of her husband’s party’s choice of female candidates as “entertainment for the emperor,” in what newspapers saw as a reference to him.
The latest public clash between the Berlusconis, which dominated mainstream newspaper front pages along with swine flu and Fiat’s rescue of Chrysler, follows a media debate over “starlets in politics.”
“Women in Politics — Veronica’s Wrath,” was the way La Stampa of Turin put it.
In an e-mail to Italian news agency Ansa, she praised politicians such as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and then added:
“But what’s happening today (in Italy) behind a front of bodily curves and female beauty is grave.” She added that it offended all women and particularly those who had fought in the “frontline” for women’s equality.
Her 72-year-old husband, speaking to reporters during a trip to Warsaw, said he was sorry his wife had apparently believed “what she read in the papers” and added that it was all “a campaign (against him) hyped by the leftist press.”
The controversy exploded earlier this week when an on-line magazine close to Berlusconi’s main conservative ally, lower house speaker Gianfranco Fini, criticized how center-right women candidates were being chosen for the June European elections.
COSTUME-JEWELLRY POLITICIANS
That article, seen by some media as a reference to Berlusconi’s party, said women politicians could not be used like “pieces of costume jewelry” to attract votes.
Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party is considering a number of former actresses and television personalities as possible candidates in the June European election, media reports say. As party leader, he has a powerful voice in who makes the list.
“Some have written that it is all part of entertainment for the emperor. I agree,” Veronica said. “What is emerging from newspapers is shamelessly trashy, all in the name of power.”
Berlusconi told reporters in Warsaw it was “absurd” that women who speak several languages and have several degrees should consider themselves excluded from politics just because they had been on television or in show business.
Veronica Berlusconi also took her husband to task for recently dropping in at the birthday party in Naples of an 18-year-old woman whose father is a political acquaintance.
“That surprised me very much too,” Veronica said, “Even because he never came to the 18th birthday parties of his children, even though he was invited.”
Berlusconi has three children with Veronica and two by his first marriage. He has been in hot water with her several times in the past in a very public way.
Two years ago, she criticized him for flirting with young starlets at a party. He later issued a syrupy public apology in the press, saying: “I beg you to forgive me.”Aereo Says New Content Deals Coming for Web TV
Aereo, the start-up that lets users watch broadcast TV over the Web, is branching out.
CEO Chet Kanojia says his IAC-backed company will soon start offering programming that doesn’t come from local TV stations, which he’ll sell for an additional fee.
“We have done a few deals” with content owners, Kanojia said during an interview at a Goldman Sachs media conference this morning. “You’ll see us publicize those at some point soon.”
Kanojia didn’t offer much more detail. But asked if the deals he had struck were with “household name cable networks,” he answered: “Generally speaking, yes.”
So what does that mean? There’s no way Kanojia is working with any network affiliated with any of the four major broadcasters. They are suing his company for copyright violation, because it distributes their over-the-air programming without paying for it. So that rules out anything from News Corp. (which also owns this Web site), Disney, Comcast or CBS.
I would also be surprised if he has struck deals with any of the established cable programming giants who aren’t in the broadcast TV business, like Viacom or Discovery. Because it seems unlikely that Aereo would want to resell the all-or-nothing bundles the cable guys insist on.
More likely would be deals with programmers that don’t have full cable distribution in the U.S. I could imagine a theoretical deal with someone like Bloomberg TV, for instance, or Al Jazeera English. Asked to provide additional clarification, Aereo PR head Virginia Lam writes: “We have had conversations with a variety of content providers, including some cable networks.”
Kanojia also said his company would soon start streaming programming to PCs and laptops. Right now, users can only watch Aereo on Apple’s iPhones and iPads, and on their TV sets via Roku boxes and Apple TV. The company is also limited to the New York City area, but has already said it plans to expand to other cities.A US deputy director for the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention was arrested yesterday on sex charges involving a minor and an animal.
The charges against Dr Kimberly Lindsey, 44, a deputy director of the Laboratory Science Policy and Practice Program Office in Atlanta, relate to incidents involving a six-year-old boy. She was charged with two counts of child molestation and bestiality, according to police.
Her boyfriend, Thomas Westerman, is also charged with two counts of child molestation. Mr Westerman, 42, works for the CDC as a night watchman, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Dr Lindsey and Mr Westerman allegedly made the child take part in sex play.
Dr Lindsey was booked into the DeKalb County Jail at approximately 3pm local time on Sunday and is being held on $25,000 bond.
Mr Westerman was released on a $16,000 bond.
Read more at myFOXatlanta.com.Alf Rehn Author, Professor Alf Rehn is a writer, a professor of management, a ginthusiast, a keynote speaker, a fan of Ethel Merman and a strategic advisor, although not necessarily in that order. He can be stalked at www.alfrehn.com.
All business is practical futurism, but not all futurism is practical for business. The former of these points should be self-evident. To do business successfully, it’s not enough to just execute perfectly in the present—you also need to have some idea regarding the future, the manner in which it will bring about changes in the market, in your consumers and in your competitors. Some things will change rapidly, others far less so, some might not change at all, but to stay in business you need some appreciation for change, and the ability to adapt to it.
In this respect, you’d expect professional futurists to be something akin to the CEOs best friend, yet this is rarely the case. This mismatch is not entirely easy to understand, and is particularly galling to many futurists, who wouldn’t mind in the least being besties with a CEO. For them, the explanation is simple—corporate executives just don’t “get it”. But, I have another theory.
The key reason for the decline of business futurism is not that executives don’t get it, nor that futurism is just too “out there” for the staid cultures of the contemporary corporation. In fact, the opposite is true. Futurism today is too common, too bland and too non-challenging to be taken seriously by executives who see the future unfolding in front of them at speeds unmatched by even the most frantically keynote-happy futurist.
Once upon a time, futurism was truly uncommon thinking. It reveled in the outré, in the taboo, in the unthinkable. During the 1950’s and the 1960’s, even partially into the 1970’s, futurists were proposing daring, counterintuitive and at times positively mind-shattering visions. The futurism of this era was gleefully uncommon, challenging and anti-establishment. And then something happened.
Futurism—at least a great deal of it—became less interested in pushing the boundaries of knowledge and more interested in commodifying specific images of the future—call it the keynotification of futurism. It became less interested in shocking and challenging, and more interested in being seen as legitimate, proper and palatable. It became less and less uncommon and as a result duller and duller.
Listen to a contemporary futurist or read a modern magazine on the same, and you’ll come away with a distinct feeling of having heard it all before. The futurists of today are busy speaking of things such as drones, big data, sustainability, robots and 3D-printing (always with the 3D-printing!), making them almost indistinguishable from journalists covering modern technology, who write about the same subjects.
Futurism has become common. It has become a way to feed back to us the very ideas we’ve already seen, already read about, and in some cases, already experienced. I’ve been treated to a futurist who excitedly explained the coming age of home manufacturing and who deflated only slightly at the mention that I’d already played around with a MakerBot several years back.
This is also why most corporate executives could care less about the majority of what goes for futurism today—they already see far more extreme things happening all around them. They see it in the corporate labs, among their competitors and in their market space. It’s not that executives don’t get it, it’s that they’ve already gotten it, sometimes long before the self-proclaimed professionals of the future.
What we need is more uncommon futurism. A futurism that cares not a whit about what’s hot right now, who remain stoically unimpressed by drones and wearable IT, but who instead take it as their job to shock and awe CEOs with visions as radical as those of the futurists of yore. We need futurism that is less interested in agreeing with contemporary futurists and their ongoing circle-jerk, who take pride in offending and disgusting those futurists who would like to protect the status quo.
It is not easy to be an uncommon futurist. The future seems to unfold so clearly and rapidly that it’s easy to be bewitched by it. It’s easy to just follow the trends of today and extrapolate from them, although the very notion of futurism was supposed to be a bulwark against such simplifications. Nor should we discount the group-think of futurism. Speak of the same thing as the other futurists, and you’re sure to be met with nods and friendly smiles – “that’s what I think, too!” Question the scenarios of clean-tech and nano-tech so routinely trotted out, and you’ll find yourself a pariah.
But maybe that’s what you should be. Maybe that’s who the CEO wants as a BFF. The uncommon thinker, the pariah who sees the futures other people don’t.
So regardless of whether you are a futurist, want to be a futurist, or simply are in business and therefore a practical futurist, consider your futures thinking. Are the futures you foresee those that others can easily agree with, commonly shared visions repeated in the pages of Wired and Fast Company—or can you push yourself further?
Put somewhat differently: When you’re presenting your ideas of the future, are people nodding or shaking their heads? If they’re nodding, your futures are common and easy to agree with. This also means that they’re unlikely to matter, even unlikely to come true—as the future has a nasty habit of surprising us and going against that which is seen as “common sense”. If people are shaking their heads, you have in all likelihood come up with something just a little more uncommon, a little more challenging, something with much more power to change thinking and thereby the world. In other words, you might just have stumbled into serious futurism.A recent Google-backed study indicates that "virtual house calls" can save money and hours of travel time for patients with Parkinson's disease, since a simple video chat allows doctors to assess tremors and other related symptoms. "Telemedicine" is a way of interacting that could have profound implications for our healthcare system, if it is scaled up to treat patients beyond those with Parkinson's.
"The vision is that anyone anywhere with Parkinson disease or another chronic condition—from autism to Alzheimer's disease—can receive the care she needs," lead author Dr. Ray Dorsey of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's neurology department tells Healthline.
The study, carried out by researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Rochester Medical Center and published online in JAMA Neurology, followed 20 patients with Parkinson's disease who communicated with their doctors using web cams. Researchers found that the level of care these patients received was no different from those who had in-person visits.
The implication is that a virtual house call, which would allow a patient to be seen and treated from the comfort of his or her home, is just as good as an in-person visit when all that's required is a basic assessment and consultation.
Institutional Barriers to Telemedicine
The healthcare structure in the United States, however, is such that doctor-patient video chats pose a risk for insurance companies and hospitals. What if an urgent situation arises during the virtual house call, and what if a dire symptom of an illness goes undetected?
But if virtual office visits, text message prescription reminders, and other mobile technological advances were to catch on more broadly in the medical field, millions of dollars could potentially be saved by medical institutions and government agencies.
"To make this a reality, Medicare and other payers need to stop subsidizing care at high-cost, inconvenient institutions and start incentivizing low-cost, patient-centered care," says Dorsey.
Such a change would require advocacy and activism on the part of patients.
"As with any change, patients and caregivers will have to make their voices heard if they want to start receiving care on their terms, rather than the current institution-centered model," Dorsey said.
Innovation in Healthcare
Licensing and insurance reimbursement schemes would also need to change, as remote visits are not reimbursable under most plans and doctors cannot currently treat patients who are located in other states.
While the Internet and video chat services have revolutionized the way companies, families, and universities operate, most hospitals and medical institutions have yet to adopt the trend.
"Reimbursement and licensure issues are trailing innovation and, if anything, act as a hindrance," Dorsey said in a press release. "There's really a disconnect."
More on Healthline.com:KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian police made a third arrest on Thursday in their hunt for the people involved in the murder of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
A still image from a footage broadcast by Chinese state media which they say is believed to show the second woman (wearing yellow top) suspected of involvement in the apparent assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, February 16, 2017. CCTV via REUTERS TV
The third person, whose nationality was not disclosed, was the friend of an Indonesian woman who was detained earlier in the day in connection with the killing of Kim Jong Nam at the airport in the Malaysian capital on Monday, police said.
"He was detained to facilitate investigations as he is the boyfriend of the second suspect," said Abu Samah Mat, the police chief in Selangor state, told Reuters. (For a graphic on North Korea's Kim family tree click: here)
The Indonesian woman was remanded in custody for seven days along with another woman, who held a Vietnamese travel document, who was caught trying to leave the country through the budget airline terminal of Kuala Lumpur airport on Wednesday, the Bernama state news agency reported.
Kim Jong Nam, 46, was assaulted at the same airport on Monday with what was believed to be a fast-acting poison as he was about to leave on a flight to Macau.
He sought help, collapsed and died on his way to hospital.
Lawmakers in South Korea earlier cited their spy agency as saying it suspected two female North Korean agents had murdered Kim. U.S. government sources also said they believed North Korean assassins were responsible.
Kim Jong Nam had spoken out publicly against his family’s dynastic control of the isolated, nuclear-armed state, and he had also expressed fears for this safety.
South Korea’s intelligence agency told lawmakers in Seoul that the young, unpredictable North Korean leader had issued a “standing order” for his elder half-brother’s assassination, and that there had been a failed attempt in 2012.
North Korean agents have killed rivals abroad before.
The Indonesian woman was alone when she was apprehended, police said. Her passport bore the name Siti Aishah, and gave her date of birth as Feb. 11, 1992, and place of birth as Serang, Indonesia. The Indonesian foreign ministry said it had requested consular access to the woman.
The first suspect detained had travel documents in the name of Doan Thi Huong, with a birth date of May 1988 and birthplace of Nam Dinh, Vietnam.
‘NO REASON TO KILL’
North Korea has made no public reference to Kim Jong Nam’s death, and calls to the embassy in Malaysia were unanswered.
But a source in Beijing with ties to both the North Korean and Chinese governments told Reuters that North Korea was not involved in his killing, and had no motive.
“Kim Jong Nam has nothing to do with (North) Korea,” the source said. “There is no reason for (North) Korea to kill him.”
“(North) Korea is investigating,” the source said when asked why there has been no publicly denied involvement, adding that North Korea wanted the body returned.
There was also no mention of Kim Jong Nam’s death in North Korean state media, as of early Thursday.
At midnight on Wednesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to mark the birthday of his father, the late leader Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011.
The late leader was also the father of Kim Jong Nam. The two had different mothers.
Malaysian police said Kim had been at the airport to catch a flight to Macau on Monday when someone grabbed or held his face from behind, after which he felt dizzy and sought help at an information desk.
“The cause of death is strongly suspected to be a poisoning attack,” said South Korean lawmaker Kim Byung-kee, who was briefed by his country’s spy agency.
Malaysian authorities rebuffed North Korean officials’ efforts to stop an autopsy being carried out on Kim, three Malaysian government sources familiar with the stand-off told Reuters.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, a Malaysian government leader said he believed the police had received a request from North Korean officials for the body, and it could be eventually released to the North Korean embassy.
“After all the police and medical procedures are completed, we may release the body to the next of kin through the embassy,” Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said.
Slideshow (6 Images)
According to South Korea’s spy agency, Kim had been living with his second wife, under Beijing’s protection, in the Chinese territory of Macau, South Korean lawmakers said.
One of them said Kim also had a wife and son in Beijing.
In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Wednesday China was aware of reports of the murder and was closely following developments.Nonetheless, the result was a crushing setback for the leftist coalition that had steered Chile out of the 17-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet and helped build democracy while maintaining economic stability.
Voters not only overcame their fears of the right’s ties to the dictatorship, but they also rejected the candidate supported by an extraordinarily popular leftist president, Michelle Bachelet. Despite having approval ratings hovering around 75 percent, she was unable to transfer her popularity to Mr. Frei, whom many voters saw as a re-tread and whose campaign was unable to keep up with Mr. Piñera’s slick, well-financed effort.
Mr. Piñera has positioned himself as an experienced business leader but is not expected to make any striking changes in the country’s economic policies.
Photo
In his victory speech, Mr. Piñera paid tribute to the previous government and vowed not to “start from zero, but to start a new era in the development of our country.” And in a televised telephone call, he called Ms. Bachelet late Sunday to thank her for her service and to invite her to breakfast Monday morning to seek her “advice.”
Chile’s third-richest citizen, Mr. Piñera has a financial empire that includes a controlling interest in the country’s largest airline, Lan; a major television channel; and a stake in Chile’s most popular soccer team. He has said he would divest his holdings in Lan if elected.
During the campaign, Mr. Piñera boasted that he would create one million new jobs and crack down on delinquency and drug trafficking. He also said he would seek to privatize a part of Codelco, Chile’s state-owned copper company and the world’s largest copper producer.
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Like Mr. Frei, he vowed to carry on some of the social programs that Ms. Bachelet put in place, including an expansion of child care and social assistance for nonworking mothers.
Although some members of Mr. Piñera’s coalition served in the Pinochet cabinet, the president-elect has said he will not allow former members of the Pinochet government to serve in his cabinet. Mr. Piñera’s brother, José Piñera, helped install the nation’s neo-liberal economic program as the general’s labor minister and today is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group in Washington.
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After toppling the Socialist government of Salvador Allende in 1973 in a bloody coup, General Pinochet violently thrust the country to the right. More than 3,000 leftists were killed or disappeared, leaving a bitter memory that had kept conservatives out of power ever since.
That fear still worked in Mr. Frei’s favor on Sunday.
“This was one of the most difficult decisions the country has had in a long time,” said Erica Tapia, 44. “Unfortunately, I voted for Frei out of fear of the right.”
Ms. Bachelet could not seek re-election because the Constitution allows only one four-year term and no direct re-election. Analysts believe she could win again in 2014 if she runs.
But dissatisfaction with her coalition was evident in the first round of voting in December, when Mr. Piñera won 44 percent of the vote and an independent candidate, Marco Enríquez-Ominami, won 20 percent. Mr. Enríquez-Ominami, a former Socialist, tapped into the desire for a break with the old with a campaign against politics as usual.Deadpool 2 might be getting closer to casting its Cable if Russell Crowe has his way. Cable has already been confirmed to appear in the sequel alongside three fan-favourite returning characters and the Merc with a Mouth and, as of yet, there’s been no word on who will be playing Cyclops’ son from the future (yeahhh, comics are weird). That hasn’t stopped actors, including Ron Perlman, lobbying for it – and now Russell Crowe’s getting in on the act after seeing a mockup of himself as Cable. Are you not entertained?!
A dedicated fan has picked up his pen and turned Russell Crowe into Cable and, once Crowe spotted it, he just had to let Deadpool/Cable creator Rob Liefeld know about it. The man knows how to get his way, I’ll give him that.
ICYMI - my attempt at turning @russellcrowe into #Cable! pic.twitter.com/buL4qZsa95February 27, 2017
A quick glimpse at the fan art of Crowe as Cable may need some of you to cool your chimichangas to avoid an excitement overload. However, he certainly looks to fit the role perfectly – and Crowe would be a perfect straight man alongside Ryan Reynolds’ goofball Deadpool.
This follows on from Rob Liefeld trying to pitch the role of Cable to Russell Crowe. Liefeld looked to have been shot down but then Crowe did a U-turn and tried to get Ryan Reynolds on board with the idea.
@russellcrowe you should read for #Cable in Deadpool and X-Force. Just sayin...February 24, 2017
I should read for it? https://t.co/kLONW0gBGIFebruary 24, 2017
@russellcrowe huge fan sir. Poorly worded. Apologies.February 24, 2017
I'm sure if @VancityReynolds has any interest in that idea he'll find a way https://t.co/KFUC6fIxjSFebruary 24, 2017
Would Russell Crowe be your pick for Cable in Deadpool 2? Or do you have someone else in mind? If only there was some sort of way to quantify opinions through some sort of poll-based vote…
Image: Fox/MarvelSwedish clothing retailer H&M has dense clusters of stores in cities all over Western Europe, the US, and parts of Asia. If you walked into one of them over the last three months, there’s a good chance you saw racks of clothes on sale. The reason, as H&M acknowledged in its latest earnings report (pdf), is that it overestimated how much shopping people would do in those brick-and-mortar locations.
That miscalculation has hit the company’s bottom line hard. For the quarter ended Aug. 31, profit dropped about 20% compared to the same period last year, plunging roughly a billion Swedish kronor down to about SEK3.8 billion ($467 million).
Aggressive markdowns to clear racks of unsold clothes were the big culprit, but they were a side effect of another problem. “The fashion retail sector is growing and is in a period of extensive and rapid change as a result of ongoing digitalisation,” CEO Karl-Johan Persson said in a statement. “The competitive landscape is being redrawn, new players are coming in and customers’ behaviour and expectations are changing, with an ever greater share of sales taking place online.”
Some adjusting is in order. In the regions where H&M is established, it’s going to close around 90 stores this year, and relocate others. It’s still going to open more new stores than it shutters, but will focus on regions where there’s more room to grow. It has recently opened shops in Kazakhstan, Colombia, Iceland and Vietnam, for example, bringing its total store count globally to 4,133. For comparison, its biggest competitor, Zara, had 2,093 stores globally, as of July 31 (pdf).
H&M spent years building out its store footprint at a rapid clip, even opening giant new stores within sight of others. But the profits the company brought in per square foot at its stores had been dropping for some time. In February, it announced it would slow its store growth and focus more on e-commerce.
The company is late to the game. Pure e-commerce competitors, from fast-fashion upstarts such as ASOS and Boohoo to massive European clothing retailer Zalando, have been taking those online clothing sales for themselves.
H&M said in its recent earnings statement that e-commerce sales have been growing, but they still weren’t enough to make up for the reduced number of shoppers going to its physical stores. Its overall sales, as a result, haven’t met targets.
It certainly won’t neglect e-commerce any longer. It intends to be online in 43 markets by the end of the year, versus 69 where it has physical stores. “The plan is that in the future we will offer online shopping in all store markets as well as in other markets,” it said.
India is one important country where it’s slated to open e-commerce next year. It better hurry though. Zara, which announced a shift toward more e-commerce last year, is already there.Shake up the traditional meatloaf ingredients a little bit, and you’ve got a weeknight meal that packs great flavor and is ready to hit the table in less than an hour.
Yield: ~18 mini loaves
Ingredients
For the Meatloaves
1 lb fresh chorizo, casing removed
1 lb ground beef
2 T adobo sauce (from a can of chipotles in adobo, read the labels, some contain gluten)
2 eggs
3/4 c almond flour
1 large onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, finely diced
tallow or other fat
For the Sauce
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 chipotle in adobo sauce (1 pepper, not 1 can)
2 T olive oil
handful cilantro, chopped
salt
lime
avocado
Method
Preheat your oven to 350ºF.
Saute the onion and garlic in tallow, until translucent. Place 1/2 the onion/garlic mixture in a large mixing bowl and the other half in the smallest bowl of your food processor.
In that same large mixing bowl that you just added the onion and garlic to, add and mix together the chorizo, ground beef, eggs, adobo sauce and almond flour. Your hands will do the best job of incorporating the mixture, so don’t even bother trying with a utensil. Get out 2 normal sized muffin tins. Dollop the meatloaf mixture into the muffin tins, filling them up about 3/4 of the way. If you fill them to the brim, the rendered fat will spill over and make a terrible mess in your oven. Place the tins in the oven and bake until you see rendered fat in each muffin tin, along with a slightly browned, crusty bottom on each loaf, about 25 minutes.
While the meatloaves are baking…
To the saute pan, add the tomatoes. Let them cook until the skin starts to blister and blacken and you see them pop open. Add the tomatoes, along with the chipotle pepper, olive oil and some salt to the food processor (Where the onions and garlic have been patiently waiting for you.) and pulse until a nice saucy consistency forms. If the sauce is too wet for your liking, you can pour the contents into the saute pan and let it simmer down until some of the liquid has evaporated. Stir in the cilantro.
Garnish the meatloaves with a spoonful of relish, sliced avocado, a pinch of salt and a squeeze of fresh lime.CAS have stripped Misha Aloian (far left) of his Rio 2016 silver medal
The Court of Arbitration for sport have stripped Romanian weightlifter Gabriel Sincraian and Russian boxer Misha Aloian of medals won at Rio 2016 for doping offences.
CAS confirmed the decisions on Thursday and announced the duo's results had been disqualified.
Sincraian, 27, won bronze for Romania in the men's 85kg weightlifting division but tested positive for exogenous testosterone while still at the Rio Games.
Romanian weightlifter Sincraian tested positive for exogenous testosterone
Aloian won silver in the men's flyweight 52kg boxing division but tested positive for the banned stimulant tuaminoheptane.
"The Anti-Doping Division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS ADD) has issued decisions in two cases related to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games," a CAS statement read.
Sincraian (right) picked up bronze in the men's 85kg weightlifting category
"All results obtained by Gabriel Sincraian in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, including the bronze medal in the Men's Weightlifting 85kg event, are disqualified.
"The results obtained by the athlete Misha Aloian in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, including the silver medal obtained in the Men's -52kg boxing event on 21 August 2016, are disqualified."
Upgrade to Sky Sports now and get six months half price.The gift for the Reaper is a reward from the Motherlode Maw and from Meg of the Player owned portals. It can be occasionally available for purchase for 1,250,000 coins from the Travelling merchant at the Deep Sea Fishing Hub. When the bottle is uncorked, it grants the player 20 reaper points, destroying the gift.
When uncorking the gift, an animation plays where a skull appears above the player's head and a column of black and grey energy surrounds them.
After uncorking the bottle, the player sees a pop-up interface saying "You sheepishly uncork the bottle, releasing souls of ancient beasts momentarily. Death is pleased with your offering. You now have X reaper points."
They also receive a chat message saying You are awarded 20 re |
helped'make America great again' had their own rally it 'would be the biggest of them all', in a tweet on Saturday.
Sanders disagreed and in a simple comeback he posted comparative photos of the crowds at Trump's inauguration and Obama's ceremony and said: 'They did. It wasn't'.
Bernie Sanders shut down Trump on Twitter after the president claimed that if his supporters had a rally 'it would be the biggest of them all' on Saturday
Sanders shared a photo of the crowd at Trump's inauguration next to Obama's 2009 inauguration and simply said: 'They did. It wasn't'
Trump previously boasted of his large inauguration crowd size (left) but experts quickly rushed to confirm that Obama's 2009 inauguration (right) of 1.8 million people beat Trump's figures of less than 600,000 people
The epic dig from Sanders was met with waves of praise from supporters and since has reignited the senator's election campaign rally cry of #FeelTheBern.
Twitter users have retweeted the response, which has now gone viral, and one user chimed in, asking if Trump 'needed some ice' from Sander's burn.
In the past, Trump has made his disapproval of the crowd size comparisons be known and even suspended the Interior Department's digital team shortly after the National Park Service retweeted the contrasting photos.
The billionaire had previously boasted of his historic inauguration crowd size, but his claims were quickly dispelled after Obama's 2009 inauguration was proven to be much larger.
Trump took office in January and his administration has since issued several controversial measures, causing protests and disapproving comments from other politicians, including Sanders (right)
Experts have estimated that between 300,000 and 600,000 people came to Trump's inauguration, compared to Obama's 1.8 million.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters during a press conference that 720,000 people appeared to have been present.
Washington DC's Metro also gave numbers that suggest fewer people came to Trump's inauguration than both of Obama's ceremonies.
As of 11am on Trump's Inauguration Day, 193,000 trips had been taken this year, compared to 513,000 in 2009 and 317,000 in 2013. On the day of George W. Bush's second inauguration, 197,000 trips had been taken by 11am.
Since Trump took office his administration has issued several controversial measures, causing weeks of protest in the United States and internationally.
Not only have ordinary citizens picked up protest signs, but Hollywood stars have also joined in to denounce Trump.
The epic dig from Sanders was met with praise from supporters and since has reignited the senator's election campaign rally cry of #FeelTheBern
Sander's simple comeback has went viral and has more than 70,000 retweets
With the Academy Awards scheduled for Sunday, A-listers such as Jodie Foster, Michael J. Fox and Keegan Michael Key have headlined a protest over Trump's recent immigration orders.
The stars were among 1,200 people to take part in the rally organized by the United Talent Agency on Friday outside its headquarters in Beverly Hills.
UTA, one of the world's largest talent agencies, chose to scrap its annual pre-Oscars party in protest at Trump's immigration travel ban and to show its support for freedom of speech and artistic expression.
With the Academy Awards scheduled for Sunday, Hollywood has also waded into the political dispute. Jodie Foster (left) and Michael J. Fox (right) headlined a protest over Trump's recent immigration orders in Los Angeles on Friday
Taking to the rally stage, Foster said she's never been comfortable using her public face for activism and has always found the small ways to serve, but that this year is different.
'It's time to show up,' she said. 'It's a singular time in history. It's time to engage. And as the very, very dead Frederick Douglass once said 'any time is a good time for illumination'.'
'It doesn't matter where you born, who you voted for... All the colors in the identity rainbow - this is our time to resist,' she said.
'It is the time to show up and demand answers. It's all of us trying to tell our elected officials to do their job.'John Terry has dropped a big hint that retirement might be around the corner, with the Chelsea captain telling talkSPORT he ‘could be next’ after former team-mate Frank Lampard hung up his boots.
Blues legend Lampard – the club’s all-time record goalscorer – confirmed his retirement on Tuesday, ending a career which saw him win every major club honour in 13 years at Stamford Bridge.
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The midfielder lifted three Premier League titles, four FA Cups, two League Cups, and a Champions League and Europa League title, all alongside Terry – with the duo making over 1300 club appearances between them.
And, after also seeing former England team-mate Steven Gerrard retire last year, Terry admits his 22-year Chelsea career could soon come to an end.
Speaking exclusively to the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast, the skipper said: “I was quite upset yesterday when I heard the news and I spoke to Frank.
“It’s the end of an era with Stevie [Gerrard] and now Lamps, and sooner or later I’m going to be next at some point in my career.
“I’ve spoken to the manager [Blues boss Antonio Conte] about this – once you get to a certain age in your career I think you have to accept that you’re going to be on the bench and you’re not going to be playing every week.
“Things change and when you’re not accepting that as a player I think it’s more difficult to put a line underneath it and move on to the next chapter.
“I’m like the last man standing, which is quite sad really. But it’s also something I’m very proud of, to still be at this club after so long.
“Chelsea is my life. I’ve been here 22 years and it’s been a dream for me. I’ve still got a lot to give to the game and a lot to give the club this season.
“Hopefully we can go on to many great things this year and after that, we’ll see what happens.”
Former Chelsea player and assistant manager Ray Wilkins, who was co-hosting Friday’s Sports Breakfast show, tipped Lampard to go straight into a management career in the Premier League after hanging up his boots.
Terry agrees, and says his friend’s relentless winning attitude would make him a success if he does decide to try his hand at coaching.
“Frank’s had a brilliant career and whatever he does next, he will be a success – whether that’s punditry or management,” he added.
“That’s his character, his mentality. Only the best is good enough, he gives it everything.”
Listen to talkSPORT’s interview with John Terry IN FULL aboveAnother out-of-town tech company is opening up shop in Seattle.
RELATED CONTENT Check out GeekWire's list of Seattle-Area Engineering Centers established by out-of-town companies.
This time it’s fast-growing Portland, Ore.-based online banking startup Simple, which already has 20 employees working out of a new office in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood.
Founded in 2009, Simple offers a bank account and Simple Visa Card to a customer base that grew by 86 percent last year. The 325-person company prides itself on not charging fees and offering easy-to-use web and mobile apps. It was acquired for $117 million in 2014 by banking giant BBVA.
At the Seattle office, Simple has people working in engineering, product, marketing, and other roles. Some of the employees working out of the new location include:
Shauna Causey, a marketing veteran with experience at Nordstrom, Google, Comcast, Startup Weekend, and Decide.com, which was acquired by eBay.
Michelle Broderick who previously led major marketing campaigns for tech titans like Yelp, Uber, Geocaching, and RealNetworks.
Lincoln Mongillo, who spent eight years at Starbucks and was an engineer at Cranium.
Jen Joyce, who previously led marketing for Uber’s Pacific Northwest office and oversaw launches in Seattle, Portland, and other cities.
Simple has also hired engineers in the Seattle area who worked for companies like Rhapsody, MapBox, Simply Measured, Black Pixel, and others.
Simple is led by CEO Josh Reich, who moved the company from New York City to Portland in 2011. The company has a remote-friendly culture and employs people working from California, Missouri, Oklahoma, New York, Washington D.C., Tennessee, and Nebraska. Its employee base has grown by 300 percent in the past three years. Simple plans to expand its Portland office next spring.
Simple is just the latest out-of-town company to set up shop in the Seattle region, where tech talent is plentiful. There are now nearly 100 remote offices, according to GeekWire’s running list of engineering centers. Google, Facebook, Apple, Salesforce, Uber, and many others have sizable offices in the area.Text Size: A- A+
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Study reveals health indicators for children, women have shown improvement in areas that have become open defecation-free under Swachh Bharat in the past year.
Even as questions are being raised over the Narendra Modi government’s track record of delivering on the Swachh Bharat mission, there is one report card where the PM’s pet project seems to be scoring well — the state of health report.
A study, undertaken by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) on behalf of the drinking water and sanitation ministry to assess the health impact of the Swachh mission in rural areas, reveals that health indicators for children and women have shown considerable improvement in areas that have become open defecation-free (ODF) in the past one year.
The report, accessed by ThePrint, shows that the cases of diarrhoea among children are 46 per cent more in non-ODF areas; there are 78 per cent higher cases of worms in stools of children in non-ODF areas; 58 per cent higher cases of stunting among children and 48 per cent more cases of women with lower body mass index (BMI) than those in non-ODF areas.
The study observes that “becoming ODF had a positive impact on child’s health and nutrition, evident from the fact that the health and nutritional indicators of the children and mothers belonging to the ODF areas were comparatively better than their non-ODF counterparts”.
It notes that if there were 13.9 per cent children with diarrhoea in the past two weeks preceding the survey on non-ODF areas, the figure was 9.3 per cent in ODF areas.
Similarly, against 7.4 per cent children found with cholera in the past two weeks before the survey in non-ODF areas, the same was 1.7 per cent in case of ODF areas.
The report says there were 39.6 per cent stunted children in areas infested with open defecation, while it was 33.7 per cent in ODF areas. There were 29 per cent women with a BMI below normal in a non-ODF area while the figure was 19.6 per cent in case of areas declared free of open defecation.
According to government data, over 2.5 lakh villages in 217 districts have been declared free of open defecation so far and there has been a 30 per cent increase in households with toilets since 2 October 2014 when the mission was launched by the PM.
As part of this rapid pilot study, information was collected around three key child morbidity illnesses — diarrhoea, fever and intestinal worms and nutrition,child and mother anthropometry.
A total of 4,000 households were interviewed for the study — 2,000 each for ODF and non-ODF villages. Twenty villages each were selected from one ODF and one non-ODF district in five states — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Karnataka.
“This study is one of the clearest evidence we have now on how open defecation affects health. The report shows increased stunting, malnutrition, respiratory problems in children living in areas where open defecation is prevalent,” a top official from the ministry of drinking water and sanitation told ThePrint.
Diarrhoea which claims so many lives of children, also has a clear co-relation with the prevalence of open defecation, the official added. “That is why we are so focused on involving women and children in our mission — we have over one lakh women ‘swachh aagrahis’ and they are our biggest ambassadors, educating village after village on how becoming open defection-free can free the children of diseases.”
Want to hear experts engage over the big issues of the day? We bring you Talk Point.
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Show Full ArticleI wasn't a bandwagon jumper for Aphex Twin's return. As the blimp flew over London I was certainly filled with excitement, but this was tempered by reality setting in: 13 years is a long time without an album. Even My Bloody Valentine's production "m b v" was consider by some critics a magnum opus and some to be grasping at too much with too little. Even assuming that Richard was releasing old tracks from his massive vault of work, who's to say that these are particularly good or mesh well together in an album format? Perhaps they were not released because he never saw them to be good enough. In fact, when Syro's single was released, "minipops 67," my excitement still was dampened. It wasn't as exciting as Omgygya Switch 7 or Fingerbib or even Analogue Bubblebath. Certainly it still had Richard's charm in it: the layering and development were both handled impeccably. The actual material of the music is what let me down.
Now, having listened to Syro in full a multitude (possibly 5-10 times), I can assuredly say this is among his best work - if not *plainly* his best work. The album really has a soul and driving conviction that carries the listener all the way through it. XMas is a skittery track, reminiscent of early Autechre. It has incredible dramatic tension over the course of the ten minutes - I do wonder if it would have been served better as a 5, maybe 7 minute track though. Following up this pseudo magnum-opus of a track is a shockingly funky and catchy midtempo jam. Produk 29 sounds quite unlike any Aphex I have ever heard previous: it has the soul and charm as if a real, in house band made up of alien instruments were performing its somewhat Jazzy groove. Perhaps this is what Richard meant in his interview when he discussed producing sounds from other planets.
Following up Produk is 4bit, which if I'm honest is probably my least favorite track on the album. The Bass has this infectiously bouncy line, but the melody is more sparse and minimal. It too easily fades into the background for me; perhaps it could be thought of as a danceable version of a track from Selected Ambient Works Volume 2? It's still a great track to tune out for; there's just less to grab on compared to the other tracks. This light and somewhat airy track is then followed by 180db, easily the heaviest and most driving track on the album. And yet, despite the clear dance vibe coming from it, the melody, once again, is incredibly well composed. While it's a short track, it's always one of the highlights of the LP as it simply calls you to get active, get moving.
Circlont 6A is more of an abstract track: a drum beat holds up the structure of the song while the lead line goes absolutely nuts, jumping across notes and popping in and out of focus over a surprisingly flowing bassline; interestingly and apparently an inversion of the standard Aphex/breakbeat format of a flowing melody and skittery bass. Following a brief interlude (of no real worth for discussion), the mercurial nature of 6A is complemented by 14A's much more elegiac, thoughtful melodies. That being said, the parts are shifted back on this one: the Bassline is practically going the same pace as the drums while a tender, soft melody plays in the background. Perhaps, in form, it could be compared to "4" from Richard D. James Album in its classic structure with beautiful melody.
The title track follows, which is one of the most fun tracks on the LP for certain. It reminds me of a bunch of friends in a jam session based around the B-flat blues scale. Every element links impeccably well in this fun, active track. This is complemented by possibly the best melody Richard has ever written: PAPAT4. It announces itself, by itself, at the beginning and remains fairly consistent over the course of the song. Everything about this could almost fit the context of Mahlerian finale: this is another "Fingerbib" moment, to me. However, it gradually breaks down in the second half, nonetheless keeping its ethereal, sublime form.
[Earth Portal Mix] is certainly the *most* abstract track on the album: the drumbeats are untraceable, with only weak backing chords to support the madness. The emphasis on this track to me is losing control: the melody at times hangs on for dear life to remain in focus when faced against the strength of the bassline. It's a pleading, honestly very beautiful melody that gradually fades into nothingness as it seems that the aggressive bassline has won. But then of course, it hasn't: for the final track, Aisatsana (a piano track) shows melody returning in achingly beautiful form. Over twittering birds and pedal, the piano plays an incredibly simple melody that instantly captivates you. Every statement of the measure-long melody is followed by silence, leading to this incredible, meditative effect that I never felt was achieved by the piano tracks on Drukqs. As the final melody statement fades away, and the birds finish their chirping, you are suddenly left awestruck that you were listening to an Aphex Twin record.
In sum, the record is full of incredible surprises. Richard twists his familiar tropes into likable and catchy ways, almost never missing a beat on development or dramatic tension. The whole LP has a mindfulness of progression that is shocking for what is, to be blunt, a compilation of unreleased tracks. But then of course, Richard admitted that there are *tons* of these - several albums worth - that he hasn't done anything with. He said he released Syro so a real, physical catalog of his work could start to be made available instead of just a hard drive with dissociate tracks.
And I couldn't be happier.Comments (0) Uncategorized Like
THE IMPORTANCE OF MIDCARD FEUDS
Vince Russo is a man who has received a ton of criticism from both inside and outside the wrestling industry, but he was completely right about one thing: Everyone needs a story. As it stands right now in the WWE, storylines are rare commodity for guys in the midcard and below.
Fire Russo chants – Sacrifice 2008 HD
When Russo was writing, be it for WWE, WCW or TNA there was never a lack of storylines. Sure, they were nonsensical and ignored a lot of basic booking rules and did long-term damage to the parent company, but everyone had something to do. Contrast that to the current situation in the WWE and you can see some major gaps in who gets attention. Right now, due to Brock Lesnar being a part-time guy and some poorly timed injuries in the main event, the storylines dip further down the card than normal, with both IC, US, Divas and Tag titles having feuds. Normally, we’d have about half that, and I expect for the status quo to return with Reigns and Bryan.
But even so, a feud is not the same as a story. In wrestling, sometimes the words get thrown around interchangeably, but there is a difference: An angle is a reason why a match will take place, while a story is about characters coming together and having an effect on one another. After a few years of consistently getting angles, a character can be the same flat, two-dimensional character they were when they debuted. But if a character is consistently getting stories, after those same few years they will be someone that has a lot a facets to their character and many different ways that a fan can attach themselves and become a fan of that guy in particular.
Remember Kofi Kingston and Randy Orton? When Kofi fucked up Orton’s car? That brief story gave us information about Kingston, he takes no shit from people. If they reinforced that a couple times, it could have been as much of a trait of his as his innovative Royal Rumble moves. Now contrast that to his interminable feud with Alberto Del Rio, where the two fought a hundred times but the characters never interacted. That is not the right reason to watch a worked match.
I think this is directly tied in to the huge gulf we see right now between the real main event guys (Lesnar, Orton, Cena, Bryan, Reigns) and everyone else. It’s not about wins and losses, but rather about how much viewer investment is being asked for. With 7 hours per week of TV content for the main roster, there is no reason that each character shouldn’t have explicit goals, motivations and obstacles. If everyone is relatable in one way or another, it gives them a chance to make a connection with an audience and start to get over and (in theory) be able to move up the card and fill in the gaps like we’re seeing on top.
CM PUNK TO TNA?
The online rumor mill lit up this week with an unsourced report that CM Punk was negotiating with TNA to join the Impact roster. This has got to be one of the most asinine rumors I’ve seen in a long time. The idea is to make something up that is plausible, right? Here is why this is an absurd claim:
TNA is beyond broke. They have been letting all their expensive talent go there is no way they can afford the biggest free agent in years. TNA’s future is in limbo. Spike TV has granted them a stay of execution until the end of the year and there are rumors of WGN potentially being interested, but I doubt that this new station will buy TNA CM Punk. It doesn’t take a lot of research on how expensive big stars work out for TNA. CM Punk is better than TNA. Both critically and in kayfabe, CM Punk is one of the best of all time and still in good health. The WWE is really hurting for main event stars and would sign anything Punk brought to them. Allegedly, Punk left because he wanted to have the “real” main event at Wrestlemania. Brock Lesnar has been booked so strong that there isn’t really anyone credible enough to beat him (except maybe Cena). If CM Punk wanted to wrestle, he would be beating Lesnar for the title in April. CM Punk does not want to wrestle.
That’s it for now, see you again next week!
Liked it? For more articles from Pete Krouzelka, take a second to support Living Myth Media on Patreon!Paul Blow
You’re at a restaurant and the sommelier comes up and says: “Would you like some wine with your meal?” Maybe you don’t know exactly what you want, so you just say, “Bring us something that goes well with the food.” A few minutes later, the sommelier shows up with a bottle of wine made from a grape you’ve never heard of. You taste it and don’t know what to think but say anyway, “That’s fine,” because you don’t want to seem difficult, even though you don’t particularly like the wine. And then the rest of the meal you can’t stop thinking to yourself, I just spent $45 on this?
The sommelier community spends a lot of time thinking about the best way to talk to customers. But customers should also consider how best to talk to somms. As Daniel Johnnes, wine director of Daniel Boulud’s restaurant group and one of the country’s most influential sommeliers, said to the audience on a recent panel I moderated, “I would love it when the customer would offer information: ‘You know, it’s hot out—I want something fresh and crisp and lively.’ [Customers] need to communicate and give as much info as you can.”
June Rodil, the sommelier of Austin, Texas’s Congress, agrees. “Some customers expect you to give them an experience by reading their minds,” she says. “We do our best, but the more detail they can offer up-front makes everyone happier: them and us.”
As Johnnes said, if you can articulate your own tastes even a little, it greatly helps the sommelier’s efforts to please you. What kind of a mood are you in? Do you want to gulp some lusty, full-throated, heavy red? Or are you in the mood for something lighter and punchier?
If you can’t describe what you like, one of the most valuable pieces of information a sommelier can have is what you drink at home. Some people go to restaurants to have their wine experience broadened, but many just want to drink something they’re comfortable with. Problem is, sometimes people are ashamed of, or worry about being judged by, what they drink at home. Rule one: Don’t lie. If you’re trying to impress your server and say that you drink mostly culty Napa Cabs, unless you explicitly say otherwise that’s what they may try to bring you. Rodil’s advice? “We’re seriously not here to judge you. So even if you drink Sutter Home white Zinfandel at home, that gives a huge clue as to what might make you happy.”
Of course, the more you can tell your sommelier the better, but there are limits. “It helps us to know what kinds of wines you like to drink at home,” says one prominent sommelier who wishes to keep his name and his restaurant’s name secret so as not to offend any of his guests. “But we also get lots of people who are really into wine who just go on and on about what’s in their cellar, what they drank last night, what winery tasting rooms they got VIP treatment at, and so on.” The lesson? Don’t be a wine bore, even if you feel that you’re in the presence of a fellow wine bore. The fact is, no matter how fine your cellar is, the sommelier is probably tasting better wine than you on a nightly basis, they don’t care what you have in your cellar, and they have 20 other guests waiting patiently for their attention.
And lastly, there’s that sticky issue of price. It’s the one basic, straightforward detail about a wine, yet it still causes so much tension. Everyone’s afraid of getting pushed over their heads on the cost of a bottle, but also fearful of seeming cheap. This can cause serious anxiety, especially as customers on a date or taking business colleagues out might be hesitant to declare out loud how much they want to spend. Sommeliers are trained to pick up signals. For instance, they’ll suggest that if you’re ordering the wine you just point to a couple of items on the wine list in the same price range to indicate what you’re comfortable spending. Or, as Johnnes recommended, “You can say, ‘We’re on the way to the movies after this,’ and it’s clear that it’s not time for the big guns.” On the other hand, Rodil says, “can we just please get over the shyness about price? We have good inexpensive bottles on the list and good expensive. There’s no embarrassment in wanting a less pricey bottle. Just blurt it out.”
Communication with a sommelier—just as with your spouse, lover, family, or dog—is most effective when you simply try to be honest, direct, nondefensive, and open-minded. But the reward with a sommelier is more tangible: You get a good bottle of wine.The Conservatives have many welfare cuts to make but few ways in which to do so. Before the election, David Cameron vowed to maintain the "triple lock" on the state pension (so that it rises by the rate of inflation, average earnings or 2.5 per cent, whichever is highest) and ruled out cuts to universal pensioner benefits, such as Winter Fuel Payments and free bus passes. Under pressure from Labour, he later added child benefit to the list of no-go areas. If they are to meet their target of cutting welfare by £12bn by 2017-18, this leaves the Tories with £10.5bn of reductions to make from just £125bn of the welfare budget (the protected payments amount to £95bn). The cuts announced so far - a two-year freeze in working-age benefits, the reduction of the benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000 and the removal of housing benefit from 18-21-year-olds - amount to just £1.5bn.
When challenged during the campaign on how they would find £12bn of savings, Tory ministers pointed to the £21bn of reductions they made in the last parliament. But this makes the reverse of the point they intend. Any low-hanging fruit have already been plucked: there are no easy cuts left to make. Most Conservatives expect to fall short of the £12bn target they have set themselves (many had assumed that the Lib Dems would force them to do so). But significant savings will still need to be achieved if George Osborne is to meet his aim of eliminating the structural current deficit by 2017-18.
The most obvious place for the axe to fall is tax credits. They are the largest of the unprotected areas (accounting for £30bn) and have long been regarded by the Tories as emblematic of Labour's statist meddling. Ahead of Osborne's emergency Budget on 8 July, the party is reportedly considering saving £5bn by returning tax credits to their 2003/04 levels in real-terms. For 3.7 million low-income families, the IFS estimates, that would mean the loss of £1,400 a year. For the Tories, who have repeatedly framed themselves as the "workers' party" since the election, this is a political headache. While supporting some welfare cuts, such as a reduced benefit cap, Labour plans to oppose measures that hit the working poor. Further increases in the personal tax allowance (which is due to reach £12,500 by 2020) and low inflation will help to ease some of the pain. But without a dramatic increase in wages, voters will be left substantially worse off.
An increasing number on the left denounce tax credits as an inefficient subsidy to corporate cheapskates. They call for the introduction of a statutory living wage to relieve the burden on the state. But while some Tories occasionally flirt with the idea, no one expects the party to support a measure that all forecasts suggest would cost jobs. If they are smart, however, the Conservatives will look to the Labour manifesto for inspiration. Before the election, the party proposed the introduction of "make work pay" contracts, which would provide a tax rebate to those companies that sign up to become living wage employers. For every £1 that employers pay to raise salaries to living wage-level, the Treasury saves 49p. Under Labour's plan, the chunk of this accounted for by higher tax revenues (32p) would have been paid back to firms that signed up, while the Exchequer banked the remainder
The adoption of this policy would provide the Tories with some political cover as they again cut tax credits. Through acts such as capping payday loan charges and banning exclusive zero-hours contracts, they have shown themselves prepared to make selective interventions. As they face the prospect of damaging their nascent "one nation" brand, here is a chance for them to do so again.Special thanks to AT&T for providing the Plantronics headsets for this post.
The first week I had my iPhone 6 Plus I cracked the top right corner. A small person with small hands maneuvering an iPhone 6 Plus is just asking for an accident. It took 14 months, but I finally did it, I shattered the screen on my phone. First time in my life.
I made an appointment at the Apple store to get it fixed, and proceeded to put packing tape over the cracks so I wouldn’t cut my fingers. Then Daniel called me and I couldn’t hear him because of the tape! Luckily I had just received Plantronic’s Voyager Pro HD wireless Bluetooth headset [similar] from AT&T to review and giveaway! Perfect opportunity to give it a whirl!
I love working from home, but dogsitting has me behind the wheel a lot. That, combined with my obsession with multi-tasking, makes the headset 1000% useful to me. I could also switch to the other ear, which I wasn’t aware was possible! The mic and earpiece rotate very easily. And apparently the sound quality is so great that Daniel asked to borrow it to record some lessons for his students.
If you are interested in winning your own Voyager Pro wireless Bluetooth headset from AT&T scroll down to the entry form!
xoxo
psssst….don’t miss out on this 40 pack of K-cups giveaway that is ending soon!
Double your chances to win the headset. Enter this giveaway, too!
a Rafflecopter giveawayMinistry says arsenic levels in rice 'no problem'
The Ministry of Agriculture has played down the results of a study that found high levels of arsenic in some samples of locally grown rice.
The study, published in the International Journal of Water and Wastewater Treatment at the end of January, found the arsenic content of some rice samples surpassed acceptable levels by as much as threefold in five provinces, with the worst found in Kandal province.
Citing a 2013 study in West Bengal, the study’s author, Yumei Kang of the Kochi University in Japan, noted that prolonged exposure to rice containing more than the internationally mandated maximum quantity of arsenic places people at a heightened risk of genetic damage.
According to standards set in July 2014 by the World Health Organization and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, a kilogram of rice should contain no more than 0.2 milligrams of arsenic. However, in Kandal some samples yielded levels as high as 0.649 mg/kg.
Kampong Thom samples contained nearly twice the acceptable level at 0.371 mg/kg. Banteay Meanchey, Battambang and Prey Veng all produced samples above the 0.2 mg/kg maximum.
Kang called for those living in high-risk areas to “receive critical attention”.
“Regulations preventing rice contaminated with high levels of arsenic from reaching the market are needed,” he added.
Agriculture Ministry spokesman Eang Sophalleth said he was not familiar with the research but was adamant Cambodia’s rice did not have an arsenic problem.
“Listen, I can assure you there is no contamination in Cambodian rice, before we export rice, it goes through a test and if there was contamination it would not be allowed to be exported,” said Sophalleth, adding that the same procedures are in place for rice destined for domestic consumption.
“We have the Department of Land, Surveying and Management where we test the soil nutrition and soil contamination. If there is irregularity there, they would report it and we would act on it.”
Song Saran, chief executive of Cambodian wholesaler Amru Rice, which draws on the produce of 4,000 rice farmers, said arsenic was a major concern, but he too insisted there was not a contamination issue.
“I assure you, in Cambodia, we’re good compared to the region,” said Saran, who did call on the government to stay vigilant.
“It’s in the air, in the land, in the water. So normally it’s difficult for farmers to prevent arsenic levels in the rice. But we need to use land that has been checked for contamination,” he said.
“The government should check all rice production, and if there’s any high levels, they should alert the farmers.”Gutenberg is the code name for WordPress’s new visual editor, which is designed to add block support to WordPress. Gutenberg is not currently earmarked for a specific release, but signs seem to point toward WordPress 5.0. It has a promising UI, and has been through a fair number of iterations already, but as work continues, I find myself more and more disenchanted with the solutions they’ve proposed. I find myself constantly taken aback by the incredible number of flawed premises that comprise the project.
Flaw 1 – “We know our audience from WordPress.com, and our personal experience”
This was essentially Matt Mullenweg’s response to the discussion of adding an opt in analytics system to WordPress.org, to gather usage data about the software, to inform development. Respectfully, that response is dead wrong.
WordPress.com is a blog host, that filters out all users except those simply looking to post articles. With WordPress powering almost a quarter of the web, this is NOT as sufficient cross-section of users, and heavily biases the demographics to casual bloggers.
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WordPress desperately needs data-driven development that comes from the community. I understand that WordPress.com is where the money comes from, but WordPress.org isn’t just a side effect of the hosted blog platform, and should not be seen as a second class citizen.
A great example of this is the “kitchen sink” button that expands the advanced editor. Seven months ago, when reordering alignment buttons into the kitchen sink was a good idea, Andrew Ozz wrote a testing plugin to try to collect some data on usage. He found that in his extremely limited tests, most users expanded the kitchen sink, and left it open, to provide themselves as many options as possible. Seven months later, the new Gutenberg UI is based around hiding as many options as possible until situationally relevant. In that time, no data was collected to prove or refute the idea that users want more visibility of the tools available to them. In fact, the primary motivation of the redesign seems to be “people like Medium“. But what works for Medium may not work at all for the larger, more varied userbase of WordPress.
Flaw 2 – “We’ll build the UI, then tackle the code”
While this is a great way to get buy in very early, it means that a UI is built without regard to the underlying challenges of data management and presentation. As a result, every time a snag is hit in tying that UI to data, the kneejerk is to hack in support for the UI that people bought into, rather than adjusting to meet the actual needs of the system. We’ll see this come into conflict more when block types like columns and |
continue.
The first benefit blurb was great.
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The top of this section contains my favorite part on the page: “Say goodbye to those neverending email threads.”
Now this is a benefit I can get my head around!
As Hiten Shah’s survey suggests and I’ve reiterated, getting your team out of email is the key benefit that Slack delivers. Yet here it is, buried most of the way down the page.
But let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. All-in-all, from that headline down to its supporting paragraph, this benefit block is the most compelling writing and product marketing on the page.
I especially love the closing line: “More productivity, more transparency, and less email. That’s Slack.”
Adding concrete numbers (“We spend 47% of our time, reading, answering, and searching email…” is also a nice touch.
The next benefit blurb is intriguing but confusing.
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Let’s talk about “Like your team’s collective brain.”
When I was at Asana, we played with this exact same story. The idea is that teams are like an organism, and communication tools are the brain that guides its actions—the enabler of a hive-mind.
I am intrigued by the “collective brain” concept, but I also spend a lot of time thinking about hive minds and the future of humanity. However, most people don’t think much about these things and for them, I suspect this copy seems weird.
Remember: the best web copy explains how the unique features of your product combine to make my life and world better. The more concrete you can get, the clearer and more compelling your story becomes.
Talking about things like collective brains, while fascinating for some to think about, will slow most people down at best, and confuse them at worst.
The paragraph below also doesn’t illuminate the brain concept. It simply talks about the integrations with over 80 external services, and the fact that you don’t have to switch between apps.
There is an awesome benefit buried in there: instead of using “just another app,” Slack could be positioning itself as “one app to rule them all.” The copy hints at this benefit with “No more switching between apps,” but doesn’t follow it all the way to the end.
The final benefit blurb didn’t seal the deal.
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“Wherever you go” is the headline that leads off the final benefit blurb, and I have a few issues with it.
First, it’s vague. Sure, I can guess that it means that Slack can go mobile, but as the must-read Steve Krug book on web design argues, “Don’t Make Me Think”—even for a second.
Second, it’s not a compelling benefit. Mobile apps for a messaging product are obvious—even if yours are more elegant than the competition.
Third, it’s doesn’t connect to the other blurbs above.
Remember: a whole bunch of your potential customers will rapidly skim the headlines of your page before deciding to read more deeply (or not). Given this, you want your headlines to tell the whole story on their own. Each one should flow logically from the next.
The good news is that there’s a much more compelling way to tell the story buried in the first sentence of this blurb’s supporting paragraph: “Stay in sync.”
If I were doing a rapid-fire re-write of the page, I’d simply combine this benefit with the original headline: “Stay in sync with your team wherever you go.”
Then I’d re-write the blurb’s paragraph to focus on the value, importance, speed, and beauty of Slack’s native mobile apps.
The logo-fest contains an awesome set of brands.
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This is a fantastic set of logos they’ve got here. When I see these logos, I instantly know that Slack has some real chops. If America’s space agency and a handful of its leading software companies and media brands have adopted Slack, maybe I should, too.
What I’d like to see is more concrete, specific copy. So you have “Thousands of happy customers,” but why are they happy? What results did you deliver for them?
I’d rewrite the title of this section to re-emphasize the big story:
“Thousands of customers from dozens of countries use Slack to cut WAY down on email, ramp up their productivity, and keep their teams in sync.”
This kind of improvement probably isn’t a huge deal, but it helps reinforce the most important message and deepen its credibility.
When you write marketing copy, keep your eye on the sale: Speak directly to the problems, needs, and desires of your target reader, and you will go far.
Next up is my other favorite part of the page.
The “Wall of Love” was simply great.
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In lieu of a static set of customer testimonials, Slack has chosen to source the voices of their customers directly from Twitter. Indeed, they’ve actually embedded a scrolling set of real, live Tweets.
I love this: it gives Slack’s testimonials an air of directness, immediacy, and authenticity that is different than any other set of testimonials I’ve seen on the web.
My only complaint is that tweets lack some important context. I’d like to know who these tweeters are, their official titles, and the companies they represent. To get this information, I’d likely have to click through to their profiles on Twitter, taking me away from Slack’s site.
I’d also like to see testimonials sprinkled throughout the page.
But those are relatively small nitpicks with this awesome idea.
Demoting the video case study was good, but they went too far.
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On Slack’s original homepage, the customer testimonial video took center stage. Given that most people who visit your site for the first time probably won’t take the time to click and watch a case study video, demoting it to the bottom of the page seems like a reasonable choice.
If you’re going to use video on your homepage, you’re probably better off with a short, clever, awesomely-executed explainer video, rather than a video case study. (See Neil Patel’s thoughts on the value-generating power of great explainer videos here.)
But I wonder if they demoted it a bit too much. The small thumbnail and the small text next to it are easy to miss. Meanwhile, the copy doesn’t encourage me to click the video to watch.
I might make the video thumbnail 25-50% larger, and change the copy to:
“Watch this video to learn how the team at the Sandwich Video company used Slack to escape from email and change the way they communicate.”
Conclusion: Big improvements with room for much bigger improvements
As we’ve seen, even a hyper-growth company like Slack can grow without mastering its product marketing and copywriting.
But even with Slack’s explosive growth, it’s clear that the product story they tell on their website could use a substantial upgrade.
The key for Slack (and probably for you, as well) is to focus its message on the benefits and results of using the product, not the features.
This is what separates passable product marketing from great product marketing: understand your customers, empathize with their problems, pains, and desires, and tell a story that explains clearly how your product makes everything better.
Combine a great product with great product marketing, and you will do great things.
Thanks to Hiten Shah for reading the draft of this.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Aug. 8, 2017, 7:34 PM GMT / Updated Aug. 9, 2017, 6:21 PM GMT By Ali Vitali
WASHINGTON — Amid sharply escalating tensions with North Korea, President Donald Trump on Tuesday promised "fire and fury like the world has never seen" if the country continues to threaten the United States.
"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States," the president warned, responding to a reporter's question at his Bedminster Golf Club, where Trump has spent the last several days. "They will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before."
Trump's remarks came just hours after reports that North Korea had developed a nuclear weapon small enough to fit on a missile — and the White House said Wednesday "the words were his own."
"General Kelly and others on the NSC team were well aware of the tone of" the president's statement before it was delivered," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday, stating that both "the tone and strength of the message were discussed beforehand."
The president and his chief of staff have been in "constant contact" with members of the National Security team while on a "working vacation" in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to Deputy White House Press Secretary Lindsay Walters.
Defense Secretary James Mattis, in a statement on Wednesday, urged North Korea to "stop isolating itself and stand down in pursuit of nuclear weapons."
"The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people," the statement continued.
"While our State Department is making every effort to resolve this global threat through diplomatic means, it must be noted that the combined allied militaries now possess the most precise, rehearsed and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on Earth," Mattis said in the statement, warning that any North Korean action would be "grossly overmatched by ours."
U.S. officials believe North Korea now has the capability to put a nuclear weapon on a missile, NBC News reported on Tuesday, confirming a report in The Washington Post. According to a U.S. official briefed on the assessment, the advance does not mean North Korea has a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can survive reentry accurately.
Last month, North Korea proved its missile capabilities have reached a point where U.S. cities are within "target range."
The Dow dropped Tuesday, in response to the president's warning, thus ending a 10-day streak of nine record closes in a row.
In dealing with North Korea, the Trump administration has relied heavily on China to intervene with Pyongyang and convince Kim to stop his nuclear program, but outreach and action have stalled in recent months.
Top White House advisor Kellyanne Conway called Trump's remarks on North Korea "strong and obvious," declining to comment further on the strategy while briefing reporters in New Jersey on the administration's efforts against the opioid crisis.
Related: North Korea Crisis: How Events Have Unfolded Under Trump
The White House continues to insist that all options are on the table in dealing with North Korea.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., criticized Trump's comments as further isolating North Korea — a strategy she says has not worked to advance American goals in the region.
"The United States must quickly engage North Korea in a high-level dialogue without any preconditions," Feinstein said in a statement, stating "in my view, diplomacy is the only sound path forward.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement: “We need to be firm and deliberate with North Korea, but reckless rhetoric is not a strategy to keep America safe.”
And Arizona Sen. John McCain said he took "exception to the President's comments because you've gotta be sure you can do what you say you can do."
Related: On 72nd Anniversary of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Attack, Appeals of ‘Never Again’
Ret. Navy Admiral James Stavridis, in an appearance on MSNBC Tuesday, called the escalation with North Korea the "biggest crisis" that this Trump administration has yet to face on the global stage.
Trump has previously vowed to confront North Korea "very strongly" for testing missile launches, telling reporters during a trip last month to Warsaw, Poland that "I have some pretty severe things that we’re thinking about," in terms of potential responses.
While Trump has said he does not "draw red lines" — a criticism he often levels of former President Barack Obama's stated threshold in Syria — Trump's comments Tuesday seem to draw a line at continued threatening rhetoric from North Korea.Some of the sandstone to be used in the rehabilitation of Calgary's crumbling old city hall will be coming from across the Atlantic Ocean.
CBC News has confirmed the city is buying sandstone from suppliers in Poland and Spain as well as the U.S. for the $34-million project.
Last fall, city council passed a motion asking the city to examine re-opening a sandstone quarry in the Calgary area for the project.
Several quarries provided the original sandstone for the historic building, which opened in 1911.
Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra said that option was examined but the conclusion was that it's not going to work — at least not on the timeframe the old city hall project is on.
The former quarry in Edworthy Park was deemed to be the best potential site. But there are complications.
The sandstone quarry in the space now occupied by Calgary's Edworthy Park, was hoped to be one option but there were complications. (Glenbow Museum Archives)
Carra said the Edworthy family donated the land to the city with the proviso it remain a park forever. To ensure that continues in perpetuity, the family also retained the mineral rights for the land.
Initial discussions were held but Carra said it wasn't going to be an easy deal to reach, if ever.
"It was going to be a bridge too far unless the city made some moves. And the city has made some moves and it still remains slightly a bridge too far because of those two things," said Carra.
Cheaper than local
Despite going off-shore and to the U.S. for its sandstone needs, the city says the cost will actually be cheaper than trying to find stone locally.
"I'm told that we're not going to be able to tell the difference between local stuff and... so... I guess that's the way it's going to have to be," Carra said.
The foreign content will be significant. There are over 15,000 pieces of sandstone on old city hall.
Even if local sandstone could be found, Mayor Naheed Nenshi said it would still have to be shipped somewhere else to be processed.
"It does make me sad," he said about the lack of local material being used.
"The fossils will be different in terms of what's in there. But our No. 1 priority is restoring that beautiful, historical building — that really important part of Calgary's tradition — and doing it quickly and cost efficiently."
Old Calgary City Hall in 1912. (Glenbow Archives)
The city says it will pay $3 million to the three foreign suppliers but no further breakdown or information about the companies is being provided at this time.
According to the city, the criteria for selecting suppliers was based on six equally-weighted requirements.
They are: price, technical fit, laboratory documentation, colour-calibrated photography, physical samples and cutting services.
It's actually not that unusual to mix stone from different parts of the world on a particular project.
'All about getting the right match'
Shawn Thibault, director of conservation for Ravenstone Masonry Conservation Inc. in Victoria, said it's all about getting the right match.
"To go and find a stone that's maybe not local but has all the same characteristics of the stone that is there, is really important. So to find a stone with that vein and stain or in the States or wherever it may be, it may be a better match than something that could be considered local," said Thibault.
But an equally important consideration besides finding the right stone is to install it correctly and look after the building, Thibault added.
"Even if it is the perfect match, if we don't do all the rest of that system correctly, i.e. we use the wrong mortars or decide to seal the stone or something like that, then we run the risk of damaging the stone that was good to begin with."
After the restoration project, Thibault said it's also important the city do what it can to prevent water from unnecessarily flowing onto the porous sandstone and keep things like salt from near-by concrete from touching the building.
Rather than be worried about where the sandstone is coming from, a local heritage group says the important thing is that the city is looking after a historically-significant Calgary landmark.
Landmark preservation also important
Cynthia Klassen is a past-president of the Calgary Heritage Initiative. She said it's understandable the city looked elsewhere for sandstone given that it would be challenging to re-open any of the old Calgary quarries due to the city having grown around them.
"So re-opening them and creating new industrial sites of that intensity in the middle of a city isn't something that we would be able to entertain currently," said Klassen. "It is an interesting conundrum that we find ourselves in."
But that said, Klassen isn't bothered that European and American sandstone will soon be part of old city hall.
"I don't see that as a big deal because the alternative would be to tear down old city hall and replace it with another glass and steel structure, similar to what we have all over downtown," said Klassen.
Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra says he will continue to seek a local solution. (CBC)
Carra plans to keep pushing the city's administration to find a local quarry solution because he says there are other sandstone buildings in Calgary that will need additional stone in the future.
Old city hall is expected to remain a construction site until mid-2020.
It has been designated as a legally protected heritage building by the city as well as by the federal and provincial governments.Sign up to receive FREE weekly emails with recipes, coupons and other money saving tips right into your inbox. Become a friend on Facebook too AND/OR join the $5 Meal Plan Family and get meal plans delivered to you each week!
So I have a new item on my stockpile list: crushed pineapple. That way, I can make this any time I want. Because I will be making it often. Being a food blogger, I’m always trying out new recipes and mix-n-match concepts with the food that I have on hand and what’s on sale at the grocery store. We have a very small “regular rotation” of recipes because of this…but this meatloaf is being added to the regular rotation. I’m so glad that I doubled this recipe…I doubled it so that I could make a regular loaf pan of meatloaf, and muffin tin meatloaves as well.
Huge. Huge. Huge hit!
The leftovers went into the freezer and made for quick and easy lunches. Below you’ll find the doubled recipe…cut it all in half if you just wish to make 1 meal’s worth. (But I highly recommend making extra to freeze!)
(Note: I tagged this recipe as Gluten Free…just sub the regular bread crumbs for gluten free bread crumbs.)
Hawaiian Meatloaf Adapted from Women Living Well’s Hawaiian Meatloaf Yield – 8 servings (this is a doubled recipe) Preparation Time – 10-15 minutes Cooking Time – 1 hr 15 minutes (loaf pan) or 30-35 minutes (muffin tins) Ingredients 2 lbs ground beef
2 eggs
1 – 20 oz can crushed pineapple, drained well (reserve the juice)
1 cup bread crumbs
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Sauce: 1/2 cup pineapple juice, 2/3 cup ketchup, 2/3 cup brown sugar
Side dishes suggestions: green beans or corn, or fries or mashed potatoes, or baked beans Add this recipe to ZipList! Directions Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground beef, eggs, drained crushed pineapple, bread crumbs, salt and pepper.
Add half of the mixture to a 9×5 loaf pan, and the other half divided into 12 muffin tins. (Or put the other half into another 9×5 loaf pan.)
Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour (for loaf pan) or 20 minutes (for muffin tins).
Meanwhile, whisk together 1/2 cup of the reserved pineapple juice with the ketchup and brown sugar. For loaf pan: after 1 hour of cooking, pour the sauce over the top of the meatloaf and bake for another 10-15 minutes. For muffin tins: after 20 minutes, pour the sauce over the top of each cup and bake for another 10-15 minutes or until cooked.
Prepare preferred side dishes.
Serve Hawaiian Meatloaf with sides.
To Freeze: Let come to room temperature, slice into meal size slices, and then place into plastic freezer baggie and place flat into the freezer. Reheat in the microwave when wish to serve again.About
A writer's dream is never too big. My dream is to have my book series made into a series of games to be sold and enjoyed by all the wonderful people out there and on here. I know that $5000 is nowhere near enough to make a complete game, but it is enough to create a prototype, which can be sold to the public and also used to gain the attention of larger platform developers and backers. Come join us. Be a part of something in the making. Be that person that smiles and says, "that happened because I helped."
Here's why I began this project. Like my book, I want to not only share with the world, but I want to be able to earn a revenue stream where I can take care of my mom's needs without having to leave her alone for multiple hours a day. She has parkinsons. I want to give her the peace of mind that everything is taken care of. I can't do that without your help. I'm asking you to take compassion for this situation and pledge towards this project, towards our future. Thank you.
I have been working with Dusty and his team at Podunk Studioz to create a prototype for a game based on my book, The Sword of Hope Destiny Awaits. We have been doing some primarily design work on a 2d/3d adventure game that takes ques from legend of zelda puzzle solving and shadow of the colossus boss fights, which both seem to be perfect fits for the mythos created in the first book. Below is the main "boss" designed by artist Charm Hockaday. With the $5000 pledged, we will create a game prototype to be sold and also promoted to the larger platforms, such as Nintendo, Sony Playstation, and Microsoft Xbox.EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros is mobilizing a sequel to the 2016 hit The Accountant. Screenwriter Bill Dubuque, director Gavin O’Connor and Ben Affleck are in talks to return, along with the producers Lynette Howell Taylor and Mark Williams. All those deals are being worked out right now. I’m told they will then work out the beats of the story, which likely will include Jon Bernthal, whose character asserted himself at the conclusion of the first film.
The original starred Affleck as the title character, a math savant with high-functioning autism who works as a forensic accountant and un-cooks the books for unsavory criminal organizations under the glare of law enforcement. When a new client put him in danger and the Treasury Department closes in, the title character’s skills as an assassin led to a body count that might have prompted John Wick to say, “Woah.”
The film isn’t the kind that usually makes a studio like Warner Bros rush to sequelize. But on a $44 million budget, it grossed $155 million. It was a clever, unusual crime thriller, and there is room to expand the palate with Bernthal, who played a long-lost bad-guy brother equally capable of creating mayhem thanks to the sadistic military ops father who trained them.
Affleck next stars as Batman in Justice League, which Warner Bros opens November 17. O’Connor is also developing with Imperative Entertainment the WWII thriller Atlantic Wall for Bradley Cooper to star in. WME reps Affleck and O’Connor, and CAA and Zero Gravity Management rep Dubuque.“An investigation by Beijing Youth Daily shows that in some money lending groups, female university students’ ‘naked holding’ has already become an open secret,” it wrote, referring to the practice of women photographing themselves naked holding their ID card as a guarantee of repayment.
A man with the online handle of Beijing Ninth Uncle on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform, said he was gathering evidence that women from many different walks of life, including farmers and university students, were falling afoul of the lenders’ demands. The man said he was a writer on the finance industry.
“With ‘naked holding’ they can get two to five times the amount of money, but when they can’t repay some have been threatened with publishing the photographs, and some lenders are even demanding the female students provide sexual services,” Beijing Youth Daily wrote.
It described the case of a university student from Jiangsu Province in central China, whom it gave the pseudonym of Lin Xiao. Her troubles began, it said, when she borrowed 500 renminbi, about $75, from a lender in February to open an online store. At 30 percent interest on the one-week loan, she quickly needed more money to repay the debt, eventually borrowing about 120,000 renminbi from 15 people, a sum that soon ballooned into 250,000 renminbi (about $38,000) at the high interest rate.
Eventually, the woman supplied a nude photograph of herself in exchange for a larger loan to try to escape her debt, including personal information such as contact numbers and addresses for family members. When she could not repay, the lender threatened to show the photographs to her family and friends, the newspaper reported.LGBulleTIn #26 -The week in LGBTI news
November 28 – December 4, 2015
This week, our dispatch of LGBTI news from around the world begins with three announcements.
Let’s start with the “Protect the Defenders” project, which was launched on Wednesday, December 2 in Brussels: ILGA is a proud part of it, and we'll join forces with other 11 NGOs to support human rights defenders facing high risk situations around the world.
It is also time to announce two very important dates: the ILGA Oceania regional conference will take place between March 9-12, 2016 in Wellington, New Zealand, while the Pan Africa ILGA regional conference is scheduled from May 13 to 18, 2016 and will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa. We can’t wait to meet you there!
And now, off to this week’s news.
Saturday, November 28
Uganda passes bill that “can be an excuse to stop any NGO”
NGOs are now in for a tougher ride as the usual last minute laws are being passed in Uganda. Reminds me of the AHA. @hrapf_uganda @SMUG2004 — Adrian Jjuuko (@jjuukoa) November 26, 2015
On the eve of the Pope’s arrival in the country, the Ugandan parliament approved the so-called NGO bill, which could force aide groups to end their operations if the government objects to their mission.
According to Adrian Jjuuko, executive director of Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum - Uganda, the bill reminds of the repealed Anti-Homosexuality Act and “ The link between the NGO Bill and the upcoming elections is quite clear. It can be an excuse to stop any NGO. @hrapf_uganda @SMUG2004 — Adrian Jjuuko (@jjuukoa) November 26, 2015 ">can be an excuse to stop any NGO.” The bill, in fact, would first require aid groups to get a license, which could be revoked if NGOs have engaged in "any act, which is prejudicial to the interests of Uganda and the dignity of the people of Uganda.”
Read more on Advocate
~~~
Sunday, November 29
Mexico: three killed, five wounded in gunmen attack at a gay festival
Three men aged between 23 and 33 were killed after gunmen stormed “La Reina gay” festival in a rural area not far from Acapulco, Mexico. According to local police reports, five more persons were wounded.
This was only the latest violent episode happening in the state of Guerrero since 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teacher's training school disappeared more than one year ago: earlier this month, a wave of threats among Acapulco schools forced over 50 state schools to close due to security reasons. A few days before that, armed individuals attacked spectators at a clandestine cockfighting event, killing 12 people including two children.
Read more on teleSUR (in English) and on El Universo (in Spanish)
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Tuesday, December 1
Thousands of persons worldwide remember those lost to AIDS-related illnesses
New HIV infections have fallen by 35% since 2000. While this is undoubtedly good news, though, it has to be noted that an average of 1 in 8 persons living with HIV is still being denied health services and that, only in 2014, 2 million people became newly infected by the virus. These and more data are included in the extensive On the Fast-Track to end AIDS by 2030: Focus on location and population report that UNAIDS released on the occasion of this year’s World AIDS Day: “We live in fragile communities where inequities can persist,” remembered UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibé, “(but) we know that strengthening local services to reach key populations will lead to healthier and more resilient societies.”
Meanwhile, more documents about HIV/AIDS responses were released during this week: a short film featuring never-before-heard audio tapes showed the response – or the lack of response - to the AIDS crisis by the Reagan administration in the United States, and a Asia-Pacific Inter-Agency Task Team on Young Key Populations report talked about a ‘hidden epidemic’ of HIV among adolescents in the region, growing fast especially young gay and bisexual men.
Philippines: U. S. Marine convicted of killing a trans woman
A Philippine court convicted U.S. Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton for the death of Jennifer Laude, whom he admitted to have choked in a hotel room after discovering she was a trans person.
Pemberton was sentenced to 6 to 12 years in prison, and ordered to pay two different fines.
The judge ruled that “there is no unlawful aggression that justifies [Pemberton] to defend his honour,” as one of his lawyers had claimed, but “the mitigating circumstance of passion and obfuscation should count” in his favour.
Activists were enraged at those “mitigating circumstances” quoted in the verdict: “This may dangerously be a precedent to encourage lesser penalties for hate crimes”, the network of LGBT organizations and allies LAGABLAB wrote in a statement. “We call for legal reforms to protect LGBT people from violence including sensitization of judges and court officials dealing with SOGIE-related violations and hate crimes.”
Read more on Buzzfeed
~~~
Wednesday, December 2
Turkey: trans woman stabbed in the heart and killed
Tweets by pembehayat
_lgbt/status/672186627465302018
A trans woman named Alev lost her life in Avcilar, Istanbul, after a man approached her in a street for sex and stabbed her to death, Pembe Hayat reports. The murderer has not been captured yet. This homicide happened only ten days after a trans woman named Nilay was found dead at her home in Maltepe, Istanbul: she was first stabbed and then strangled with a bathrobe cord.
Meanwhile, the Governorship of Istanbul has not permitted a legal inquiry to be initiated against police officers who attacked the Pride Parade in June, arguing that there was not “any information, document or video recording in relation to police misconduct.”
United States: Louisiana governor-elect promises to outlaw LGBTI workplace discrimination
Louisiana’s governor-elect John Bel Edwards will take up office only in January, but has already confirmed that one of his first actions will be to issue an executive order outlawing anti-LGBT discrimination, at least for State employees and government contractors.
In most parts of Louisiana it is still legal to fire someone for their sexual orientation, NOLA.com remembers: “Our mission to ensure that *all* people in Louisiana have legal protections against discrimination in the workplace continues” commented the Louisiana Equality group on Facebook, “but this promised executive action is welcome news for LGBT state employees.”
~~~
Thursday, December 3
Australia: Queensland parliament approves return of civil unions for LGBTI persons
To #Qld couples, irrespective of gender, this is your home & your state, & your relationship is valid & worthy of respect #VoteYES #qldpol — Yvette D'Ath (@YvetteDAth) December 3, 2015
After a three-year absence from when it was stripped back under the former Newman Liberal-National Party government, the Relationships (Civil Partnerships) and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2015 passed through Queensland Parliament. 64 MPs, including 21 from the LNP who crossed the floor, voted in favour of the legislation, while 22 did not support it.
“This delivers on a vital election commitment to Queenslanders,” attorney-general Yvette D’Ath said. “It restores the right of couples, regardless of their gender, to celebrate their relationship with a civil partnership ceremony.”
Read more on Star Observer
Is that all? More news bites
More LGBTI news bites
During a forum in Melbourne, Australia, activists called for improved sex education and more spaces for LGBTI people living with disabilities.
A transphobic billboard sparked outrage in Auckland, New Zealand, and the complaints that followed forced the company to remove it.
The first-ever trans specific health centre in Asia was opened in Bangkok, Thailand: it will strive “to be a model for quality health services and research for the trans community.”
Hundreds of activists marched in the Pride Parade in New Delhi, India, while the Delhi Queer Pride Committee demanded the repeal of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.
The kiss between two famous male actors, staged on live tv in Brazil to protest “against intolerance, small-mindedness and hypocrisy,” went viral on social media.
The Supreme Court in Mexico struck down a law banning same-sex marriage in the state of Jalisco, while its counterpart in Bermuda ruled that “non-Bermudian same-sex partners of Bermudians are entitled to live and work in the country without immigration restriction.”
LGBTI activists in the Dominican Republic blasted a catholic cardinal for referring to the gay U.S. ambassador to their country as a “wife” and inviting him to “stick to housework.”
Despite a homophobic clergyman claiming that “we as Christians can not allow this to just happen”, the Miss Gay Universe pageant will take place in Saint Lucia as planned.
Leaders from six US states filed an amicus brief in support of a school district facing a discrimination lawsuit over the use of bathrooms by a trans student, while a Wisconsin community is rallying behind a 6-year-old trans girl after her school cancelled a planned reading of a book to introduce her gender identity to her classmates.
Speaking to The Independent on Sunday, Commonwealth's secretary-general Baroness Scotland promised she would “absolutely” be talking to member states about LGBTI rights.
The journalist behind the “gay bath raid” that took place in Egypt in 2014, and resulted in the arrest and subsequent acquittal of 26 men, was sentenced to six months in jail.
LGBTI activists attending an international AIDS conference in Zimbabwe had material confiscated and displays damaged by government officials, while in Tunisia the government’s secretary-general called for a LGBTI advocacy group to be disbanded.
A music student was stabbed to death in his house in South Africa: police are investigating whether this may be a homophobia-motivated hate crime.
Ugandan LGBTI activist Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera received the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel, and delivered a powerful acceptance speech.
Northern Ireland's ban on same-sex marriage breaches human rights legislation and marginalises LGBTI people, a court has been told.
The governments of Poland and Hungary blocked an EU proposal on property regimes of married and registered couples over fear of interferences with values related to family and society.
A trans woman sent to an all-male prison in Milton Kenyes, UK, was found dead: only three weeks ago, another trans prisoner held in similar conditions died in Leeds.
The lower house of Ireland’s parliament passed a bill banning religious schools from discriminating against LGBTI teachers. The document will now go to the president for signing.As Los Angeles Kings fans come to grips with the idea of LA taking the ice without Justin Williams for the first time in seven seasons, many are wondering what LA is losing in the 33 year old winger who was getting pushed down the depth chart. However, a common refrain of fans and bloggers alike has been an optimistic one: "Toffoli is the next Williams." This thought process has even been attributed to individuals inside the Kings' front office, and Williams himself fed the talk of their similarities last season.
All this raises the question: Can Tyler Toffoli really replicate Justin Williams' long term success on the Kings? On the surface, sure, they are both right wingers who can score. However, do we have enough information to assess whether that is a fair prediction at all? There is more to hockey than scoring, and Williams is a noted darling of possession metrics. To get an accurate overview of the situation, let's take a look at their prospect profiles as well as production and possession metrics for comparable points in their careers.
The Scouting Reports
Given Toffoli's limited time in the NHL, a good place to start may be to compare his expectations with those of Williams when he was starting. Toffoli was |
complete overhaul of how Fifa is governed, according to PA:
Rummenigge called for the immediate introduction of "democratic and transparent structures and procedures" and claimed clubs would demand involvement in FIFA decisions which affected them.
Rummenigge, the Bayern Munich chief executive, said: "The recent happenings have once more proven that FIFA needs a change in its whole structure. As chairman of the European Club Association, I request FIFA to immediately introduce democratic and transparent structures and procedures.
"European clubs will no longer accept that they do not participate in the decision-making when it comes to club related matters.
"We will closely follow FIFA's development in this respect in the future and take appropriate measures, if there is no improvement."
Good evening all, it's Barry Glendenning here for a while as we wait for Teflon Sepp to stage his press conference. An interesting comment from below the line from poster Nockeakma...
"For the first time in the 32 years of my life, I am deeply ashamed to be German," writes, poster nockeakma. clearly absolving himself from all blame for David Hasselhoff's popularity in his neck of the woods. "The behaviour of the German DFB-officials is absolutely unacceptable. Got no answer from the DFB after complaining and asking them to stop their support for Blatter, but at least I got a few lines back from "adidas" after threatening to boycot their products if they dont put more pressure on this band of criminals:
Hello Mr. XYZ
We appreciate that you are sharing your opinion on this topic with us. adidas enjoys a long-term, close and successful partnership with FIFA that we are looking forward to continue. adidas will be an Official Sponsor of FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil. Having said that, the negative tenor of the public debate around FIFA at the moment is neither good for football nor for FIFA and its partners.
Best regards,
adidas AG
Corporate Communication
Meanwhile on Twitter, the @SwissRamble has started his own version of a Where's Wally competition in a bid to pass the time. @SwissRamble: "Sitting among an 'enthralled' FIFA congress, our old friend, former Swiss referee Urs Meier.
If it's that big-boned chap snoozing with his arm around the empty chair, you'd have to say Urs has let himself go...
All is quiet on the Fifa front; too damned quiet. Either the UK's crack team of proper journalists: David Conn, Matt Scott, Paul Kelso, Swiss Ramble et al have met a suspicious and grisly end, or else it's buffet time. Am feeling a bit peckish myself at the moment and as bad and all as Fifa are, I can think of nothing I'd like to do more at this exact moment than stuff my face at one of their groaning spreads.
Tony Evans, football editor at The Times adds his two cents on Twitter. "@tonyevanstimes: The FA is no White Knight battling evil Blatter. FA's been part of Fifa problem for decades. If we want to clean up game, start at home." True dat.
I can report that mild-mannered Proper Journalist David Conn is alive and well in Zurich. "@davidconn: Waiting for Sepp B victory press conference in Zurich. The cat got the cream again.... #fifa"
There is quite literally nothing of Fifa-related interest on Twitter or the news wires at the moment. Everyone seems to be biding their time, waiting for Sepp's victory address. C'mon Sepp, some of us have deadlines to attend to and homes to go to.
From the news wires - a bit of a reverse-ferret by the SFA, or am I getting cynical in my old age?
The Scottish Football Association have been encouraged by moves towards a more transparent form of governance within FIFA despite failing in their aim of postponing the world governing body's presidential election.
The SFA had publicly backed calls from their counterparts in England to delay today's unopposed re-election of Sepp Blatter after his only rival, Mohamed Bin Hammam, withdrew on Sunday hours before he was provisionally banned on bribery charges. The SFA wanted the election postponed until other allegations of corruption among senior FIFA officials were investigated but the motion was defeated by 172-17 votes, with 17 member countries abstaining.
However, SFA chief executive Stewart Regan felt their stance had helped to secure positive changes, which were announced after Blatter was voted in for another four years by 186 associations. In a statement, Regan said: "The Scottish FA is encouraged by the promise of a more transparent and inclusive approach to future governance made by FIFA at its Congress in Zurich today.
"While we accept and understand that the FIFA statutes allowed for the election of a single presidential candidate, our request for a postponement was made primarily to enable a line to be drawn under the speculation and accusations that clouded the Congress and undermined the election process.
"Having requested a wholly independent Ethics Committee, we are pleased that, as a first step, the chairman of the committee will in future be elected by the Congress, along with the appointment of designated independent individuals to the committee.
"We are also in agreement with the promise that a Solutions Committee be formed to examine corporate governance and recommend changes. Moreover, we are satisfied with the announcement on the major change to how World Cup host nations will be chosen.
"In the interests of openness and transparency, and also to protect the integrity of the Executive Committee members, the decision to alter the selection process to a vote from all 208 member associations, rather than the 24-man ExCo, is a positive step."
Regan, whose major overhaul of the SFA's disciplinary procedures and committee systems will be voted on by clubs next week, added: "We must all now work hard together to improve the image and reputation of the world game, which has been damaged by the recent events.
"Indeed, at next Tuesday's AGM, the Scottish FA will have its own opportunity to approve the most radical changes in its 138-year history."
On Twitter, star Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker has lunged in two-footed... with a profanity! "@charltonbrooker: Sepp Blatter is a Day Today kind of name, no? That observation aside, I find it amusing to imagine Sepp Blatter is actually called Ernie Cunt."
If only Charlie Brooker had taken an interest in the Fifa debate about four hours ago. "@charltonbrooker: I know nothing about football, but hereby challenge Sepp Blatter for the FIFA leadership. YOUR MOVE, BLATTER."
With the radio silence from Zurich over the last hour proving deafening, we're going to wrap up today's live blog. Thanks for your time, emails and contributions - if Sepp Blatter does deign to give his presidential address, we'll have more on the site later. For the time being, all you need to know is that amid much fawning, kow-towing and forelock-tuggery, Sepp has been re-elected for another term, unopposed, after winning with 186 votes out of 203 cast. Quite where the other 17 went is anyone's guess, considering the comical state of the ballot paper in the photograph above.Cher Patrick,
On se connait depuis longtemps, toi et moi. Plus de 20 ans, je pense. Même si j’ai grisonné plus vite, je suis à peine plus vieux que toi et on a souvent travaillé ensemble.
Je t’ai connu à tes débuts : jeune, fringant, talentueux et disons-le, baveux. Tu n’hésitais jamais à remettre en question les «vieux» journalistes, bien enfoncés dans leurs pantoufles. Tu as voulu faire les choses différemment. Ça t’a valu des jalousies et des frictions avec tes collègues et, parfois, avec tes patrons. Avec ton blogue chez Canoë, il y a une douzaine d’années, tu as amené à un autre niveau l’interaction entre un journaliste et ses lecteurs. Tu te souviens de cette première fois où un de tes billets avait généré plus de 100 commentaires? T’étais pas mal fier. Avec raison. Bref, Patrick, à ta façon, tu étais un peu comme ces milléniaux qui semblent tant te taper sur les nerfs aujourd’hui. Tu innovais, tu repoussais les limites et oui, tu faisais chier les plus vieux.
Ton texte a fait jaser pas mal. Je l’ai vu passer ad nauseam dans mon fil d’actualités Facebook. Plusieurs de mes estimés collègues, plus âgés, m’ont dit : «Tu liras Lagacé, il est right on à matin». Ça m’a pris du temps pour te lire. Parce que comme beaucoup de milléniaux, je n’utilise pas vraiment de tablette, donc pas de Presse+ ;). Mais là, je viens finalement de cliquer sur un lien partagé sur Facebook et de finir ton texte...
En gros, tu accuses les milléniaux de penser qu’ils sont spéciaux, brillants, géniaux, etc. Même si tu sers dès le départ une mise en garde («Je n’ai rien de particulier contre ta génération»), le reste de ton texte n’est qu’une enfilade de reproches que tu adresses à l’ensemble d’une génération, en réponse aux propos tenus par quatre d’entre eux. Ça sonne un peu comme un sermon. On sent que tu veux leur apprendre des choses sur la vie. Comme le font les mononcles, Patrick.
Tu as touché quelque chose, c’est certain. Tu t’attaques à la génération qui dérange. Un classique. Et ça marche. Parce qu’on est toujours content quand quelqu’un prend le clavier pour «planter» ceux qui nous agacent.
Pour tout dire, j’en ai rencontré des milléniaux comme ceux que tu décris, des solutions creators, des parvenus qui réussissent à s’insérer et à se faufiler dans les entreprises à coups de phrases creuses et de concepts marketing bidons. Ben oui, je les ai croisés aussi, ces milléniaux-là. Comme j’en ai croisés des pareils, mais plus vieux, des «peddlers». Ça ne date pas d’hier, les vendeurs de vent, les pelleteux de nuages, les enfirouapeurs et les paresseux.
Comme disait si bien Brassens, «le temps ne fait rien à l’affaire, quand on est con...» Tu connais la suite.
Le problème, Patrick, c’est que tu nous fais croire qu’ils se croient tous comme ça, meilleurs que les autres. Cette génération est pas mal plus complexe et diversifiée que voudraient nous le faire croire les génies du marketing de NOTRE génération.
Car vois-tu, travailler avec et pour les milléniaux, c’est devenu mon quotidien. Non seulement au moins deux de mes trois enfants le sont, mais la grande majorité des gens avec qui je travaille sont des milléniaux. Je les ai presque tous embauchés moi-même. Bref, je dirige une gang de milléniaux.
Laisse-moi te parler d’eux, un petit peu.
Les milléniaux que je connais sont de véritables bourreaux de travail. Ben oui, ils sont un peu tout croches avec leur horaire et peuvent faire du télétravail juste parce qu’il neige fort, mais ils entrent aussi parfois avant leur quart de travail et quittent souvent après la fin. Une fois chez eux, j’en connais plusieurs qui font avancer leurs projets personnels, des idées de start-ups, des rêves un peu fou.
Tu les crois paresseux? Si les quartiers de Montréal revivent en ce moment, si on voit éclore ici et là des cafés originaux, des restaurants audacieux, des boutiques étonnantes, des foodtrucks et des fashiontrucks ingénieux, c’est souvent grâce à eux, Patrick. Si l’industrie du multimédia, du jeu vidéo et de la créativité est devenue ce qu’elle est à Montréal, c’est aussi souvent grâce à eux. Des jeunes qui cumulent souvent deux, trois jobs pour vivre leurs rêves, quand ils ne sont pas encore aux études.
Et tu peux me croire, ils rêvent les milléniaux. Beaucoup. Et ils VIVENT leurs rêves. Et ça, ça nous fait chier, nous les plus vieux, qui ne les avons peut-être pas assez vécus.
Tu les crois baveux? Tu crois qu’ils en ont long à rechigner sur les titres des postes pour lesquels ils postulent? Moi, je pense qu’ils s’en fichent. Ils sont moins impressionnés par les titres que nous le sommes. C’est pour ça qu’ils rejettent les termes fades et souvent vides, comme «gestionnaire de projet». Tous ceux que j’ai passés en entrevue étaient des jeunes respectueux, très reconnaissants d’avoir une chance de se faire valoir. Pas une fois, je n’ai senti l’ombre d’une attitude prétentieuse. Je les ai souvent trouvés même très gênés, pas du tout hautains comme tu les décris.
Elle n’est pas parfaite cette génération, pas plus que les précédentes. Les milléniaux sont unanimement anxieux (une mode, je crois), ils sont cyniques et n’écrivent pas de lettre ouverte, sauf ironiquement. Ils doivent être tannés aussi de faire parler d’eux sans arrêt comme d’une marque.
Moi, j’ai l’impression que cette génération sait ce qu’elle veut, plus que tout autre auparavant. J’ai aussi l’impression que c’est
une génération qui vivra plus heureuse. En tout cas, je leur souhaite.
Allez, bisous, chill, mon Pat.In a in the August issue of Nature, scientists at the NYU Langone Medical Center discovered how the brain filters useful information. The team, led by Dr. Richard Tsien, zeroed in on oxytocin neurons in the hippocampus of rats.
The hippocampus is the part of the brain used to form new memories. An earlier study found that the chemical oxytocin acts on the hippocampus. Oxytocin functions as both a hormone and a neurotransmitter in the body, playing a vital role in childbirth and emotional bonding. In autistic people, who sometimes struggle with empathy, scientists have found that oxytocin levels are lower than usual.
In order to form memories, the hippocampus relies on brain cells called pyramidal neurons and interneurons. These interneurons act as a filter, so that small distractions in the environment don’t send a strong enough signal for a memory to form. When a powerful signal from a real stimulus comes through, it’s enough to overcome the inhibitory interneurons and make the pyramidal neurons fire. This allows important stimuli to active the hippocampus, but ignores irrelevant details.
Tsien’s team found that when oxytocin levels are high, interneurons are not able to transmit as strong a signal. The balance of power between interneurons and pyramidal neurons allows the brain to carefully fine-tune which information it retains and which it doesn't. Unfortunately, such a delicate system is easily disrupted.
Seeing the World Through Autistic Eyes
Tsien’s findings may shed light on why autism causes differences in the processing of social and environmental cues.
Autistics tend to focus more on visual and spatial details, while ignoring the “big picture,” called a gestalt. For example, in the image above, when asked what letter they see, an autistic person is more likely to spot the 'A’s' and have trouble seeing the 'W' that they form together. However, they’ll also identify the A’s faster than a non-autistic person would.
This becomes problematic in social situations, such as listening to one person talk in a crowded room or trying to read a person’s emotions from their facial expressions and tone of voice.
"Most of us will be able to look at a face and very quickly extract a person's expression and have an understanding of what the person’s underlying emotional state is,” explains Dr. Alexander Kolevzon, Clinical Director at the Seaver Autism Center in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “We can rely on a gestalt, a pattern we can recognize. In people with autism, this gestalt is absent. It's not intuitive to them where they should be focusing their attention. They have to analyze the face in a piecemeal way. There's a nose, an eye...oh, it's a face. Trying to understand the expression beyond that is even more difficult."
Can Oxytocin Treat Autism?
Several studies have investigated the oxytocin-autism connection. A single dose of oxytocin has been found to help autistic people with empathy and other social tasks. One study, published last year, found a lasting effect from the chronic use of oxytocin.
Tsien’s finding might help explain why. Autism is linked to both lower oxytocin levels and mutations in the oxytocin receptor, the site where oxytocin bonds to its interneuron and causes it to fire. If the neurons responsible for filtering out unnecessarily information and highlighting important information aren’t receiving the oxytocin they need, they won’t be able to function as efficiently.
Although many autistic people learn to compensate by using their intellect to develop rules and algorithms to follow, this requires incredible effort.
"I think what happens for people with autism is that when they're walking around, the environment can be quite overwhelming for them,” Kolevzon explains. “What they're most likely to miss are those social cues. One of the reasons they avoid social contact is because it can be exhausting. All those things don't come naturally to them."
Kolevzon is one of the lead researchers in a new study funded by the to test oxytocin as an autism treatment. They will be recruiting subjects ages three to 17 starting this fall at five locations: the University of North Carolina, the University of Washington, Vanderbilt University, Harvard University, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
For more information about this study or other ongoing work at the Seaver Autism Center, please contact Sarah Soffes at (212) 241-2993.
Learn MoreWhile fighting against the Islamic State group drags on in Mosul, tribal and military forces in Anbar are preparing for what will likely be the final battle against the extremists. But this fight will take many months.
A sign erected by the IS group, proclaiming the Euphrates province on the Iraqi-Syrian border.
Many Iraqis and international observers are continuing to watch the fighting in Mosul, where pro-government forces are slowly driving out the last vestiges of the extremist group known as the Islamic State. But even as this happens and the troops continue their painstaking and expensive advance toward victory, the extremists are re-grouping elsewhere in Iraq.
It seems that all those involved are coming to the conclusion that, in order to truly expel the extremist Islamic State, or IS, group from Iraq, the final campaign must take place in the deserts of Anbar province, around the borders of Iraq and Syria.
They are going to fight very, very hard here. They know that this - not in Mosul or Raqqa - is where they are going to end.
“Ending the IS group in Mosul will make the extremist group sick,” a senior Iraqi army officer told NIQASH, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to media. “But ending the organisation in Anbar will kill them. That is why fighting in Anbar will be the next main campaign in Iraq and also the most dangerous yet. It is different there because the battle will take place around international borders.”
A plan for this is already taking shape, the officer noted.
“The plan includes the mobilization of large numbers of pro-government forces from both the Iraqi army and from the anti-terrorism corps, that are currently in Mosul, as well as tribal brigades, along with US forces to provide air and artillery support,” he added.
It has been clear for some time already that fighters from the brutal extremist group are regrouping in this area. The fighters are obviously trying to destabilize the cities in the area. There have been a number of extremist attacks in Rutba, Haditha and Ramadi over the past week or so.
After months of stability and relative security, a car bomb exploded in Haditha, killing at least five people. Extremists also attacked border guards on the road between Iraq and Jordan near Rutba and some got as far as the outskirts of Ramadi where they tried to destroy the homes of locals who are in the military or members of tribal militias.
The aim of these attacks is to try and terrorize the people in Anbar, and make them frightened that the IS group is returning to their areas, Rajeh al-Issawi, a local politician and member of Anbar’s provincial security committee, told NIQASH.
“We expected these recent terrorist attacks because the IS group can move freely across the desert and easily threaten the outskirts of cities like Ramadi and Rutba, which they no longer control,” al-Issawi says.
Al-Issawi was also critical of the Iraqi government, saying that instead of heading to Mosul they should have cleaned up the rest of Anbar beforehand.
This has meant that for the first time in the months since extremists were pushed out of the major cities in Anbar, the Iraqi government has been forced to send reinforcements to the province. Although the IS group were pushed out of major cities, smaller towns and cities like Qaem, Ana and Rawa, near the Syrian border, were left because the Iraqi government decided that it needed to push the fight onto Mosul before tackling these places.
A press picture by the IS group, showing one of their fighters in Qaem.
That desert border area – which the IS group describes as its Euphrates wilayat, or province – stretches from Qaem down to the Syrian border town of Albu Kamal. The area is vast and will make for a dangerous battlefield, in a fight that could last for many months. That is why, analysts say, the government has chosen to leave it for last.
The senior military officer says the campaign will begin with forces clearing the desert areas of Anbar, starting from the Jazeera area and the Rutba area, that borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan. They will try to push the extremists to escape toward the borders.
Then forces would fight in Ana and Rawa before a final and more difficult battle in Qaem. The extremists who flee over the borders should then be chased by Syrian military, according to an apparent agreement with that country’s government.
This agreement with the Syrian government, headed by Bashar al-Assad, appears to complement one between the two governments last month that allowed each country’s air force to make strikes just over the other’s border, in pursuit of IS fighters.
No matter what happens, the campaign to remove the IS group and allies from Anbar is going to be exceedingly difficult. Anbar is one of Iraq’s largest provinces, around 138,500 square kilometres, and makes up about a third of the whole country. Much of it is isolated desert and there are huge distances between the province’s cities, connected by a limited network of roads. For example, the armed forces in Ramadi are 300 kilometres away from Rutba and 130 kilometres away from Qaem – a long distance, on often-single lane highways, deep into the Iraqi desert.
This allows the extremists to launch attacks on troops as they move slowly through the landscape, something that was not a problem in places like Mosul, Ramadi or Fallujah.
The biggest problem though is what happens to the extremist fighters once they are pushed toward the border of Iraq and Syria.
Retired Iraqi major general, Abdul Karim Khalaf, a military analyst and former government spokesperson, told NIQASH that the Syrian military are not ready to cooperate on this job. “The Iraqi forces are ready to clean out the valleys and plains of the Anbar desert that have become safe havens for the extremists,” Khalaf told NIQASH. “But the Syrian side is not.”
Commander Riad Jalal visits troops in Anbar in May.
Fighting on the long borders, stretching around 600 kilometres, between Iraq and Syria would be useless if there is no plan to control the extremist fighters as they cross them. If there’s no way to stop them, the Iraqi security forces will simply continue to be attacked as the extremists make forays back and forth across the borders, Khalaf argues. This happened recently on the border of Jordan, he says.
There had been attempts to try and clean up the borders in this area recently. But this has proved difficult and there has been a recognition that a lot of manpower will be needed to make a success of this kind of operation.
At the same time, the IS group too realizes the strategic significant of this area. Thousands of fighters who escaped from other areas the extremist group used to control, such as Mosul, Salahaddin and others parts of Anbar, are stationed here now. Analysts say that this is also where the IS group has established factories for manufacturing improvised explosive devices and other bombs and it is now where it receives volunteer fighters.
Ahmad al-Mahlawi is a tribal leader from the Qaem district currently living in Haditha where he leads a brigade of tribal fighters supported by the Iraqi government and US forces; his group work from out of the Ain al-Asad military base In Anbar.
“The extremists have started to plant mines in the desert, between Qaem and Albu Kamal and they are preparing hiding places along that road too, so that they can stop the Iraqi army when it launches the attack on them that everybody expects,” al-Mahlawi says. “They are going to fight very, very hard here,” he notes. “They know that this - not in Mosul or Raqqa - is where they are going to end.”Kat Bailey By Kat BaileyEditor in Chief
We're at E3 2017 covering the year's biggest gaming event. Be sure to check out all our coverage on our E3 2017 hub!
While it didn't get much attention at EA's press conference, this is a big year for Madden 18. Not only are they introducing an ambitious (and possibly crazy) new story mode, they are moving from the three-year-old Ignite Engine to Frostbite.
As we learned with Mass Effect Andromeda, such a move can be perilous. FIFA 17, which made the move last year, ultimately didn't suffer too badly, but it still had some significant input delay issues. It's hard to change engines, and harder still to move to an engine like Frostbite.
With Madden 18 making its Frostbite debut this year, fans are justified in wondering if Tiburon can pull off the move, especially given Madden's prior history. Here are some of my thoughts after playing.
1. Passing feels totally different: The first thing you'll notice when you start playing is that the players look different. They're lankier and a bit more realistically proportioned. The referees face is different. You can definitely tell it's a new engine.
The second thing you'll notice is how ridiculously different it feels. The animations are definitely more fluid and less robotic than before--Madden NFL has always felt a bit stiff--and that has a big impact on how receivers get open and catch the ball. They feel heavier now, and big receivers are more likely to body defenders and get open.
Acceleration also feels dramatically different. On 3rd and 10 I dropped back and was immediately disoriented by how different the timing felt. One of my receivers was criminally slow to get off the line, which prevented him from getting open in time.
Having gotten extremely comfortable with Madden 17's gameplay, it appears that I'm going to have to relearn how to play Madden once again. That's not a bad thing, by the way. It's just going to be an adjustment period.
2. I didn't have much success running: First, a caveat on this one: I was playing with the Vikings because I wanted to try out rookie running back Dalvin Cook (main takeaway: he's fast but is apt to get annihilated by a big hit). The Vikings offensive line is famously terrible. I played with the Skins as well, and their o-line is a bit better, but I didn't get a chance to try out the Cowboys.
Anyway, I've seen lots of questions about how Madden 18's running game feels this year. My own feeling is that it mostly feels slower, more deliberate. The blocking AI is roughly the same as they were in Madden 17, as are the skill moves like the jukes and moves. I ran a lot out of Inside Zone out of the shotgun, but with limited success. As always, it's a matter of time to figure out what running formation is the most powerful. But as far as how different it feels, my opinion is that the passing game has changed more than the running game.
3. I don't know how I feel about the new passing mechanics: Madden 18 brings with it an interesting new passing mechanic reminiscent of the days of NFL Fever. So far I've been unable to complete a pass with it.
So here's how it works: You hold L2/LT and a little indicator pops up near your primary receiver. You move the indicator around and your QB will throw to that target, allowing you to lead them anywhere you want on the field. But here's the catch (heh): your QB can't move while this is happening, so activating it is a massive risk.
The results when I activated it: Sack, sack, sack, interception, interception, interception.
As best I can tell, the mechanic is best used to lead your receiver on a streak when they're one-on-one with a corner with no safety over the top. Recognizing this, I tried to integrate that into my strategy, but the extra moment I needed to push the indicator always resulted in me getting sacked.
It should be mentioned that mapping this mechanic to L2/LT has other consequences as well. The high-low pass mechanics are different now, and you can't really lead receivers in the same as we before. It's very different, and it's honestly taking some getting used to.
The goal, it seems, is to add a greater skill component to the passing game, which is fair. Passing in Madden has long been far too easy, and skilled players can easily rack up extremely high completion percentages. This levels the playing field a bit.
Taken together, Madden 18 feels very different from last year. Thankfully, many of my original concerns about the transition to Frostbite have yet to materialize--input lag doesn't seem to be a factor, player interactions are solid--but the actual balance of the gameplay is throwing me off. I will need more time with it to decide whether I actually like it or not.
But as for those who are always complaining that Madden is just a "roster update" every year: this is the most different Madden has felt since the big transition to Madden 15. Whether that's for good or for ill, we'll just have to see.[+]Enlarge Reacting a Fe–Mo–S compound (top left) with one containing Sn 2 S 6 units (top right) yields a photocatalytic chalcogel that converts nitrogen to ammonia. (Mo is blue, Fe is red, S is yellow, Sn is black.) Credit: J. Am. Chem. Soc.
By taking cues from two biological processes, researchers have made a catalytic material that converts nitrogen to ammonia when irradiated by white light (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, DOI: 10.1021/ja512491v). The new strategy may one day help scientists achieve energy savings in various catalytic processes by capitalizing on abundant sunlight to produce valuable chemicals.
Manufacturers worldwide produce some 200 million tons of ammonia annually, mainly for use as fertilizer and for making nitrogen-containing compounds. The standard industrial process, the Haber-Bosch method, involves reacting nitrogen, which is relatively inert, with hydrogen at 400 °C and at a pressure roughly 250 times atmospheric pressure in the presence of an iron-based catalyst. It is, of course, highly energy intensive.
Nature also converts nitrogen to ammonia, albeit far more slowly, through a process known as nitrogen fixation. The reaction, which runs under much milder conditions, occurs in microbes containing nitrogenase enzymes. These catalysts tend to include a reactive cluster of iron, molybdenum, and sulfur.
In an effort to understand nature’s energy-efficient ways, researchers previously made synthetic analogs of these clusters. They found that a few of them can catalyze ammonia production from nitrogen under strongly reducing conditions.
A team of Northwestern University chemists, including Abhishek Banerjee and Mercouri G. Kanatzidis, has now demonstrated a potentially more useful catalyst: one that can be switched on and driven by light to mediate ammonia production at room temperature and ambient pressure. Dubbed a chalcogel, the material, which mimics some aspects of nitrogen fixation and photosynthesis, is a light-absorbing, porous, amorphous solid composed of Mo 2 Fe 6 S 8 clusters linked by Sn 2 S 6 ligands.
The team bubbled nitrogen through aqueous solutions containing the chalcogel, a proton source (pyridinium hydrochloride), and an electron donor (sodium ascorbate). They detected ammonia shortly after aiming a white light source at the gel and report that during irradiation the chemical’s concentration increased continuously.
Control tests show that solutions lacking the catalyst and those kept in the dark do not produce ammonia. The team acknowledges that the chalcogel evaluated in this study produces ammonia too slowly for industrial use but notes that the material remained stable with no loss of activity during a 72-hour test.No.
overall No. in
season Title Directed by Written by Original air date Prod.
code US viewers
(millions)
1 1 "Prescription for Death" John P. Whitesell II Story by : David Black & Ed Zuckerman
Teleplay by : Ed Zuckerman September 13, 1990 ( ) 66209 14.00[1]
Suzanne Morton dies after a visit to a hospital emergency room during a hectic night shift. Her father, a former army medic in Vietnam, accuses the hospital of negligence and demands a police investigation. Logan and Greevey question a doctor who made adjustments to her chart, but are soon led to the respected Dr. Edward Auster, who they feel may have been drunk on duty. The other residents are reluctant to speak for fear their jobs may be in jeopardy, and Stone is faced with the awkward job of prosecuting a revered physician.
A white woman, Laura di Biasi, shoots two black men in a crowded subway. The shooting at first appears to be self-defense, but further investigation shows that the motive may be revenge. Logan and Greevey argue about di Biasi's guilt, especially after learning that the dead man has a substantial record, and the living one cannot control himself in court. Laura di Biasi tries to make her case to Robinette, but he distances himself from the issue. Stone has trouble with the case, both in dealing with di Biasi's public defender, Shambala Green, and with the fact that the district attorney's office is divided over the issue.
3 3 "The Reaper's Helper" Vern Gillum Story by : Thomas Francis McElroy
Teleplay by : Thomas Francis McElroy & David Black & Robert Stuart Nathan October 4, 1990 ( ) 66215 14.60[2]
Construction worker Bobby Holland is found shot to death in his apartment. Logan and Greevey investigate and soon learn that Holland was gay. After reading a magazine article, Greevey connects the death to others in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The detectives arrest Jack Curry, who is connected to all three cases. Curry admits his involvement and claims that each man asked him to help them commit suicide because they had AIDS. Stone is troubled about prosecuting the case because of his doubts that Curry did anything wrong.
4 4 "Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die" Charles Correll Story by : Dick Wolf
Teleplay by : Robert Stuart Nathan October 11, 1990 ( ) 66210 16.80[2]
Paige Bartlett is found beaten severely in her Upper East Side apartment. She dies in the hospital. Greevey and Logan investigate her boyfriend Steven Feinstein, but find that they broke up the evening before she was killed. The detectives locate another boyfriend, Ned Loomis, and learn that he has a history of violence after another former victim comes forward. Stone is frustrated when he is not able to use Loomis' former crimes against him in court.
5 5 "Happily Ever After" Vern Gillum Story by : Dick Wolf & David Black
Teleplay by : David Black & Robert Stuart Nathan October 23, 1990 ( ) 66212 19.40[2]
Alan Ralston is shot to death and his wife Janet wounded inside their building parking garage. In hospital, Janet identifies the alleged attacker from a police photo. One witness questioned early in the investigation is Gil Himes, a business associate of Alan. Police eventually piece together that the crime was not a random act of violence by the identified attacker. Rather it was the intentional murder of Alan and equally intentional wounding of Janet. Stone tries to get one of the suspects to testify against the other.
After local councilman and former bagman Charles Halsey is mugged and his throat slashed, Logan and Greevey investigate the case and the two young black male suspects initially caught. Their suspicion turns to organized crime when they link the victim to Masucci soldier Tony Scalisi. As Stone and Robinette continue their investigation, they uncover a corruption scandal involving Councilman Halsey; the collection of parking meter violation fines has been awarded to a firm connected to organized crime. To avoid the appearance of impropriety, District Attorney Wentworth won't allow Stone to offer Scalisi immunity. However, in order to win their case, their only option might be to make a deal with the mobster. Stone discovers that the case involves not only organized crime, but also elected city officials and a deputy police commissioner whom he accuses of changing his testimony and doctor |
but there is the possibility of his loyalists provoking the Jewish population,” he said.
For now, Zissels said he does not have much faith President Obama will do much to save his native Ukraine. “I don’t believe Obama can do anything that will be useful or effective,” he said. “But if he could do anything I would want him to end the Russian occupation of Ukraine. But I think only Reagan among the American presidents is the one who could do that.”America's Permanent War Agenda ANALYSIS: America's Permanent War Agenda We can't afford this! by Stephen Lendman Monday, 1 March 2010
Like George Bush, Obama plans permanent war and more military spending than all other nations combined at a time America has no enemies. He promised change and betrayed us. Grassroots activism must stop this madness. Post-9/11, Dick Cheney warned of wars that won't end in our lifetime. Former CIA Director James Woolsey said America "is engaged in World War IV, and it could continue for years....This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us." GHW Bush called it a "New World Order" in his September 11, 1990 address to a joint session of Congress as he prepared the public for Operation Desert Storm. The Pentagon called it the "long war" in its 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), what past administrations waged every year without exception since the republic's birth, at home and abroad. Obama is just the latest of America's warrior presidents that included Washington, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Wilson, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, and GW Bush preceding him. This article covers WW II and its aftermath history of imperial wars for unchallengeable global dominance throughout a period when America had and still has no enemies. Then why fight them? Read on. Wars Without End America glorifies wars in the name of peace, what historian Charles Beard (1874 - 1948) called "perpetual war for perpetual peace" in describing the Roosevelt and Truman administrations' foreign policies - what concerned the Federation of American Scientists when it catalogued about 200 post-1945 conflicts in which America was, and still is, the aggressor. Historian Gore Vidal used Beard's phrase in titling his 2002 book, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace" and saying: "our rulers for more than half a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own." In his 2002 book "Dreaming War," he compared GW Bush's imperial ambitions to WW II and the 1947 Truman Doctrine's pledge: "To support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." It was to keep Greece and Turkey from going communist, but it applied globally and initiated America's National Security State strategy that included: NATO in 1949 for offense, not defense;
NSC-68 against Soviet Russia in 1950 to "contain" what was called an enemy "unlike previous aspirants to hegemony....animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own (wishing to) impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world" at a time America was the only global superpower, the Soviet Union lay in ruins, threatened no one, and needed years to regain normality. Then came: Truman's instigated June 25, 1950 war after the DPRK retaliated in force following months of ROK provocations, what Americans call the Korean War, South Koreans the 6-2-5 War (meaning June 25), and the North its "fatherland liberation war" that left it in ruins, the South occupied to this day, and it was only the mid-century beginning as succeeding administrations continued an agenda for what's now called "full spectrum dominance" for global US hegemony. It worried historian Harry Elmer Barnes (1889 - 1968) in his 1953 collection of leading historical revisionists' essays titled, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and It's Aftermath" in which he wrote in the preface: "If trends continue as they have during the last fifteen years, we shall soon reach this point of no return, and can only anticipate interminable wars, disguised as noble gestures for peace. Such an era could only culminate in a third world war which might well, as Arnold J. Toynbee has suggested, leave only the pygmies in remote jungles, or even the apes and ants, to carry on 'the cultural traditions' of mankind." He cited how America's "needless" entry into two world wars converted its pre-1914 dream "into a nightmare of fear, regimentation, destruction, insecurity, inflation, and ultimate insolvency." He debunked the cause and merits of WW I, "the folly of our entering it, and the disastrous results that followed." He cited "popular fictions" about WW II, the injustices to Germany and Austria that caused it, the war Roosevelt wanted early in the 1930s as captured Polish documents and the censored Forrestal Diaries confirmed. Before it began, he wanted US neutrality legislation ended, then after September 1939, he dropped any pretense by supporting Britain and France and opposing peace efforts after Poland's defeat. His June 1940 "dagger in the back" address was a de facto act of war by beginning vast amounts of weapons and munitions shipments to Britain after Dunkirk, followed by the September 1940 (peacetime) Selective Service Act, the first in US history, in preparation for what close advisor Harry Hopkins told Churchill in January 1941 that: "The President is determined that we shall win the war together. Make no mistake about it," followed by Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold Stark telling his fleet commanders that "The question of our entry into the war now seems to be when, and not whether." Only a pretext was needed, first by trying and failing to provoke Germany, then deciding Japan would be attacked, whether or not it struck US ships, territory, or forces in the Pacific. In a July 4 radio broadcast, Roosevelt said: "solemnly (understand) that the United States will never survive as a happy and fertile oasis of liberty surrounded by a cruel desert of dictatorship." Then his July 25 Executive Order froze Japanese assets, stating it was: "....To prevent the use of the financial facilities of the United States in trade between Japan and the United States in ways harmful to national defense and American interests, to prevent the liquidation in the United States of assets obtained by duress or conquest, and to curb subversive activities in the United States." Britain followed suit the next day, and Roosevelt nationalized the Philippines' armed forces "as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States" with dominion over its Asian colony. As early as 1937, he planned a naval blockade, but dropped the idea after an adverse reaction. It resurfaced in 1938 because he knew strangling Japan economically assured war. Throughout his administration, from 1933 through late 1941, he spurned Japanese peace overtures that would have protected all American interests in the Pacific. By November 25, the final die was cast. America chose war, and on that day, War Secretary Henry Stimson wrote in his diary that it depended only on how to maneuver Japan to attack with the lowest number of US casualties. Tokyo had no other recourse, knowing it couldn't win, but hoping for a negotiated settlement to solidify whatever Asian control it could retain. It failed, lost the war, and remains an occupied US vassal state. In the late 1930s, Roosevelt encouraged a Japanese attack by stationing the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor against the advice of two key admirals, James Richardson, Pacific Fleet commander and Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations until March 1942. Selling arms to Japan's enemies and an embargo assured war, and US cable documentation confirmed it was coming. Breaking the Japanese code let Britain and Washington track its fleet from the Kurile Islands to its North Pacific refueling point en route to Pearl Harbor on or about December 7. At a December 5 cabinet meeting, Navy Secretary Frank Knox said: "Well, you know Mr. President, we know where the Japanese fleet is?" "Yes, I know," responded Roosevelt, saying "Well, you tell them what it is Frank," who explained where it was, where it was heading until Roosevelt interrupted adding that perfect information wasn't available in spite of navy reports confirming it in Pacific waters heading toward Hawaii. On December 6, officials awaited the attack until it came the next morning at 7:55AM Hawaii time. It was a day of infamy and deceit, with Pearl Harbor's commander, Admiral HE Kimmel, denied crucial intelligence to let it proceed unimpeded, arouse public anger, and give FDR his war - one decoded Japanese messages showed they didn't want but Roosevelt gave them no choice. Like other presidents, he lied the country into war against the wishes of 80% of the public, at a cost of millions of lives in both theaters, and a policy henceforth of perpetual wars for perpetual peace to achieve unchallengeable US dominance. In the modern era, FDR's foreign policy began it, leaving a bankrupted moral and political legacy active to this day. Consider also what revisionist historians say about Lincoln - that he provoked the Fort Sumpter (in Charleston, SC harbor) attack and began the Civil War for economic reasons, not to end slavery. Consider also that ordinary people and soldiers don't want war, just their leaders and commanders - to wit, Christmas 1914 during WW I when German and British troops stopped fighting, didn't know why they were doing it, then defied orders by fraternizing with each other for two weeks despite risking being court-martialed. Unable to stop them, their officers joined them in a celebratory pause that didn't stop another three years of carnage, millions of lost lives, and post-war policies that assured WW II. The lesson is clear. All wars are immoral, unnecessary, and only happen when one side provokes the other for reasons unrelated to national security threats. In his seminal book, "A Century of War," Gabriel Kolko called the 20th century: "the bloodiest in all history. More than 170 million people were killed," 70% of whom in WW II were civilians, "mainly (from) the bombing of cities by Great Britain and America." There was nothing good about "the good war" nor any others. In Kolko's later book "Another Century of War," he stressed how America contributes to much of the world's disorder through its interventions and as the world's largest arms producer and exporter. Post-WW II, the US became a global menace, today claiming "terrorism" as the main threat - a bogus fiction to justify militarism, perpetual wars heading the nation for moral, political and economic bankruptcy. According to Kolko: "The way America's leaders are running the nation's foreign policy is not creating peace or security at home or stability abroad. The reverse is the case: its interventions have been counterproductive." In his newest book, "The World in Crisis," Kolko believes that America's decline "began after the Korean War, was continued in relation to Cuba, and was greatly accelerated in Vietnam - but (GW Bush did) much to exacerbate it further." He also thinks: US power is declining everywhere;
"the world is no longer dependent on its economic might" because other nations like China and India are growing and may some day equal or surpass America;
after the Soviet Union's collapse, "the absence of identifiable foes has been a disaster, leaving the US aimless - (so) it picks and chooses enemies: rag-tag Afghan tribesmen, Iraqis or all sorts, perhaps China, perhaps Russia....South American caudillos," whatever bogus ones can be invented for imperial wars, but the justification is wearing thin, and the burgeoning cost unsustainable. The result is that America's "century of domination is now ending." America's Permanent War Economy It's how Seymour Melman (1917 - 2004) characterized it in his books and frequents writings on America's military-industrial complex. One of his last articles was titled "In the Grip of a Permanent War Economy (CounterPunch, March 15, 2003) in which he said: "at the start of the twenty-first century, every major aspect of American life is being shaped by our Permanent War Economy." He then examined the horrific toll: a de-industrialized nation, the result of decades of shifting production abroad leaving unions and communities "decimated;"
government financing and promoting "every kind of war industry and foreign investing by US firms;" war priorities take precedence over essential homeland needs;
America's "Permanent War Economy....has endured since the end of World War II....Since then the US has been at war - somewhere - every year, in Korea, Nicaragua, Vietnam, the Balkans, Afghanistan - all this to the accompaniment of shorter military forays in Africa, Chile, Grenada, Panama," and increasingly at home against its own people;
"how to make war" takes precedence over everything leaving no "public space....on how to improve the quality of our lives;"
"Shortages of housing have caused a swelling of the homeless population in every major city (because) State and city governments across the country have become trained to bend to the needs of the military....;" the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) currently estimates over 21,000 are on city streets nightly, and during winter months it's dangerous;
the result is a nation of growing millions of poor, disadvantaged, uneducated, and "disconnected from society's mainstream, restless and unhappy, frustrated, angry, and sad;" "State Capitalism" characterizes America's government - business partnership running a war economy for greater power and wealth at the expense of a nation in decline, corrupted leadership, lost industrialization, crumbling infrastructure, and suffering millions on their own, uncared for, unwanted, ignored, and forgotten. Melman stressed that: "Further evasion is out of order. We must come to grips with America's State Capitalism and its Permanent War Economy." Re-industrialization is essential "to restore jobs and production competence - industry by industry." "Failing that, there is no hope for any constructive exit," for the nation or its people. Dwight Eisenhower's January 17, 1961 Address to the Nation It was his farewell address delivered 30 years to the day before Operation Desert Storm began in which he warned about the "military-industrial complex," citing the "grave implications" of a "coalition of the military and industrialists who profit by manufacturing arms and selling them to the government." He stated "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence....by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." He also said that: "Every gun that is made, every war ship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and not clothed," the result of what some analysts call the "iron triangle" of Congress, the Pentagon, and the defense industry that includes producers of sophisticated technology for digital age warfare of a kind Eisenhower never imagined. In combination, they've addicted America to war, not for threats, but for the power and profits that result. In his book "The Political Economy of US Militarism," Professor Ismael Hossein-Zadeh refers to "parasitic military imperialism," consuming over 40% of the national tax revenue at the expense of unmet human needs. Morality aside, it's not justified economically. It's wasteful, inefficient, comes at a great cost, and over time is ineffective and self-destructive. "The control over huge amounts of national resources tends to lead to an undermining of democratic values, a perversion of republican principles and a reduction of civil freedoms, as well as to the political corruption at home and abroad." Moreover, "The constant need for international conflicts makes (America's) military imperialism....more dangerous than the imperial powers of the past." It's made war-making a giant enterprise "not only for expansionism but, in fact, for the survival of this empire," yet consider the fallout Hossein-Zadeh examined in a July 10, 2007 article titled, "Parasitic Imperialism:" the redistribution of income and resources to the wealthy;
the undermining of physical and human capital;
the nation's increased vulnerability to natural disasters;
economic and financial instability, the result of the growing national debt now totally out of control;
less foreign market potential for non-military ventures;
the undermining of civil liberties and democratic values; and
"foster(ing) a dependence on or addiction to military spending, and, therefore....a spiraling vicious circle of (unsustainable) war and militarism" that's sucking the nation into decline. America's Post-WW II Imperial Grand Strategy Post-WW II, America emerged as the world's sole superpower - economically, politically and militarily, given the war's toll on East Asia, Europe and Soviet Russia. In his book, "The Cold War and the New Imperialism," Professor Henry Heller examined it with emphasis on the Cold War, America's containment policy, and its efforts against leftist forces in support of fascist elements on the right at both state and local levels. The Soviet Union controlled Eastern and Central Europe while Mao's War of Liberation defeated Chiang Kai-Shek Nationalists. Cold War confrontation followed. It pitted US imperialism against an opposing ideology, the aim being which side would triumph or could both co-exist peacefully and avoid conflict. War was never an option given each side's nuclear strength under a policy of "mutually assured destruction (MAD)". In addition, post-Stalinist Russia began reforms and expanded its sphere of influence. It wasn't to destroy the West, but to co-exist equally. America and Soviet Russia only competed for developing country allies to keep them from the opposing camp, so neither would be dominated by the other or more vulnerable to being isolated, marginalized, or shut out from world markets and influence. US Imperialism Post-WW II James Petras and others have said behind every imperial war is a great lie, the more often repeated the more likely to be believed because ordinary people want peace, not conflict, so it's vital to convince them. In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration overthrew two popularly elected governments in Iran and Guatemala, and sought greater influence in Africa and Southeast Asia as anti-colonial movements gained strength. On January 1, 1959 Fidel Castro's socialist revolution ousted the US-backed Batista dictatorship. He then survived America's failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, but faced decades of US hostility, including an embargo, destabilization, intimidation, and hundreds of attempts to kill him, unsuccessful so Cuba is still free from US dominance, but hardly safe from its northern hegemon. In the 1950s, America also backed French Southeast Asian imperialism until defeat at Dien Bien Phu drove them out. A repressive South Vietnamese client regime was established at the same time, supported by US military advisors teaching war and repression tactics. Unifying North and South elections were blocked, and direct intervention began in 1961. In 1958, Washington also subverted Laotian democracy and incited civil war. Cambodia as well was targeted but remained free. Early in his administration, Kennedy intervened, but a new James Douglass book titled "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters" says without conviction because he opposed using force. After the Joint Chiefs demanded troops for Laos, he told his Geneva Conference representative, Averell Harriman: "Did you understand? I want a negotiated settlement in Laos. I don't want to put troops in." He wouldn't agree to using nuclear weapons in Berlin and Southeast Asia and refused to bomb or invade Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, saying afterwards that "I never had the slightest intention of doing so." In June 1963 (a few months before his assassination), he called for the abolition of nuclear weapons, ending the Cold War, and moving forward for "general and complete disarmament." In October 1963, he signed National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263 to withdraw 1,000 US forces from Vietnam by year end and all of them by 1965. He said he wanted "to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." He wanted peace, not conflicts. It cost him his life, and future presidents got the message. Johnson resumed Southeast Asian escalation to establish client regimes and military bases across East and South Asia, encircle China, and crush nationalist anti-imperial movements. The Indochinese war engulfed Cambodia and Laos as well under Johnson and Nixon. It killed three to four million, inflicted vast amounts of destruction, caused incalculable human suffering, got America to sign a peace treaty in January 1973, but war continued until its clients were defeated in April 1975. Prior to Reagan's election, the "Vietnam syndrome" and easing Cold War tensions and disarmament efforts alarmed militarists to fear defense spending cuts detrimental to profits. A propaganda campaign exaggerated bogus threats, manipulated intelligence to heighten fear, and got the Reagan administration to approve large military spending increases to confront "Soviet expansionism" at a time it was transitioning from Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko to Gorbachev in 1985, followed by perestroika in 1986, glasnost in 1988, border openings and the Berlin Wall's collapse in 1989, then the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991 - a new threat militarists feared would bring large, not to be tolerated, defense budgets cuts. In the late 1980s, however, leading figures, including Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Huntington, and Albert Wohlstetter alleged Third World conflicts threatened US interests in the Middle East, Mediterranean, and Western Pacific, and recommended deterrence to stop them. Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney agreed. Others wanted large defense cuts for a peace dividend, including Johnson's DOD chief Robert McNamara who proposed reductions up to 50%. Throughout the 1989 - 1999 period, mostly under Bill Clinton, US-instigated provocations, sanctions, and armed insurrections support involved America in 134 military operations according to the Federation of American Scientists. The most egregious was Clinton's bombing and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, an act playwright Harold Pinter called: "barbaric" and despicable, "another blatant and brutal assertion of US power using NATO as its missile" to consolidate "American domination of Europe." Worse was yet to come with the election of George Bush, America's worst president in a country that never had a good one and never will as it's now governed. Long before 9/11, Middle East restructuring plans were based on bogus terrorist, rogue state, and "clash of civilizations" threats by hordes of Islamofascists, including the Palestinian resistance, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Saddam Hussein targeted in the 1990 - 91 Gulf War, followed by years of devastating sanctions, then ousted by GW Bush in 2003. Iraq was destroyed, occupied and balkanized. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran face similar threats, the common thread being dominating Eurasia through endless conflicts and increased military spending for war profiteering bounties. September 11 assured it, and got Michelle Ciarocca of the Arms Trade Resource Center, in September 2002 to say: "The whole mind set of military spending changed on Sept. 11. The most fundamental thing about defense spending is that threats drive (it). It's now going to be easier to fund almost anything." Hossein-Zadeh investigated the growing role of private contractors creating a "built-in propensity to war that makes the US military-industrial complex a menace to world peace and stability, a force of death and destruction," as virulent under Obama as George Bush. The fallout includes a burgeoning national debt, loss of civil liberties and democratic freedoms, erosion of social services, collapse of the dollar, America already in decline, its coming loss of preeminence as a world power, its potential bankruptcy, perhaps demise in its present form. and the possibility of WW III. America's Illegal Wars of Aggression - The "Supreme Crime" All US post-WW II conflicts were premeditated wars of aggression against nations posing no threat to America -
what Justice Robert Jackson at Nuremberg called: the "supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." Canadian Law Professor Michael Mandel explained America's guilt in his superb 2004 book, "How America Gets Away with Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage, and Crimes Against Humanity," his main theme being Jackson's Nuremberg "supreme crime" declaration, as relevant now as then. Tragically, as Edward Herman observed in reviewing Mandel's book: "The problem for the United States (and the world) has been that this country is now in the business of aggression and its commission of the "supreme crime" is standard policy, thereby bringing the "scourge of war" across the globe in direct violation of the UN charter." Its Purposes and Principles state that: "The Purposes of the United Nations are: (1) To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace." Conspiratorially with NATO and Israel, America willfully and repeatedly violates international and US laws, punishes its victims, absolves itself, and since WW II has directly or indirectly murdered millions of people globally, mostly civilian non-combatants. Barack Obama - America's New Warrior President America glorifies conflicts and the righteousness of waging them, packaged as liberating ones for democracy, freedom, justice, and the best of all possible worlds. Obama is just the latest in a long line of warrior leaders promising peace by waging war, justifying them by bogus threats, and calling pacifism unpatriotic to further an imperial agenda for greater wealth, power, and unchallengeable global dominance. In opposition to his announced Afghanistan surge, peace activists gathered across from the White House on December 12 for an "Emergency Anti-Escalation Rally" organized by "End US Wars"- a new coalition of grassroots anti-war organizations. Speakers included Kathy Kelly, David Swanson, Granny D (age 100 on January 24, 2010) former Senator Mike Gravel (1969 - 1981), and former Representative and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, among others. This writer was asked to prepare a short commentary to be read to the crowd. Updated, it's reproduced below: Obama's Permanent War Strategy Disingenuously calling Afghanistan a "war of necessity, not choice," Obama ordered 30,000 more troops deployed over the next six months with perhaps many more to follow. In one of his most defining decisions, he's more than doubled the force count since taking office, angered a majority in the country, and continues his permanent war agenda while calling himself a man of peace. Next target, Yemen, and its newest, occupied Haiti for plunder, exploitation, and very likely killing unwanted Haitians by neglect, starvation, disease, and face-to-face confrontations if they resist. As a candidate, Obama campaigned against imperial militarism, promised limited escalation only, and pledged to remove all combat troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010. That was then. This is now, and consider what he has in mind - the permanent occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and more. Besides the Afghan escalation, he's also destabilizing Pakistan to balkanize both countries, weakening them to control the Caspian Sea's oil and gas riches and their energy routes to secured ports for export. The strategy includes encircling Russia, China, and Iran, obstructing their solidarity and cohesion, defusing a feared geopolitical alliance, weakening the Iranian government, perhaps attacking its nuclear sites, eliminating Israel's main regional rival, and securing unchallenged Eurasian dominance over this resource rich part of the world that includes China, Russia, the Middle East, and Indian subcontinent. Like George Bush, Obama plans permanent war and more military spending than all other nations combined at a time America has no enemies. He promised change and betrayed us. Grassroots activism must stop this madness and make America a nation again to be proud of. The alternative is too grim to imagine. Over 50 years ago, Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970) warned: "Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war" and live in peace, because we have no other choice. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His blog is sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to Lendman's cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. Mr. Lendman's stories are republished in the Baltimore Chronicle with permission of the author.
Copyright © 2010 The Baltimore News Network. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. Baltimore News Network, Inc., sponsor of this web site, is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed in stories posted on this web site are the authors' own. This story was published on March 1, 2010. This story was published on March 1, 2010.LAKEWOOD, Ohio – City Council will consider whether to impose a temporary moratorium on new businesses selling electronic cigarettes.
City Law Director Kevin Butler introduced the resolution (see below), which has been referred to council's Public Safety Committee for further discussion.
Butler expressed concern about e-cigarettes and other alternative nicotine products, saying state law does not regulate sales to minors. State law prohibits the sale of tobacco products to those under 18, but it does not apply to e-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine through a vapor.
The e-cigarettes are of particular concern because some are marketed with candy flavorings, Butler said.
The Ohio General Assembly is considering a bill that would regulate sales to minors. It has passed the House but is awaiting action in the Senate.
"We did not believe it would be advisable to permit the expansion of that industry in the city of Lakewood when the law on sales to minors was still unclear," Butler said, explaining the administration's position.
The moratorium, if approved, would prevent the building department from issuing building permits or certificates of occupancy to any new businesses that sell or plan to sell e-cigarettes. Building officials would ask applicants about such plans at the time of their application, Butler said.
The moratorium would have no effect on existing businesses that sell e-cigarettes unless they sought a permit to expand.
Businesses that frequently sell such products, such as drug stores and grocery stores, could still get building permits and certificates of occupancy if they agree not to sell the products.
The moratorium would remain in effect for six months or until the General Assembly passes a law restricting sales of e-cigarettes to minors, Butler said.
"We have no reason to believe right now that the General Assembly is not going to pass some form of ban on sales to minors, but we didn't want to take that chance and permit the expansion of the industry in a city while the law was still unclear," Butler said.
Electronic cigarettes, which contain a battery, heat a liquid that produces a vapor the user can inhale. Manufacturers market the products as an alternative to smoking without the ash or carbon monoxide associated with traditional cigarettes.
Council referred the matter to committee without comment.An image showing the purported digitizer of the iPhone 6 seems to reveal the size of at least one upcoming iPhone version, although the image can’t be confirmed yet. The photos first appeared on Chinese forum WeiPhone, but it’s not clear exactly how the original poster obtained the images.
The pictures seem to show the digitizer of an iPhone 4S, iPhone 5s and iPhone 6 side by side, with the latter suggesting the new iPhone 6 will be about the same size as the iPhone 5, even though it may sport a bigger display. To achieve this, Apple may completely remove the side bezels of the phone, and vertically increase the size of the screen as well, assuming the image is accurate.
NowhereElse notes that the person that took the pictures may have easily tampered with the glass to make it look like a display of a next-gen iPhone. The placement of the home button seems to rather odd as well. At the same time, this could be one of the prototype digitizer for the iPhone 6, the company may have ordered from suppliers.
Apple has been rumored to launch at least two new iPhone models this year, with bigger displays than the iPhone 5s’ 4-inch screen. The company is also said to consider using sapphire glass for its iPhone 6.
Images showing the alleged iPhone 6 component follow below.Kathy Griffin ignited a firestorm late last month by posing with a fake, decapitated head of President Donald Trump in a photo shoot. Even many Trump foes in the entertainment industry denounced the photo as disgusting, offensive, and inappropriate.
After the blowback, Griffin — who is a strident Trump adversary — took down the images from her Twitter and Instagram accounts.
As a result of the controversy, however, CNN fired Griffin from its annual New Year’s Eve show, her upcoming standup gigs were cancelled, and she lost the Squatty Potty endorsement deal.
U.S. Senator Al Franken also disinvited her from a joint appearance in California on his book tour.
The now-unemployed comedienne had a different view of respect or disrespect for the presidency five years ago, however.
During a May 2012 segment on her Bravo show Kathy, Griffin berated Elisabeth Hasselbeck in vulgar terms for, in her opinion, disrespecting President Obama.
Griffin played a clip from The View of Hasselbeck questioning Obama about the then-contentious same-sex marriage issue, after which Griffin provided this condescending commentary while also alluding to the ex-governor of Arizona.
“Right away, with her attitude to the president, who is a Harvard law professor, I’m like, take it down a notch, b***h. Don’t be like, like that body language. I don’t like that. I don’t like Jan Brewer in Arizona going like this [waving finger] to the president on the tarmac. I don’t like that. When I was on The View, Barbara Walters said you respect the office…”
[Image by Richard Drew/AP Images]
According to NewsBusters at the time, the footage that Griffin showed to the audience omitted the part where Hasselbeck tells the president that she agrees with him on gay rights.
Griffin seemed to suggest that a Survivor runner-up lacked the stature to interact with the president and then appeared to drop the C-word about Hasselbeck (although it’s bleeped out) after one of the Kathy panelists recalled that Obama supposedly praised The View co-host as his favorite Republican.
Watch the clip below and draw your own conclusions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=138&v=Ho7MjX1EciY
Kathy Griffin subsequently apologized for the Trump beheading image in a Facebook video for which some expressed skepticism as to its sincerity and later held a tearful press conference in which she claimed that the Trump family was bullying her.
In December 2016, Kathy Griffin told the Vulture website that she was targeting the president’s 11-year-old son for ridicule.
“…I’m happy to deliver beat down to Donald Trump — and also to Barron. You know a lot of comics are going to go hard for Donald, my edge is that I’ll go direct for Barron. I’m going to get in ahead of the game.
She also referred to the president as a “piece of s**t.”
According to TMZ, Barron Trump panicked when he saws the beheaded image of his father on TV and thought it was real.
A former Democrat and independent before he ran for president on the Republican ticket, Donald Trump regularly mixed with celebrities, and they with him, during his long, pre-politics career in the media spotlight.
Attitudes toward Trump hardened among the show business community for a variety of reasons at least publicly once he officially entered the presidential contest and particularly as he competed one-on-one with celebrity favorite and Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, who he eventually defeated. The antagonism has continued into the post-election environment.
null
As virtually the only non-liberal on the panel, Elisabeth Hasselbeck co-hosted on The View from November 24, 2003 to July 10, 2013. She joined Fox & Friends on September 16, 2013, but unexpectedly stepped down from the high-rated cable news morning show on December 22, 2015 to spend more time with her three children. She and her husband Tim, a former NFL backup quarterback and ESPN analyst, sold their Greenwich, Connecticut, home in the New York City suburbs and moved to the Nashville area, Variety reported.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck will presumably return to TV in some capacity once her kids are older. Whether Kathy Griffin can repair her self-inflicted career damage is anyone’s guess.
[Featured Image by Mark J. Terrill/AP Images]AL-BIREH, West Bank (Reuters) - The grandfather of a U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of shooting dead 13 people and wounding 30 others at a base in Texas said on Saturday he found it impossible to believe his grandson had committed the act.
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army doctor identified by authorities as the suspect in a mass shooting at the U.S. Army post in Fort Hood, Texas, is seen in this undated handout photo from a pdf file of the U.S. Government Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences downloaded on November 6, 2009. Investigators searched for the motive on Friday behind the mass shooting at a sprawling U.S. Army base in Texas, in which the Army psychiatrist trained to treat war wounded is suspected of killing 13 people. REUTERS/Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences/Handout
“He is a doctor and loves the U.S.” Ismail Mustafa Hamad told Reuters in an interview at his home in the Palestinian town of al-Bireh. “America made him what he is.”
U.S.-born Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, a Muslim |
’s New York ambitions take an unexpected turn.”
“Beatlemania continues at McKinley with the “Tina in the Sky with Diamonds” episode airing Thursday, October 3 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT). It’s time for the students to vote for prom queen and king, but when Tina receives a nomination, she takes on a fierce attitude that alienates her biggest supporters. Meanwhile, Rachel adjusts to a new attitude of her own as she and Santana work at a Broadway diner to make ends meet.”An Anglican priest from Trail, B.C., has become the first person in the world to get a PhD in snowboarding.
Neil Elliot, the minister at St. Andrew's Anglican Church, recently received his doctorate from Kingston University in London, England.
"The genesis was discovering this term'soul-riding' in a discussion on the internet, and that discussion going into how people have had transcending experiences while riding and discovering I've had that experience as well I just hadn't recognized it," he said.
Elliot interviewed dozens of snowboarders from the United Kingdom and Canada, delving into the spirituality of snowboarding.
"Soul-riding starts with riding powder, it starts with finding some kind of almost transcendent experience in riding powder and in the whole of your life, so soul-riding is about being completely focused, being completely in the moment, you might say."
Elliot said it's clear spirituality and snowboarding do intersect.
"[It's] about snowboarders who discovered that … snowboarding was their spirituality. I had a lot of people who said, 'Snowboarding is my religion.'"
'New model for spirituality'
While Elliot's thesis doesn't draw any definite conclusions, he says it offers a new point of view.
Neil Elliot is the first person in the world to get a PhD in snowboarding. ((St. Andrews Anglican Church))
"What my thesis does is give a new model for spirituality, saying that spirituality is a way of looking at the world and a way of looking at the world that includes there being something more than just the material," he said.
"My thesis goes on to say that there's three dimensions to that. There's the experiences that we have, there's the context that we're in and then there's what's going on really inside us, who we are."
Elliot, who already has a master's degree in theology and Islamic studies, is the first to admit his love of snowboarding drove him to get the PhD and a job in the B.C. mountains. But he insists his thesis is serious.
"My PhD is about spirituality and snowboarding. It's rooted in the sociology of religion and in … this debate that's going on about whether somebody is religious or spiritual. A lot of people say, 'I'm not religious — I'm spiritual' and I'm trying to find out what that actually means," he said.
"The spirituality of snowboarding is looking at what does it mean to be spiritual in today's world."
Elliot said his colleagues and congregation support his unorthodox PhD, and love of both the board and cloth.
"They understand that this is a light on what we're all struggling with: how do we encourage people to come into the church? How do we encourage people to see religion and spirituality as working together, rather than being different things?"Razors SHIFT
The Shift boot is a synthesis of the best elements from our most popular models, all combined with new attributes. The shell has a slimmer shape reminiscent of the Cult mixed with the flat soled, bottomless boot concept of the SL. With focus on improving the rider experience, we began reworking our designs and after three years, countless hours of testing, we have developed the Shift.
The beauty is in its simplicity. When used solely as a street skate, t-nuts can be installed to completely secure the connection on the sole and boot; a connection that will hold up to the heavy demands ofmodern blading. If you intend to use the skate for commuting, recreation, and/or street skating, the t-nuts can be removed for a quick and easy swapping between setups when hoping from spot to spot. This new innovation is named the IFC – Instant Frame Change. By depressing 2 buttons on the base of the soul, you release the slider, and from that point – the soul, frame and wheels – from the boot. Within seconds, you can snap on a fresh setup, all without having to access any of the UFS hardware, and you’ll be on your way.
The Razors Shift comes stock with a wicked comfortable liner, SL heelpad, new cuff with stash pocket for the buckle, GC Featherlite 3 frames setup anti-rocker with 64 mm wheels, and t-nuts preinstalled in the sole. And of course, skaters can count on Razors’ legendary strength and riding performance.A Detroit, Michigan radio host has been pulled from local airwaves for supporting GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump after the New York business mogul visited the area on the campaign trail.
Wayne Bradley, a black Trump supporter, took to Facebook to say that he was put on “hiatus” after Trump visited Detroit, saying he has “not been allowed back on the air since.”
“Essentially, I feel like it’s because of Donald Trump,” Bradley told The American Mirror in an exclusive interview. “I’ve never been allowed back in the studio.”
“I was never told of anything, other than it was a ‘hiatus,'” Wayne said.
When The American Mirror contacted the Detroit radio station, a representative said, “He’s no longer on the air,” after being asked about Bradley.
Asked why that was, the station representative told The American Mirror “I really don’t know. It was a business decision on the back-end.”
Wayne said the radio station has long known that he worked with the Republican Party, but said Trump’s visit to Detroit is what set off the network to pull him from the air.
Check out Bradley’s Facebook post here:
Bradley told commenters on the post that he was sent an email which notified him of the “hiatus” when Trump came to town.
But, he said the station did not give him a date of when he would be back on air, saying he hasn’t been on since Trump’s trip.
One commenter said, “Just called, the receptionist said they are getting a lot of calls on this.”
Another commenter said, “If you go on their facebook page, you will see that they want NO DISSENT and certainly not another point of view. They are biased and racist.”Borussia Dortmund midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan wants to secure a move to Manchester United to join "his dream club," according to the player's agent.
Mkhitaryan, 27, has been linked with a move away from Dortmund this summer, even more so after contract talks over a new deal beyond 2017 broke down.
And his agent Mino Raiola has claimed Manchester United have made a €24 million offer, while sources have told ESPN FC that Arsenal are very much interested in signing the Bundesliga player.
Dortmund, meanwhile, have insisted that they don't have any plans to sell Mkhitaryan and will force him to see out his contract.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan has been heavily linked with a move away from Borussia Dortmund this summer.
Raiola has now also changed tack in Germany, and insisted in Bild that Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke is "one of the best club bosses in the world" with whom he "communicates respectful."
But for all the respect, Raiola knows that the club's and his interests are going into opposite directions and currently make a transfer impossible.
"We have both taken very different views and fight for them like lions," Raiola told Bild. "Watzke walks 180 degrees into one direction and I 180 degrees into the other. But even though it does not look like it right now, I still hope for a sensible solution.
"Such an offer to join Manchester United might only come once in a lifetime for a player and nobody can guarantee us that the door will still be open for Micki next season. Manchester are Micki's dream club, he wants to join them by any means."
Pressed by Bild if United might have to make a higher bid than the reported €24m, Raiola said: "That's not my task. My task is to represent my player's interests. It's known what Micki wants."
Stephan Uersfeld is the Germany correspondent for ESPN FC. Follow him on Twitter @uersfeld.By Maggie Fox, Senior Health Writer, NBC News
Being poor affects your ability to think, a new study shows. Those coping with severe financial stress don't have the mental bandwidth to deal with all of life’s troubles, a team of researchers reported Thursday.
They’ve done a series of tests that show when people are flush with cash, they can stop worrying and make better decisions. But having financial woes takes up so much attention, they often make poor decisions.
“When you are very, very focused on what you don’t have enough of, you do all you can do to get more of it, at the expense of other stuff,” says Eldar Shafir of Princeton University, who worked on the study published in the journal Science.
When people don't have enough money they're so focused on ways to get more that they don't make good choices, a new study has found.
Spencer Platt / Getty Images file Poorer people make bad decisions, such as using pawn shops to raise cash, according to the study
The team’s been trying to figure out why people who are poor seem to exist in a vicious cycle of poverty. Much of it seems to boil down to what is taking up their attention, the international team of researchers found.
"Imagine you're sitting in front of a computer, and it's just incredibly slow," says Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan, who worked on the study.
"But then you realize that it's working in the background to play a huge video that's downloading. It's not that the computer is slow, it's that it's doing something else, so it seems slow to you. I think that's the heart of what we're trying to say."
They report on two experiments that demonstrate how this works – one done in a shopping mall in New Jersey and another done with sugarcane farmers in India.
With the 101 shoppers, they gave them a series of problem-solving tests – for example, asking how they would handle a 5 percent salary cut, a 15 percent salary cut; or an emergency car repair costing either $150 or $1,500. With that in their heads, they were also given basic IQ and computer-based tests of focus and concentration.
The shoppers made on average $70,000 a year, but some made as little as $20,000. The poorer and richer shoppers did equally well when they had a minor financial issue at the back of their minds. But when the car repair was more expensive, or when the salary cut was higher, the lower-earners did significantly worse on the later tests than the higher-earners.
“It’s what is in their mind that changes,” Shafir told NBC News. “The test is the same both times. All that changes is how much it takes to fix your car. It’s being distracted by fixing your car that all of a sudden takes away your attention. You are just as smart when the car is cheap and you are less smart on the exact same question when fixing the car is expensive.”
To check out this theory in a real-world situation, the researchers went to rural India, where sugarcane farmers are paid just once a year for their harvests. They are flush with cash right after the harvest, and pretty broke the last month before the harvest.
The farmers made more poor decisions in real life when faced with a financial crunch – they pawned more items – a truly awful financial decision – and were twice as likely to borrow money.
“This cannot be explained by differences in time available, nutrition, or work effort,” Shafir’s team wrote in their report.
“Nor can it be explained with stress: Although farmers do show more stress before harvest, that does not account for diminished cognitive performance. Instead, it appears that poverty itself reduces cognitive capacity.”
There’s no question that many poor people make poor decisions, the researchers add.
“The poor use less preventive health care, fail to adhere to drug regimens, are tardier and less likely to keep appointments, are less productive workers, less attentive parents, and worse managers of their finances,” they write, citing studies that support all their statements.
“These behaviors are troubling in their own right, but they are particularly troubling because they can further deepen poverty.”
Policymakers can take actions to help, they say.
“One thing you want to do is facilitate bandwidth,” Shafir says. “You want to think of ways to make things easier.”
Wealthy people may have nannies and accountants and drivers that free up their minds to focus on other problems. Poor people are often busy juggling inadequate and unreliable childcare, transportation and housing. “What do you do with people who need better financial management? Getting paid on a regular basis instead of sporadically (helps),” he says.
Direct-debits for rent may help someone who has trouble remembering to pay the landlord. Even simplified forms for collecting social benefits may help, he said.
It’s not just poverty that distracts people, says Shafir. Dieting and other distractions that have to do with making resources scarce do, too. It may be that rationing anything from food to time to money is especially distracting for the human brain. Shafir and Mullainathan have written a book on the issue "Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much," to be published in September.
"Previous views of poverty have blamed poverty on personal failings, or an environment that is not conducive to success," says Jiaying Zhao, who worked with Shafir on the study. "We're arguing that the lack of financial resources itself can lead to impaired cognitive function. The very condition of not having enough can actually be a cause of poverty,” adds Zhao, now an assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia.
Having to worry about money is a huge distraction, the researchers found. “That means we are unable to focus on other things in life that need our attention," said Zhao.
Related content:
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At food pantries, some find reasons to stay positive
'I'm working as hard as I can': How the costs of being poor can be higherSmile, you're going to get caffeine now.
It's TooEarly o'clock in the morning; time for you to get up for work. After your slog to the office, you plop down in your chair. Your eyes burn with dreams unfinished, and your brain threatens to go on strike. You need coffee. You grab your mug and take a good look at it. It's asleep, too! Good thing you have a 8-bit Rise & Shine Heat Changing Mug, because hot coffee is just the thing to wake both of you up!
The 8-bit Rise & Shine Heat Changing Mug is special because at an empty and cold state of rest, it looks like it just has a sleeping face on it. But when you add hot liquids, the whole mug brightens, revealing a very awake face on a blue background. Once the warm liquids either cool or find their way inside of you, the 8-bit Rise & Shine Heat Changing Mug will once again go to sleep. When that happens, we recommend filling your 8-bit Rise & Shine Heat Changing Mug with hot coffee again; it'll keep both of you powered up throughout the day.This article is about the company. For the search engine, see Google Search. For other uses, see Google (disambiguation)
Not to be confused with Googol
Google LLC[5] is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. It is considered one of the Big Four technology companies, alongside Amazon, Apple and Facebook.[6][7]
Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California. Together they own about 14 percent of its shares and control 56 percent of the stockholder voting power through supervoting stock. They incorporated Google as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. An initial public offering (IPO) took place on August 19, 2004, and Google moved to its headquarters in Mountain View, California, nicknamed the Googleplex. In August 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's leading subsidiary and will continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page who became the CEO of Alphabet.
The company's rapid growth since incorporation has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions, and partnerships beyond Google's core search engine (Google Search). It offers services designed for work and productivity (Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides), email (Gmail/Inbox), scheduling and time management (Google Calendar), cloud storage (Google Drive), social networking (Google+), instant messaging and video chat (Google Allo, Duo, Hangouts), language translation (Google Translate), mapping and navigation (Google Maps, Waze, Google Earth, Street View), video sharing (YouTube), note-taking (Google Keep), and photo organizing and editing (Google Photos). The company leads the development of the Android mobile operating system, the Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system based on the Chrome browser. Google has moved increasingly into hardware; from 2010 to 2015, it partnered with major electronics manufacturers in the production of its Nexus devices, and it released multiple hardware products in October 2016, including the Google Pixel smartphone, Google Home smart speaker, Google Wifi mesh wireless router, and Google Daydream virtual reality headset. Google has also experimented with becoming an Internet carrier (Google Fiber, Project Fi, and Google Station).[8]
Google.com is the most visited website in the world.[9] Several other Google services also figure in the top 100 most visited websites, including YouTube and Blogger. Google is the most valuable brand in the world as of 2017,[10] but has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns, tax avoidance, antitrust, censorship, and search neutrality. Google's mission statement is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", and its unofficial slogan was "Don't be evil" until the phrase was removed from the company's code of conduct around May 2018.[11][12]
History
[13] Google's original homepage had a simple design because the company founders had little experience in HTML, the markup language used for designing web pages.
Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in Stanford, California.[14]
While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships among websites.[15] They called this new technology PageRank; it determined a website's relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages that linked back to the original site.[16][17]
Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine "BackRub", because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site.[18][19][20] Eventually, they changed the name to Google; the name of the search engine originated from a misspelling of the word "googol",[21][22] the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, which was picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information.[23] Originally, Google ran under Stanford University's website, with the domains google.stanford.edu[24] and z.stanford.edu.[25]
The domain name for Google was registered on September 15, 1997,[26] and the company was incorporated on September 4, 1998. It was based in the garage of a friend (Susan Wojcicki[14]) in Menlo Park, California. Craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee.[14][27][28]
Financing (1998) and initial public offering (2004)
Google was initially funded by an August 1998 contribution of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems; the money was given before Google was incorporated.[30] Google received money from three other angel investors in 1998: Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Stanford University computer science professor David Cheriton, and entrepreneur Ram Shriram.[31]
After some additional, small investments through the end of 1998 to early 1999,[31] a new $25 million round of funding was announced on June 7, 1999,[32] with major investors including the venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital.[30]
Early in 1999, Brin and Page decided they wanted to sell Google to Excite. They went to Excite CEO George Bell and offered to sell it to him for $1 million. He rejected the offer. Vinod Khosla, one of Excite's venture capitalists, talked the duo down to $750,000, but Bell still rejected it.[33]
Google's initial public offering (IPO) took place five years later, on August 19, 2004. At that time Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for 20 years, until the year 2024.[34]
At IPO, the company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share.[35][36] Shares were sold in an online auction format using a system built by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, underwriters for the deal.[37][38] The sale of $1.67 bn (billion) gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23bn.[39] By January 2014, its market capitalization had grown to $397bn.[40] The vast majority of the 271 million shares remained under the control of Google, and many Google employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefitted because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google before the IPO took place.[41]
There were concerns that Google's IPO would lead to changes in company culture. Reasons ranged from shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions to the fact that many company executives would become instant paper millionaires.[42] As a reply to this concern, co-founders Brin and Page promised in a report to potential investors that the IPO would not change the company's culture.[43] In 2005, articles in The New York Times[44] and other sources began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy.[45][46][47] In an effort to maintain the company's unique culture, Google designated a Chief Culture Officer, who also serves as the Director of Human Resources. The purpose of the Chief Culture Officer is to develop and maintain the culture and work on ways to keep true to the core values that the company was founded on: a flat organization with a collaborative environment.[48] Google has also faced allegations of sexism and ageism from former employees.[49][50] In 2013, a class action against several Silicon Valley companies, including Google, was filed for alleged "no cold call" agreements which restrained the recruitment of high-tech employees.[51]
The stock performed well after the IPO, with shares hitting $350 for the first time on October 31, 2007,[52] primarily because of strong sales and earnings in the online advertising market.[53] The surge in stock price was fueled mainly by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.[53] GOOG shares split into GOOG class C shares and GOOGL class A shares.[54] The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbols GOOGL and GOOG, and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GGQ1. These ticker symbols now refer to Alphabet Inc., Google's holding company, since the fourth quarter of 2015.[55]
Growth
In March 1999, the company moved its offices to Palo Alto, California,[56] which is home to several prominent Silicon Valley technology start-ups.[57] The next year, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords against Page and Brin's initial opposition toward an advertising-funded search engine.[58][14] To maintain an uncluttered page design, advertisements were solely text-based.[59]
This model of selling keyword advertising was first pioneered by Goto.com, an Idealab spin-off created by Bill Gross.[60][61] When the company changed names to Overture Services, it sued Google over alleged infringements of the company's pay-per-click and bidding patents. Overture Services would later be bought by Yahoo! and renamed Yahoo! Search Marketing. The case was then settled out of court; Google agreed to issue shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual license.[62]
In June 2000, it was announced that Google would become the default search engine provider for Yahoo!, one of the most popular websites at the time, replacing Inktomi.[63][64]
In 2001, Google received a patent for its PageRank mechanism.[65] The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor. In 2003, after outgrowing two other locations, the company leased an office complex from Silicon Graphics, at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California.[66] The complex became known as the Googleplex, a play on the word googolplex, the number one followed by a googol zeroes. The Googleplex interiors were designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects. Three years later, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.[67] By that time, the name "Google" had found its way into everyday language, causing the verb "google" to be added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, denoted as: "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet".[68][69] The first use of "Google" as a verb in pop culture happened on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in 2002.[70]
In 2005, The Washington Post reported on a 700 percent increase in third-quarter profit for Google, largely thanks to large companies shifting their advertising strategies from newspapers, magazines, and television to the Internet.[71] In January 2008, all the data that passed through Google's MapReduce software component had an aggregated size of 20 petabytes per day.[72][73][74] In 2009, a CNN report about top political searches of 2009 noted that "more than a billion searches" are being typed into Google on a daily basis.[75] In May 2011, the number of monthly unique visitors to Google surpassed one billion for the first time, an 8.4 percent increase from May 2010 (931 million).[76]
The year 2012 was the first time that Google generated $50 billion in annual revenue, generating $38 billion the previous year. In January 2013, then-CEO Larry Page commented, "We ended 2012 with a strong quarter... Revenues were up 36% year-on-year, and 8% quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half."[77]
In November 2018, Google announced its plan to expand its New York City office to a capacity of 12,000 employees.[78]
2013 onward
Google's logo from 2013-2015
Screenshot of the Google homepage in 2015
Google announced the launch of a new company, called Calico, on September 19, 2013, to be led by Apple, Inc. chairman Arthur Levinson. In the official public statement, Page explained that the "health and well-being" company would focus on "the challenge of ageing and associated diseases".[79]
Google celebrated its 15-year anniversary on September 27, 2013, and in 2016 it celebrated its 18th birthday with an animated version of its logo (a "Google Doodle"),[80] although it has used other dates for its official birthday.[81] The reason for the choice of September 27 remains unclear, and a dispute with rival search engine Yahoo! Search in 2005 has been suggested as the cause.[82][83]
The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was launched in October 2013; Google is part of the coalition of public and private organizations that also includes Facebook, Intel, and Microsoft. Led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access is broadened in the developing world, where only 31% of people are online. Google will help to decrease Internet access prices so they fall below the UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of monthly income.[84]
The corporation's consolidated revenue for the third quarter of 2013 was reported in mid-October 2013 as $14.89 billion, a 12 percent increase compared to the previous quarter.[85] Google's Internet business was responsible for $10.8 billion of this total, with an increase in the number of users' clicks on advertisements.[86]
According to Interbrand's annual Best Global Brands report, Google has been the second most valuable brand in the world (behind Apple Inc.) in 2013,[87] 2014,[88] 2015,[89] and 2016, with a valuation of $133 billion.[90]
In September 2015, Google engineering manager Rachel Potvin revealed details about Google's software code at an engineering conference. She revealed that the entire Google codebase, which spans every single service it develops, consists of over 2 billion lines of code. All that code is stored in a code repository available to all 25,000 Google engineers, and the code is regularly copied and updated on 10 Google data centers. To keep control, Potvin said Google has built its own "version control system", called "Piper", and that "when you start a new project, you have a wealth of libraries already available to you. Almost everything has already been done." Engineers can make a single code change and deploy it on all services at the same time. The only major exceptions are that the PageRank search results algorithm is stored separately with only specific employee access, and the code for the Android operating system and the Google Chrome browser are also stored separately, as they don't run on the Internet. The "Piper" system spans 85 TB of data. Google engineers make 25,000 changes to the code each day and on a weekly basis change approximately 15 million lines of code across 250,000 files. With that much code, automated bots have to help. Potvin reported, "You need to make a concerted effort to maintain code health. And this is not just humans maintaining code health, but robots too.” Bots aren't writing code, but generating a lot of the data and configuration files needed to run the company's software. "Not only is the size of the repository increasing," Potvin explained, "but the rate of change is also increasing. This is an exponential curve."[91][92]
As of October 2016, Google operates 70 offices in more than 40 countries.[93] Alexa, a company that monitors commercial web traffic, lists Google.com as the most visited website in the world.[9] Several other Google services also figure in the top 100 most visited websites, including YouTube[94] and Blogger.[95]
Acquisitions and partnerships
2000–2009
In 2001, Google acquired Deja News, the operators of a large archive of materials from Usenet.[96][97] Google rebranded the archive as Google Groups, and by the end of the year, it had expanded the history back to 1981.[98][99]
In April 2003, Google acquired Applied Semantics, a company specializing in making software applications for the online advertising space.[100][101] The AdSense contextual advertising technology developed by Applied Semantics was adopted into Google's advertising efforts.[102][99]
In 2004, Google acquired Keyhole, Inc.[103] Keyhole's eponymous product was later renamed Google Earth.
In April 2005, Google acquired Urchin Software, using their Urchin on Demand product (along with ideas from Adaptive Path's Measure Map) to create Google Analytics in 2006.
In October 2006, Google announced that it had acquired the video-sharing site YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock,[104][105] and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006.[106][107]
On April 13, 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, transferring to Google valuable relationships that DoubleClick had with Web publishers and advertising agencies.[108] The deal was approved despite anti-trust concerns raised by competitors Microsoft and AT&T.[109]
In addition to the many companies Google has purchased, the firm has partnered with other organizations for research, advertising, and other activities. In 2005, Google partnered with NASA Ames Research Center to build 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) of offices.[110]
In 2005 Google partnered with AOL[111] to enhance each other's video search services. In 2006 Google and Fox Interactive Media of News Corporation entered into a $900 million agreement to provide search and advertising on the then-popular social networking site MySpace.[112]
In 2007, Google began sponsoring NORAD Tracks Santa, displacing the former sponsor AOL. NORAD Tracks Santa purports to follow Santa Claus' progress on Christmas Eve,[113] using Google Earth to "track Santa" in 3-D for the first time.[114][115]
In 2008, Google developed a partnership with GeoEye to launch a satellite providing Google with high-resolution (0.41 m monochrome, 1.65 m color) imagery for Google Earth. The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on September 6, 2008.[116] Google also announced in 2008 that it was hosting an archive of Life Magazine's photographs.[117][118]
2010–present
In 2010, Google Energy made its first investment in a renewable energy project, putting $38.8 million into two wind farms in North Dakota. The company announced the two locations will generate 169.5 megawatts of power, enough to supply 55,000 homes. The farms, which were developed by NextEra Energy Resources, will reduce fossil fuel use in the region and return profits. NextEra Energy Resources sold Google a twenty-percent stake in the project to get funding for its development.[119] In February 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission FERC granted Google an authorization to buy and sell energy at market rates.[120] The order specifically states that Google Energy—a subsidiary of Google—holds the rights "for the sale of energy, capacity, and ancillary services at market-based rates", but acknowledges that neither Google Energy nor its affiliates "own or control any generation or transmission" facilities.[121] The corporation exercised this authorization in September 2013 when it announced it would purchase all the electricity produced by the not-yet-built 240-megawatt Happy Hereford wind farm.[122]
Also in 2010, Google purchased Global IP Solutions, a Norway-based company that provides web-based teleconferencing and other related services. This acquisition enabled Google to add telephone-style services to its list of products.[123] On May 27, 2010, Google announced it had also closed the acquisition of the mobile ad network AdMob. This occurred days after the Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation into the purchase.[124] Google acquired the company for an undisclosed amount.[125] In July 2010, Google signed an agreement with an Iowa wind farm to buy 114 megawatts of energy for 20 years.[126]
On April 4, 2011, The Globe and Mail reported that Google bid $900 million for 6000 Nortel Networks patents.[127]
On August 15, 2011, Google made its largest-ever acquisition to date when it announced that it would acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion[128][129] subject to approval from regulators in the United States and Europe. In a post on Google's blog, Google Chief Executive and co-founder Larry Page revealed that the acquisition was a strategic move to strengthen Google's patent portfolio. The company's Android operating system has come under fire in an industry-wide patent battle, as Apple and Microsoft have sued Android device makers such as HTC, Samsung, and Motorola.[130] The merger was completed on May 22, 2012, after the approval of China.[131]
This purchase was made in part to help Google gain Motorola's considerable patent portfolio on mobile phones and wireless technologies, to help protect Google in its ongoing patent disputes with other companies,[132] mainly Apple and Microsoft,[130] and to allow it to continue to freely offer Android.[133] After the acquisition closed, Google began to restructure the Motorola business to fit Google's strategy. On August 13, 2012, Google announced plans to lay off 4000 Motorola Mobility employees.[134] On December 10, 2012, Google sold the manufacturing operations of Motorola Mobility to Flextronics for $75 million.[135] As a part of the agreement, Flextronics will manufacture undisclosed Android and other mobile devices.[136] On December 19, 2012, Google sold the Motorola Home business division of Motorola Mobility to Arris Group for $2.35 billion in a cash-and-stock transaction. As a part of this deal, Google acquired a 15.7% stake in Arris Group valued at $300 million.[137][138]
In June 2013, Google acquired Waze, a $966 million deal.[139] While Waze would remain an independent entity, its social features, such as its crowdsourced location platform, were reportedly valuable integrations between Waze and Google Maps, Google's own mapping service.[140]
Entrance of building where Google and its subsidiary Deep Mind are located at 6 Pancras Square, London, UK.
On January 26, 2014, Google announced it had agreed to acquire DeepMind Technologies, a privately held artificial intelligence company from London. DeepMind describes itself as having the ability to combine the best techniques from machine learning and systems neuroscience to build general-purpose learning algorithms. DeepMind's first commercial applications were used in simulations, e-commerce and games. As of December 2013, it was reported that DeepMind had roughly 75 employees.[141] Technology news website Recode reported that the company was purchased for $400 million though it was not disclosed where the information came from. |
second-largest city Monday night, a Health Department statement said.
Storm clouds gathered Monday over Melbourne, Australia, before a major thunderstorm unleashed an outbreak of a rare form of asthma. Australia Bureau of Meteorology
Five patients remained in intensive care units, three of them were in critical condition, the statement said. Twelve more patients were in hospitals with less serious respiratory and related conditions.
Monday's storm caused rain-sodden ryegrass pollen grains to explode and disperse over the city, with tiny pollen particles penetrating deep into lungs. About a third of patients who suffered asthma attacks Monday reported never having had asthma before.
The storm overwhelmed emergency services and hospitals in the city of 4.5 million people, with 8,500 receiving hospital treatment.
The world's first recorded thunderstorm asthma event occurred in Melbourne in 1987, when hospitals reported a five-fold increase in asthma cases. Similar events have happened in the United States, Canada, Britain and Italy. The last major event in Melbourne was in November 2010.Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption The ability to unmask Tor's users would undermine the reason people use the service
Developers of software used to access Tor - an otherwise hard-to-reach part of the internet - have disclosed that an attack on the network may have unmasked users for five months.
The Tor Project said that it believed the assault was designed to de-anonymise the net addresses of people operating or visiting hidden sites.
However, it said it was not sure exactly how users had been "affected".
The project added that it believed it had halted the attack on 4 July.
Tor allows people to visit webpages without being tracked and to publish sites whose contents does not show up in search engines.
The Tor Project said it believed that the infiltration had been carried out by two university researchers, who claimed at the start of July to have exploited "fundamental flaws" in Tor's design that allowed them to unmask the so-called dark net's users.
The two security experts, Alexander Volynkin and Michael McCord, had been due to give a talk at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas next week. However, the presentation was cancelled at the insistence of lawyers working for their employer, Carnegie Mellon University.
Image copyright Tor Project Image caption The Tor Project offers web browser software that can access the hidden sites on the Tor network
"We spent several months trying to extract information from the researchers who were going to give the Black Hat talk, and eventually we did get some hints from them... which is how we started looking for the attacks in the wild," wrote Roger Dingledine, one of the network's co-creators, on the Tor Project's blog.
"They haven't answered our emails lately, so we don't know for sure, but it seems likely that the answer to [whether they were responsible] is yes.
"In fact, we hope they were the ones doing the attacks, since otherwise it means somebody else was."
A spokesman from Carnegie Mellon University declined to comment.
Illegal activity
Tor attempts to hide a person's location and identity by sending data across the internet via a very circuitous route involving several "nodes" - which, in this context, means using volunteers' PCs and computer servers as connection points.
Encryption applied at each hop along this route makes it very hard to connect a person to any particular activity.
To the website that ultimately receives the request, it appears as if the data traffic comes from the last computer in the chain - known as an "exit relay" - rather than the person responsible.
Image copyright EFF Image caption Tor hides a user's identity by routing their traffic through a series of other computers
Tor's users include the military, law enforcement officers and journalists - who use it as a way of communicating with whistle-blowers - as well as members of the public who wish to keep their browser activity secret.
But it has also been associated with illegal activity, allowing people to visit sites offering illegal drugs for sale and access to child abuse images, which do not show up in normal search engine results and would not be available to those who did not know where to look.
Two-pronged attack
The Tor Project suggests the perpetrator compromised the network via a "traffic confirmation attack".
This involves the attacker controlling both the first part of the circuit of nodes involved - known as the "entry relay" - as well as the exit relay.
By matching the volumes and timings of the data sent at one end of the circuit to those received at the other end, it becomes possible to reveal the Tor user's identity because the computer used as an entry relay will have logged their internet protocol (IP) address.
The project believes the attacker used this to reveal hidden-site visitors by adding a signal to the data sent back from such sites that included the encoded name of the hidden service.
Because the sequence of nodes in a Tor network is random, the infiltrator would not be able to track every visit to a dark net site.
Image caption Tor can be likened to an onion because of the many layers through which it sends data
Tor also has a way of protecting itself against such a danger: rather than use a single entry relay, the software involved uses a few relays chosen at random - what are known as "entry guards".
So, even if someone has control of a single entry and exit relay, they should only see a fraction of the user's traffic, making it hard to identify them.
However, the Tor Project believes the perpetrator countered this safeguard by using a second technique known as a "Sybil attack".
This involved adding about 115 subverted computer servers to Tor and ensuring they became used as entry guards. As a result, the servers accounted for more than 6% of the network's guard capacity.
Image copyright Black Hat Image caption Two researchers had planned to reveal a way to unmask Tor users at the Black Hat conference
This was still not enough to monitor every communication, but was potentially enough to link some users to specific hidden sites.
"We don't know how much data the attackers kept, and due to the way the attack was deployed, their... modifications might have aided other attackers in de-anonymising users too," warned Mr Dingledine.
Several government agencies are interested in having a way to unmask Tor's users.
Russia's interior ministry is currently offering a 3.9m roubles ($110,000; £65,000) prize to anyone who cracks such identities. It says it wants to protect the country's "defence and security".
A report by the German broadcaster ARD suggests US cyberspies working for the NSA have also made efforts to overcome Tor's system, despite the fact the Tor Project is partly funded by other US government departments.
And leaked documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden also indicate the UK's GCHQ has attempted to track Tor users.When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth. With Hong Kong island under quarantine and the walking dead roaming the streets, small pockets of survivors struggle to stay alive. But when the authorities learn of a potential cure located somewhere within the city, a lone warrior must battle the undead with the fate of mankind in his hands…
That’s the plot for Noriko: The Hong Kong Dead, an upcoming zombie action thriller produced by Mike Leeder (Ultimate Justice, Helios), Spencer Douglas (CFK) and Arne Venema (Neon Grindhouse: Hong Kong), who is directing the movie under the guidance of Vincent Dawn and Dan Findlay. The film stars Hong Kong-based indie actor Joe Fiorello (Love Stalk) and features visual effects by Matthew Blaize.
“Noriko is very much a Hong Kong Grindhouse project, it’s a zombie movie that wears its influences very heavily on its blood stained sleeves; we’re trying to capture that George Romero meets early 80s John Carpenter-feel for the movie, run through a very Hong Kong tilted filter,” says Leeder. “Watch out for some very familiar faces glimpsed amongst the Zombie hordes,” he adds.
Vincent Dawn admits: “I want to make a film about a man on a mission in a city of the undead where the living post as much of a threat as those who should be in the ground… and my zombies don’t f##king run!”
Watch the film’s Teaser Trailer below:
For the latest on the project, visit the film’s official Facebook page.A US Army sergeant has been charged with supplying top secret intelligence and military equipment to twisted terror group ISIS.
Ikaika Erik Kang, 34, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was detained on Saturday after allegedly attempting to provide material to the death cult including a drone aircraft and combat training instructions.
4 US soldier Ikaika Erik Kang has been arrested and charged with supplying material to ISIS
AP:Associated Press 4 Clifford Kang said his son became interested in Islam while stationed in the Middle East
The air traffic control specialist, who also had extensive military training in hand-to-hand combat, was arrested by the FBI on Saturday following a year-long undercover probe.
An FBI affidavit filed in court detailed a lengthy sting operation employing several undercover agents and other "confidential human sources" who posed as ISIS operatives and sympathisers.
As described in the affidavit, the sting drew to a climax as Kang allegedly swore a pledge of loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, then allegedly proceeded to make training videos for the extremist group.
He was taken into custody that same day, the affidavit said.
Hours earlier, according to the FBI, he had purchased a GoPro drone aircraft and camera kit that he intended to be sent to the Middle East to help ISIS fighters evade enemy tanks in battle.
Kang is also accused of attempting to furnish ISIS with classified and other sensitive military records that would have assisted the group in its combat tactics.
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But the FBI said none of those documents made it to the depraved terror group.
His father Clifford Kang told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that his son became interested in Islam while stationed in the Middle East a couple of years ago.
But while speaking with the news outlet, the horrified dad said he was shocked to learn of his son’s alleged involvement with the murdering terror cult.
He said: “Nobody told me anything. This is the first time I heard about' it. I'm kind of stunned to tell you the truth.”
He added: “I never heard of him being with ISIS.”
Kang Jr, who was reportedly a highly decorated officer, was expected to appear in court yesterday following his arrest on Saturday.
The suspect allegedly told an undercover FBI agent that he wanted to kill “a bunch of people”, reports the Mail Online.
AP:Associated Press 4 Kang allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the day he was arrested
Google Earth 4 The highly decorated US soldier was serving at Schofield Barracks in Honolulu at the time of his arrest
Kang, a member of the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, was assigned to the Army's Schofield Barracks, a major garrison on the island of Oahu.
He is believed to be a "lone actor" with no ties to anyone who might pose a threat to Hawaii, the FBI said.
He was brought to the FBI's attention by the Army last year, officials said.
At a brief court appearance on Monday, he was presented with the charges against him and ordered to remain in federal custody pending a July 13 detention hearing. He entered no plea.
Kang's attorney, Birney Bervar, told reporters afterwards that he knew "very little" about the case, having spoken only briefly to his client just before the hearing as he was handed a copy of the complaint.
Kang, who attained the rank of sergeant first class, served three overseas tours of duty - one each in South Korea, from 2002 to 2003, Iraq from 2010 to 2011 and Afghanistan from 2013 to 2014.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368Now that Lego is supposedly looking to get into the Minecraft and Skylanders spaces with their own building and toys-to-life games, a lot of people are thinking back to the last time the company backed an open world MMO, Lego Universe, and how that curiously only lasted two years.
The project was announced back in 2007 with an intended 2008 release date, but didn’t actually launch until 2010. Lego Universe had a somewhat complicated story involving a quartet of explorers, different factions, and a variety of worlds including Venture Explorer, Nimbus Station, and Ninjago Monastery, but ultimately closed its digital doors on January 30, 2012. Why did the game get shuttered so quickly? Developer Megan Fox revealed the reason on twitter recently and it boils down to the fact that it was too expensive to try and monitor all of the “digital dongs” being built by users.
Funny story – we were asked to make dong detection software for LEGO Universe too. We found it to be utterly impossible at any scale. — Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
Players would hide the dongs where the filtering couldn’t see, or make them only visible from one angle / make multi-part penis sculptures. — Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
“The moderation costs of Lego Universe were a big issue in general. They wanted a creative building MMO with a promise of zero penises seen. They actually had a huge moderation team that got a bunch of screenshots of every model, every property. Entirely whitelist-based building,” Fox said.
YOU could build whatever you wanted, but strangers could never see your builds until we’d had the team do a penis sweep on it. — Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
“It was all automated, but the human moderators were IIRC the single biggest cost center for LEGO Universe’s operational costs. Or close to,” she said. “People saying ‘well just allow dicks’ – LEGO’s brand is utterly trusted by parents. We had to uphold that trust. Which meant zero tolerance. This is all obvious, simple stuff, and is why dealing w/ [the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act] COPPA (which protects kids) is so damn hard in online games.”
The good news here? If Lego is working on a new game that allows players to build whatever they want, there should be plenty of “digital dick detector” job openings in the near future.More than one year after the discussion between both companies was revealed to media, the deal has finally been confirmed. Just moments ago, TM has officially announced its partnership with Netflix.
Not much details were revealed in the official announcement except that the collaboration will kick off in October 2017. TM has stated that more information will be announced in the near future.
That being said, there are indeed several noticeable hints within the official announcement. According to TM, the collaboration enables the company to provide “easy access” to Netflix for its customers. Additionally, customers that subscribed to “the service” will apparently become Netflix members.
Not to forget, both UniFi and Webe customers will apparently be able to enjoy the results of this collaboration. In general, this sounds like what TM’s existing partnership with iflix which came in the form of free and seamless access to the service.
While free Netflix access for UniFi and Webe customers sounds really interesting, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. We will keep you updated once we hear more from TM and Netflix.
4 77 2 2 1 7Here is a pair of purple jeans that I sewed for the Pattern Review jeans contest.
http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/contestreport.pl?ContestID=151
These non-stretch jeans have flat-felled seams, four pockets, and a zip fly with button closure. It has a slightly tapered leg with metal side zippers. I used a purple 10 oz denim, and they are 100% cotton, with no stretch in them.
I drafted these pants using the book called “Building Patterns the Architecture of Women’s Clothing” by Suzy Furrer.
http://www.amazon.com/Building-Patterns-Architecture-Womens-Clothing/dp/1424343534
I wanted a pair of straight leg, high waisted jeans. I drew up the basic trouser sloper in the book, and then drafted the jeans based on the instructions in the book. I lowered the waistline to be 1 inch below the navel, and I’m pretty happy with this waistline. I used a contoured waistband, which I think fits much better than a straight waistband, even though my book says that if the waist is less than 1” below the natural waist, that you can use a straight waistband. My first pair of test jeans has a straight waistband, and it did not fit properly at all.
I drafted front pockets, and a front fly. For the zipper, I used a 5” metal zipper. In my test pair, I used a 7” zipper, and it was way too long. Since it was metal, it was hard to cut, but I did it anyway, with my paper scissors. For the front pockets, I used this fun purple and green quilting cotton. I wanted the fun fabric to be visible to me, so my whole pocket facing is with the quilting fabric. I serged and topstitched my denim piece that faces the outside on to the quilting fabric.
For the back pocket, I used the Butterick 5682 pocket. I also used the Butterick 5682 sewing instructions to construct my self-drafted jeans.
I used flat-felled seams on my back yoke and center back. On my test pair, I used the standard 5/8 inch seam allowance, and could not get it to really stay closed. I did some reading on-line, and increased my seam allowance to ¾, and that extra 1/8 inch really made a huge difference.
I followed the instructions on Male Pattern Boldness for both the flat felled seams, http://malepatternboldness.blogspot.com/2011/05/jeans-sew-along-3-seams.html
and for attaching the fly:
http://malepatternboldness.blogspot.com/2011/05/jeans-sew-along-5-fly.html
I added 5 inch zippers to the bottom of the legs, and I really like how they turned out.
For topstitching, I used Guterman top stitching thread in brown, and a size 100 needle. I tried using both a size 90 jeans needle and a top stitching needle, but the size 100 needle worked best. I had them from my quilting days.
The rivets and buttons I got from Junior at http://www.castbullet.com/rivet.htm and my husband said that they were easy to put in. He just used a hammer, and a metal plate that was on some piece of woodworking equipment. I bought the sombrero rivets, and read that sometimes they get smashed in. Luckily the ones that I had went in just fine with no special equipment.
All in all, I’m really happy with my jeans. I wore them today at work, and they brightened up the dreary rainy day.
AdvertisementsTechnical Article => Operating System => Linux/Unix
As a beginner user of Unix or Linux, people would frequently get confused about the use of different directories of the system.
For example, there is a /bin directory under root(/), it is used to store binary files. However, there are /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin under /usr which are used for storing binary files as well. Some systems even have /opt/bin. What are the differences among them?
Though there are articles explaining different directories in *nix such as Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, it's not clear why these directories are present and their history. Rob Landley filled part of this gap in an online thread Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin, usr/sbin split.
Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie created Unix on a PDP-7 in 1969? Well around 1971 they upgraded to a PDP-11 with a pair of RK05 disk packs (1.5 megabytes each) for storage.
When the operating system grew too big to fit on the first RK05 disk pack (their root filesystem) they let it leak into the second one, which is where all the user home directories lived (which is why the mount was called /usr). They replicated all the OS directories under there (/bin, /sbin, /lib, /tmp...) and wrote files to those new directories because their original disk was out of space. When they got a third disk, they mounted it on /home and relocated all the user directories to there so the OS could consume all the space on both disks and grow to THREE WHOLE MEGABYTES. And thereafter /usr is used to store user programs while /home is used to store user data.
With the evolution of *nix system, the definitions for different directories become clearer.
/ : Store system programs(developed by AT&T)
/usr : Store vendor programs(IBM and HP etc)
/usr/local : User installed programs
/opt : Store third party programs
/tmp : Store temporary files.
/var : Store files to which the system writes data during the course of its operation. For example, log files.
/bin : Store essential binary files for booting. It usually contains the shells like bash and commonly used commands like cp, mv, rm, cat, ls.
/sbin : Store system binary files like reboot, grub.
Reference : http://www.ruanyifeng.com/blog/2012/02/a_history_of_unix_directory_structure.htmlLast December, Basta’s Marco Fratteroli announced that after 25 years, he was shutting the doors to his Nob Hill restaurant. But just a couple of months later, it became apparent that he wasn’t ready to call it quits just yet.
Rather, Fratteroli partnered up with former Lucy’s Table owner, Peter Kost, and former Lucy’s Table chef, Michael Waters, to open Carina Lounge, a Mediterranean-inspired small plates and cocktail Lounge, which opens tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. in the old Basta space at 410 NW 21st Avenue.
The remodeled 80-seat spot will be anchored by a horseshoe bar in the middle of the dining room, with banquette seating lining the room’s perimeter.
Kost says that Waters is still putting a few finishing touches on the food menu, but he says that part of the menu will be dedicated to old-school Basta and Lucy’s Table favorites, including braised pork rib in a marinara sauce and a trio of pizzas from Basta. Goat cheese ravioli, sautéed calamari, a grilled Caesar salad, and chicken taleggio with leeks, polenta, and pancetta will all get the resurrection treatment from the old Lucy’s Table menu.
Four local draft beers, wines from Oregon and the Mediterranean, and signature cocktails round out the list.
Kost says that plans are also in place to launch a happy hour menu (by the end of next week), to create a covered open-air patio (in the old Basta private dining room), and to possibly launch a weekend brunch program (maybe by June).
And if you frequented either place in the past, you’ll also see a lot of familiar faces, too, as Kost, Fratteroli, and Waters have hired on 11 former Basta and Lucy’s Table employees.
Carina Lounge: 410 NW 21st Ave., 503-274-1572; Hours: 4:30 to p.m. to midnight, daily
Carina Lounge [Official Site]This tutorial will show you how to install the latest version of Python 2 and Python 3 on CentOS by compiling from source. The examples below are for Python 2.7.14 and Python 3.6.3, but the procedure is the same for any modern version of Python.
If you are using CentOS 6 you can use this tutorial to install both Python 2.7.x and Python 3.6.x. For CentOS 7 only the Python 3.6.x instructions below are applicable. Warning! Do not install Python 2.7.14 on CentOS 7 using these instructions. Your system will end up having two different python2.7 binaries, each with its own package directory. This will likely cause difficult-to-diagnose problems.
This tutorial should work for all versions of CentOS 6 and CentOS 7, and it will probably work on the corresponding RHEL distributions as well. I have verified it on CentOS 6.9 64 bit and CentOS 7 (1611) 64 bit.
This tutorial is meant for people that are comfortable with compiling and installing applications from source.
What is the problem?
CentOS ships with Python as a critical part of the base system. Because it is a critical part it is not getting updated, other than to plug security vulnerabilities. The lack of updates means that CentOS 6 users are stuck with Python 2.6.6 released in August 2010, and CentOS 7 users are stuck with Python 2.7.5 released in May 2013.
Solving the problem
Utilities such as yum will break if the default Python interpreter is upgraded or replaced. The trick is to install new versions of Python in /usr/local (or some other non-standard location) so that they can live side-by-side with the system version.
Things to consider
Before you compile and install Python there are a few things you should know and/or consider:
Unicode
Python has a long and complicated history when it comes to Unicode support. Unless you have very specific reasons you should configure Python 2.7 to enable UTF-32 support. This increases memory usage but improves compatibility. In Python 3.3+ the Unicode support has been completely rewritten and strings are automatically stored using the most efficient encoding possible.
You enable UTF-32 in Python 2.7 by passing --enable-unicode=ucs4 to the configure command.
Shared library
You should compile Python as a shared library by passing --enable-shared to the configure command. All modern Linux distros ship with Python compiled as a shared library. It reduces memory usage if more than one Python process is running, and there are third-party tools that might not work properly without it. To make sure the executable can find its shared library you also need to pass some additional flags to the configure command ( LDFLAGS="-Wl,-rpath /usr/local/lib" ).
If you do not have sudo or root access you will probably not be able to compile Python as a shared library. If someone knows how to solve this please leave a comment below and I will update this text with instructions.
Use “make altinstall” to prevent problems
It is critical that you use make altinstall when you install your custom version of Python. If you use the normal make install you will end up with two different versions of Python in the filesystem both named python. This can lead to problems that are very hard to diagnose.
Preparations – install prerequisites
In order to compile Python you must first install the development tools and a few extra libs. The extra libs are not strictly needed to compile Python but without them your new Python interpreter will be quite useless.
Execute all the commands below as root either by temporarily logging in as root or by using sudo.
# Start by making sure your system is up-to-date: yum update # Compilers and related tools: yum groupinstall -y "development tools" # Libraries needed during compilation to enable all features of Python: yum install -y zlib-devel bzip2-devel openssl-devel ncurses-devel sqlite-devel readline-devel tk-devel gdbm-devel db4-devel libpcap-devel xz-devel expat-devel # If you are on a clean "minimal" install of CentOS you also need the wget tool: yum install -y wget 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 # Start by making sure your system is up-to-date: yum update # Compilers and related tools: yum groupinstall - y "development tools" # Libraries needed during compilation to enable all features of Python: yum install - y zlib - devel bzip2 - devel openssl - devel ncurses - devel sqlite - devel readline - devel tk - devel gdbm - devel db4 - devel libpcap - devel xz - devel expat - devel # If you are on a clean "minimal" install of CentOS you also need the wget tool: yum install - y wget
Download, compile and install Python
Here are the commands to download, compile and install Python.
# Python 2.7.14: wget http://python.org/ftp/python/2.7.14/Python-2.7.14.tar.xz tar xf Python-2.7.14.tar.xz cd Python-2.7.14./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-unicode=ucs4 --enable-shared LDFLAGS="-Wl,-rpath /usr/local/lib" make && make altinstall # Python 3.6.3: wget http://python.org/ftp/python/3.6.3/Python-3.6.3.tar.xz tar xf Python-3.6.3.tar.xz cd Python-3.6.3./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-shared LDFLAGS="-Wl,-rpath /usr/local/lib" make && make altinstall 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 # Python 2.7.14: wget http : / / python.org / ftp / python / 2.7.14 / Python - 2.7.14.tar.xz tar xf Python - 2.7.14.tar.xz cd Python - 2.7.14. / configure -- prefix = / usr / local -- enable - unicode = ucs4 -- enable - shared LDFLAGS = "-Wl,-rpath /usr/local/lib" make && make altinstall # Python 3.6.3: wget http : / / python.org / ftp / python / 3.6.3 / Python - 3.6.3.tar.xz tar xf Python - 3.6.3.tar.xz cd Python - 3.6.3. / configure -- prefix = / usr / local -- enable - shared LDFLAGS = "-Wl,-rpath /usr/local/lib" make && make altinstall
After running the commands above your newly installed Python interpreter will be available as /usr/local/bin/python2.7 or /usr/local/bin/python3.6. The system version of Python 2.6.6 will continue to be available as /usr/bin/python, /usr/bin/python2 and /usr/bin/python2.6.
You might also want to strip symbols from the shared library to reduce the memory footprint.
# Strip the Python 2.7 binary: strip /usr/local/lib/libpython2.7.so.1.0 # Strip the Python 3.6 binary: strip /usr/local/lib/libpython3.6m.so.1.0 1 2 3 4 # Strip the Python 2.7 binary: strip / usr / local / lib / libpython2. 7.so.1.0 # Strip the Python 3.6 binary: strip / usr / local / lib / libpython3. 6m.so.1.0
Install/upgrade pip, setuptools and wheel
Each Python interpreter on your system needs its own install of pip, setuptools and wheel. The easiest way to install or upgrade these packages is by using the get-pip.py script.
# First get the script: wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py # Then execute it using Python 2.7 and/or Python 3.6: python2.7 get-pip.py python3.6 get-pip.py # With pip installed you can now do things like this: pip2.7 install [packagename] pip2.7 install --upgrade [packagename] pip2.7 uninstall [packagename] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 # First get the script: wget https : / / bootstrap.pypa.io / get - pip.py # Then execute it using Python 2.7 and/or Python 3.6: python2. 7 get - pip.py python3. 6 get - pip.py # With pip installed you can now do things like this: pip2. 7 install [ packagename ] pip2. 7 install -- upgrade [ packagename ] pip2. 7 uninstall [ packagename ]
The packages will end up in /usr/local/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages/ (where X.Y is the Python version).
What’s next?
If you are using Python 2.7 I strongly recommend that you install virtualenv and learn how to use it. Virtualenv makes it possible to create isolated Python environments. If you are using Python 3.3+ then you don’t need virtualenv because that functionality is already built in.
Each isolated Python environment (also called sandbox) can have its own Python version and packages. This is very useful when you work on multiple projects or on different versions of the same project.
Create your first isolated Python environment
# Install virtualenv for Python 2.7 and create a sandbox called my27project: pip2.7 install virtualenv virtualenv my27project # Use the built-in functionality in Python 3.6 to create a sandbox called my36project: python3.6 -m venv my36project # Check the system Python interpreter version: python --version # This will show Python 2.6.6 # Activate the my27project sandbox: source my27project/bin/activate # Check the Python version in the sandbox (it should be Python 2.7.14): python --version # Deactivate the sandbox: deactivate # Activate the my36project sandbox: source my36project/bin/activate # Check the Python version in the sandbox (it should be Python 3.6.3): python --version # Deactivate the sandbox: deactivate 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 # Install virtualenv for Python 2.7 and create a sandbox called my27project: pip2. 7 install virtualenv virtualenv my27project # Use the built-in functionality in Python 3.6 to create a sandbox called my36project: python3. 6 - m venv my36project # Check the system Python interpreter version: python -- version # This will show Python 2.6.6 # Activate the my27project sandbox: source my27project / bin / activate # Check the Python version in the sandbox (it should be Python 2.7.14): python -- version # Deactivate the sandbox: deactivate # Activate the my36project sandbox: source my36project / bin / activate # Check the Python version in the sandbox (it should be Python 3.6.3): python -- version # Deactivate the sandbox: deactivate
Changelog
2017-11-22 Updated the shared library paragraph with some extra information. 2017-10-08 Examples updated with Python 2.7.14 and 3.6.3. 2017-07-20 Examples updated with Python 3.6.2. 2017-05-24 Examples updated with Python 3.6.1. 2017-02-08 Add warning about not installing Python 2.7 on CentOS 7 (since it already has 2.7 in the base system). 2017-02-07 Examples updated with Python 2.7.13 and Python 3.6.0.
Mention that this also works for installing Python 3.6 on CentOS 7.
Added expat-devel to the list of prerequisites.
Removed ldconfig instructions.
Added instructions for stripping the shared libraries.
Changed the instructions for pip/setuptools to use the get-pip.py script. 2014-03-15 Examples updated with Python 3.3.5. 2014-02-16 The Python versions used in the examples have been updated to 2.7.6 and 3.3.4.
The list of library prerequisites has been extended so that more features are compiled into Python.
New parameters for compiling Python with a shared library and for enabling Unicode UTF-32 support in Python 2.7 and Python 3.2 have been added.
Instructions for installing and using setuptools, pip, virtualenv and pyvenv have been added/updated.
How to install the latest version of Python on CentOSA global network of such cities in the sea can easily accommodate many millions of people and relieve the land based population pressures. They can provide the inhabitants with information and serve as natural sea aquariums without artificially enclosing marine life.
Many of these cities may serve as oceanographic universities that maintain the ecological balance of marine systems. Other ocean cities will maintain sea farms that will cultivate many forms of marine life. They could also be used as a new resource for mining the relatively untapped resources of the oceans without disturbing its ecology. Still others may monitor and maintain environmental equilibrium and reclaim dangerous radioactive and other pollutant materials that have been dumped into the sea.
After construction, these structures can be towed to various locations where they would be most beneficial, then anchored to the ocean floor. Some structures will be towed in prefabricated segments and then joined together at selected locations. Their internal construction will include floatation chambers which will render them practically unsinkable. They can be self maintained and fully automated.
Offshore Living
Offshore apartment buildings of concrete, steel, glass, titanium, and a wide variety of new synthetic materials could be built to relieve the population pressure in areas like Hong Kong, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and New York. The materials used in such projects would be engineered to withstand the corrosive effects of the harsh ocean environment.
Mariculture & Fish Farming
Such systems would be used to cultivate and raise fish and other forms of marine life to help meet the nutritional needs of the world’s people.
Capable of cultivating a great variety of marine life, these structures would be equipped to permit the free flow of water throughout the system. They are designed to be a non-contaminating, |
the right of the neocortex are two major structures of the limbic system, the hippocampus and the amygdala, together with the brainstem reticular formation. These three form half of a bent axis with the three structures along the bottom: the habenula, hypothalamus, and basal forebrain nuclei. All six of these are highly interconnected and their primary external interactions are with the frontal/limbic neocortical areas.
The decision to place three of these along the bottom near the neuromodulators was governed both by constraints of space as well as connectivity. The three on the right side have the most extensive interactions with the anterior neocortex and thalamus. However, it may have been better to place the basal forebrain structures next to the amygdala and move the reticular formation down to the bottom. In addition, it would probably be best to swap the three neuromodulating nuclei with the three lower-placed limbic structures.
Immediately beneath the thalamus are the basal ganglia, together with a hodge-podge of midbrain and hindbrain structures that interact heavily with the thalamus. Note that the output neurons of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) employ dopamine as their neurotransmitter.
Finally, beneath these structures are the primary neuromodulating nuclei in the brainstem: the locus coeruleus (norepinephrine), Raphe nuclei (serotonin), and ventral tegmental area (dopamine). These send diffuse projections to most of the cortex, and it is through interference with these effects that many known psychoactive substances operate. These include hallucinogens (NE, 5-HT), SSRI anti-depressants (5-HT), tricyclic antidepressants (all three), antipsychotics (NE, DA), and others. (The major effects of some dopamine-affecting drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines, and L-DOPA are thought to originate primarily from effects on the substantia nigra's connections in the basal ganglia. Heroin and related narcotics operate on endorphin (a type of neuropeptide) transmitters. The effects of more common drugs such as alcohol, caffeine, and cannabis are less localized and less well understood.)
Diagram Conventions
Arrow connection endings indicate excitatory synapses, balls indicate inhibitory synapses.
All connection lines without arrows are bidirectional and excitatory.
All dashed connection lines represent neuromodulatory effects (mediated by transmitters like dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, etc.); acetylcholine connections terminating at muscarinic receptors are considered neuromodulatory.
Abbreviations Used
Abbrev Description Abbrev Description Abbrev Description Abbrev Description 5HT serotonin A anterior nucleus ACh acetylcholine (neurotransmitter) Amyg amygdala ant anterior Aud auditory bsrf brainstem reticular formation CA1 CA1 hippocampal field CA3 CA3 hippocampal field Cb cerebellum Cing cingulate cortex D deep (amygdalar nuclei) D-L dorso-lateral DA dopamine DG dentate gyrus Diag Band diagonal band nucleus FTC GPe globus pallidus, external segment GPi globus pallidus, internal segment H higher areas (cortical hierarchy) Hypo hypothalamus IC inferior colliculus Intralam intralaminar nuclei L lower areas (cortical hierarchy) Lat lateral LC locus coeruleus LD lateral dorsal nucleus LGNd lateral geniculate nucleus, dorsal Lim-SG limitans-suprageniculate nucleus Limb limbic LOT lateral olfactory tract LP lateral posterior nucleus M1 primary motor cortex Mamm mammillary body matrix striatum, matrix component MD medial dorsal nucleus med medial Med Sept medial septum MGNd,mc medial geniculate nucleus, dorsal, magnocellular MGNv medial geniculate nucleus, ventral Mot motor MV medioventral nucleus N Acc nucleus accumbens NE norepinephrine Nuc Bas nucleus basilis (of Meynert) O-F orbito-frontal occ occipital (visual cortex) olf olfactory cortex par parietal (visual cortex) patch striatum, patch component PB parabrachial nucleus peri perirhinal cortex PFC prefrontal cortex Pl-a,m pulvinar, anterior, medial Pl-i,l pulvinar, inferior, lateral PM premotor cortex Po posterior nucleus (thalamus) Poly polysensory post posterior preopt preoptic area Pt parataenial nucleus Raphe Raphe nuclei Ret form reticular formation S superficial (amygdalar nuclei) SC superior colliculus SM submedial nucleus (part of VM) SMA supplementary motor area SNpc substantia nigra pars compacta SNpr substantia nigra pars reticulata Spin cord spinal cord SS somatosensory STN subthalamic nucleus STP superior temporal polysensory area Sub subiculum (hippocampus) temp temporal (visual cortex) TF temporal area TF TF temporal area TH VA ventral anterior nucleus Vis visual VL ventrolateral nucleus VM ventromedial nucleus VPI ventral posterior inferior nucleus VPM/L ventral posteromedial /-lateral nucleus VTA ventral tegmental area
Motivation
The purpose of this diagram was to obtain a global perspective on the functional organization of the brain while discarding as little detail as possible. When detail is discarded, someone has made a decision as to what to discard, and that decision may not accord with the ultimate importance it may own in a hypothetical true theory of brain functioning. More immediately relevant, it may not accord with its importance in whatever collection of ideas and speculations is percolating in the individual viewer's mind, that they are attempting to solidify somewhat through the use of a visual aid.
An engineering diagram seemed the most natural format, since the physical appearance of brain structures is not relevant to their functional role. However, this is more than just a wiring diagram because it tries to convey certain features of the structures themselves through illustration, not just their connections. Thus, each structure is not illustrated as a uniformly-sized box, but as a colored shape that represents its relative size and functional allegiance.
A second purpose was to emphasize the prominent roles of subcortical structures and their relations with the neocortex. Since the latter has undergone the most significant expansion in human evolution, and it is the largest, most prominent part of the brain, there is a tendency to credit it as the primary substrate of human intelligence. However there can be no question that the other structures are absolutely crucial in contributing to this functioning, and it is only through understanding the nature of their coordination that significant insight will be gained. This point is especially relevant to those who actually carry out neurobiological research, for it is necessary then to narrow focus and specialize on one structure, making it easy to forget about its role as part of a larger system.
Accuracy
The structure and connectivity data used to construct the diagram was drawn largely from secondary sources, with a few primary and tertiary instances. Data from the macaque monkey was used in most cases, however data from the rat was used when monkey data was not available and the connections in question were believed by the authors to be phylogenetically conserved. A partial list of references used is given at the end.
Many of the structures represented on the diagram represent agglomerations of smaller structures. For example, the Raphe nuclei are comprised of about ten distinct cell groups. Each cortical region subsumes several individual areas distinguished on cytoarchitectonic, connectivity, or functional grounds. Similarly, some structures, such as the olfactory bulb and the medial habenula, are excluded entirely. There were two reasons for excluding such detail from the diagram. First, including it would have made the diagram too cluttered to serve any clarifying function. Second, the finer the level of detail, the more limited the accuracy of the data available for it. While techniques improve, anatomical tracing is an inexact science.
Finally, a disclaimer: I am not a neuroanatomist. There may be portions of this diagram that are incorrect outright, or where important information is left out. It should be used as a guide to thinking about brain function from a global systems perspective, not as an authoritative source of connection data. Verify connectivity that you see here before drawing any definitive conclusions based on it.
Comments and questions to arobert at interstitiality dot net.
References
Aggleton, J.P. (1992); The Amygdala. Aggleton, J.P., Mishkin, M. (1984); "Projections of the Amygdala to the Thalamus in the Cynomolgus Monkey" in J. Comp. Neurol. 222:56-68. Alexander, G.E., DeLong, M.R., Strick, P.L. (1986); "Parallel Organization of Functional Segregated Circuits Linking Basal Ganglia and Cortex" in Ann. Rev. Neurosci. 9:357-81. Amaral, D.G., Cowan, W.M. (1980); "Subcortical Afferents to the Hippocampal Formation in the Monkey" in J. Comp. Neurol. 189:573-91. Barbas, H., Pandya, D.N. (1987); "Architecture and Frontal Cortical Conn- ections of the Premotor Cortex (Area 6) in the Rhesus Monkey" in J. Comp. Neurol. 256:211-28. Barbas, H., Pandya, D.N. (1989); "Architecture and Intrinsic Connections of the Prefrontal Cortex in the Rhesus Monkey" in J. Comp. Neurol. 286:353-75. Felleman, D.J., Van Essen, D.C. (1991); "Distributed Hierarchical Processing in the Primate Cerebral Cortex" in Cerebral Cortex 1:1-47. Foote, S.L., Bloom, F.E., Aston-Jones, G. (1983); "Nucleus Locus Coeruleus: New Evidence of Anatomical and Physiological Specificity" in Physiol. Rev. 63:844-913. Foote, S.L., Morrison, J.H. (1987); "Extrathalamic Modulation of Cortical Function" in Ann. Rev. Neurosci. 19:67-95. Herkenham, M. (1986); "New Perspectives on the Organization and Evolution of Nonspecific Thalamocortical Projections" in Jones, E.G., Peters, A. (ed.s), Cerebral Cortex Vol. 5. Insausti, R., Amaral, D.G., Cowan, W.M. (1987); "The Entorhinal Cortex of the Monkey III. Subcortical Afferents" in J. Comp. Neurol. 264:396-408. Jones, E.G. (1985); The Thalamus. Kovits, M., Zaborszky, L. (1979); "Neural Connections of the Hypothalamus" in Morgane, P.J., Panksepp, J. (ed.s), Anatomy of the Hypothalamus. Lewis, D.A., Campbell, M.J., Foote, S.L. (1986); "The Monoaminergic Innervation of Primate Neocortex" in Human Neurbio. 5:181-8. Mesulam, M.M., Mufson, E.J., Levey, A.I., Wainer, B.H. (1983); "Cholinergic Innvervation of Cortex by the Basal Forebrain: Cytochemistry and Cortical Connections of the Septal Area, Diagonal Band Nuclei, Nucleus Basilis (Substantia Innominata), and Hypothalamus in the Rhesus Monkey" in J. Comp. Neurol.214:170-97. Steriade, M., Glenn, L.L. (1982); "Neocortical and Caudate Project- ions of Intralaminar Thalamic Neurons and their Synaptic Excitation from Midbrain Reticular Core" in J. Neurophysiol. 48:352-71. Steriade, M., Parei, D., Parent, A., Smith, Y. (1988); "Projections of Cholin- ergic and Non-cholinergic Neurons of the Brainstem Core to Relay and Associational Thalamic Nuclei in the Cat and Monkey" in Neurosci. 25: 47-67. Swanson, L.W., Cowan, W.M. (1975); "A Note on the Connections and Development of the Nucleus Accumbens" in Brn. Res. 92:324-30. Wilson, C.J. (1990); "Basal Ganglia" in The Synaptic Organization of the Brain, ed. Shepherd, G.. Young, M.P. (1993); "The Organization of Neural Systems in the Primate Cerebral Cortex" in Proc. R. Soc. Long. B 252:13-8. Zaborszky, L. (1982); "Afferent Connections of the Medial Basal Hypothalamus" in Adv. Anat., Embryol., and Cell Biol. 69:1-107.
Revision HistoryHow did I found this bug?
An example of the Vulnerable URL:
Hi everyone, Today, I'm going to share how I found a Local File Inclusion that affected companies like Facebook, Linkedin, Dropbox and many others.The LFI was located at the cloud system of Oracle Responsys. For those who do not know Responsys is an enterprise-scale cloud-based business to consumer (B2C). Responsys gives every Business their own "private IP" to use the system in a private way. Business are not sharing IP with other companies.)Well as usual I was looking for bugs and I note that Facebook was sending me developer emails from the subdomain em. facebookmail.com. For example on my inbox, I had emails from fbdev@em.facebookmail.com This got me interested on the subdomain em.facebookmail.com and after a quick DIG I note that this subdomain was connected to "Responsys" which I had previously seen in other PentestsResponsys is providing em.facebookmail.com with the email services as you can see above. The original link I found in my inbox was something like this:I note that the parameter "" is required in order to generate a valid request. And after a bit of testing around, I found that the system was not correctly handling double URL Encoding and using a correct value at the parameter "_ri_" I could injectinto the URL path.This was not properly sanitized and was allowing directory traversal characters to be injected and with this retrieve internal files from the affected server.Soon as I saw the vulnerability I knew that this LFI was not only affecting Facebook but also many other companies. All of them using different Private IPs provided by Responsys.A quick Google Search show me other affected companies with this same bug.Copying a valid value from the parameter _ri_ to the target company I could retrieve internal information using the same technique.The impacts of exploiting a Local File Inclusion (LFI) vary from information disclosure to complete compromise of the systems. In this case the impact it worst because one vulnerability affected multiple companies data.I report this bug to Oracle and the bug got fixed within a week.With the ever increasing complexity and volume of cyber attacks, companies are increasingly turning to automated solutions and artificial intelligence in the quest for more effective protection.
But how effective is an automated approach and will it become the norm in future? We spoke to Eran Barak, CEO of incident response specialist Hexadite to find out.
BN: Are we nearing the end of traditional approaches to security?
EB: Without a doubt. Until very recently, companies have been spending their security time, resources, and dollars on products that gather information that is then handed to a person to act upon. However, with an increased volume of threats like ransomware, malware, and phishing, automatically collecting data and expecting people to keep up no longer works.
We've seen recent stats showing that 37 percent of cyber security professionals are seeing 10,000 or more alerts per month, and that number is only going to rise exponentially. Couple that with the alarming lack of skilled cybersecurity professionals, and you see that the entire approach has to change.
BN: Does failing to adopt automation risk security teams being overwhelmed by the volume of attacks?
EB: It does, and with our customers we've seen that when you can't keep up with the volume of attacks, you're forced to prioritize. You have to make a judgment call on whether to spend your time trying to remove malware on a file share or a Trojan on the CEO's laptop. Since both could be a risk, you're forced to make subjective decisions knowing that you’re ignoring something that could potentially be catastrophic.
We started Hexadite after my co-founders and I spent years training cyber analysts and building security operations centers around the world. In training incident response teams around how to respond to cyber threats, we realized that a high percentage of what they do is repeatable and could be codified in a system.
Now we're seeing that cyber analysts are spending 75-80 percent of their time dealing with the kinds of commodity malware that can easily be handled by an intelligent security orchestration and automation system. What takes them days can take our system one to two minutes.
BN: Are attackers becoming more sophisticated in their approach?
EB: Yes, but in two very different ways. Some attackers are becoming more sophisticated in their methods of attacks while others are taking advantage of automation to increase the volume.
Some cyber attackers are going for large numbers. They aren't necessarily more sophisticated, they're just more productive. Like spammers before them, it costs almost nothing to send incrementally more emails, compromise more websites, and target more companies. In many cases, it's the increase in volume that is more harmful than the sophistication of attacks.
On the other hand, you have specialists. Attackers that aren't playing the volume game are able to instead target specific companies using sophisticated techniques. They'll find out the names and even the writing style of the CEO and CFO, they'll purchase a similar domain name to the target company (example.com vs. examp1e.com), and they'll send very convincing emails to employees.
BN: Can automation help combat internal threats too?
EB: Yes, no doubt about that. Today there is a lack of skills and expertise, making it much more difficult to cope with the volume of alerts. We've seen large organizations with more than 30,000 employees that have only two to five cyber analysts who monitors that entire network. This is similar to coming to a gunfight with a knife. Only automation can bridge this gap and enable those teams to keep up with the volume of cyber attacks.
BN: We hear a lot about machine learning, big data, and artificial intelligence relating to cyber security. How do you see these trends evolving?
EB: You're right. There are a lot of buzzwords out there, and we prefer keeping it simple.
Our approach is to think about what a human cyber analyst would do and codify those investigations, decisions, and actions into a system that is repeatable and fast at any scale.
That said, artificial intelligence makes a lot of sense when you compare it to human cognition. A cyber analyst learns from threat feeds, verifies known malicious entities from other sources, and increases his or her knowledge with more and more experience.
Like a cyber analyst, our product gets an alert from any security detection system and starts an investigation. It gathers more context from other systems on the network, compares the threat against known threat feeds, uses its own inspection algorithms, and makes a decision. Finally, it takes action based on the result of the investigation.
Rather than creating a big data or machine learning product, our platform is modelled after the way people investigate, decide, and act…. Just a lot faster and at scale.
BN: Are you seeing any kind of trend in the types of customers that are adopting products like Hexadite?
There are some trends we're seeing from our customers. The first is that the majority of them are constrained by cyber security resources and do not have a huge team to manually investigate alerts. They aren't able to devote a team of developers to write their own code to automate incident response.
In addition, as mentioned already, most of our customers are seeing an exponential increase in alert volume. They have invested time and budget on detection systems that are producing hundreds or thousands of alerts daily, and aren’t able to follow up.
We've seen customers with nearly 100 different security products at a given time. Being able to manage that many products at once and gather actionable intelligence is very hard. Our customers come from all industries, but they have one thing in common: all of them have committed to cyber security and have made significant investment in technologies that detect cyber threats.
Image Credit: Mopic / ShutterstockZombie carbon market falls 60%, revived by EU decree – media spins “soaring success”
Global Carbon Markets peaked in 2011 at €96bn euro. Over the next two years they plummeted to €36bn* euro collapsing by 60%. Though the press didn’t seem in a hurry to convey that, and if I search, no government funded agency has done a graph like this below (perhaps I missed it?)
The decline was looking pretty terminal, but the EU government has now voted to backload (which means hold off the permits and cut the supply). This is a desperate measure involving over half the new permits to keep the “free” market alive.
Instead, the news agencies with greener leanings have underplayed the fall, and the 60% decline is now invisibly massaged in places like BusinessGreen into a “market set to soar”. This is not just media-spin but a news-through-a-centrifuge.
The value of the world’s carbon markets is set to soar to €64bn (£53bn) this year, up from €39bn in 2013, as the European Union launches a temporary fix to revive its ailing emissions trading system.
A breathless journalist at Thompson Reuters describes the possible revival of the market back to 30% below the peak as “astounding”:
Emil Dimantchev, analyst at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, anticipates that such significant growth will be driven by “expectations that after imminent backloading is implemented early in 2014, EUA prices could rise to €7.5/t, increasing over-the-counter and exchange traded liquidity. This would lead to an astounding increase in value, up by more than two thirds to €61bn ($US84bn) from €36bn ($US49bn) in 2013”. –BusinessSpectator
Let’s not forget this soaring revival is only due to Government decree. The EU voted to simply hold back some promised carbon credits. They cornered the market from the start. There is nothing “free” about this fixed market, and the people who will pay (consumers and taxpayers, us) don’t get a choice. The Australian carbon market is still tied to the EU one. Ask Bill Shorten (the opposition leader) why a group of EU bureaucrats are setting the price.
The long-awaited “backloading” of European Union carbon allowance auctions will start on 12 March, marking the first time that governments will sell fewer permits than required by power producers
London — The European Union’s Emissions Trading System has been widely criticised for failing to provide sufficient incentive to stop the region’s generators burning coal rather than gas or other cleaner fuels. However, from next Wednesday, the EU ETS is set to change radically, according to research company Bloomberg New Energy Finance. On 12 March, the EU will start to “backload”, or delay, many of its auctions of carbon permits, restricting by more than 50% the number of allowances coming onto the market and presenting both utilities and industrial companies with a radically different emissions trading environment compared to the one that has prevailed in recent years. — Bloomberg
These are not small changes. Effectively the government has just taken half the new permits off the market.
As a result of the backloading plan approved by EU member states this month, and due to come into effect from next week: • Governments will cut the supply of new carbon permits by 53% in an effort to bring it closer to balance with demand, and to ensure higher prices. These plummeted from a high of EUR 29/tCO2e in 2008 to an average of EUR 4.46 in 2013 as a result of the economic downturn that followed the financial crisis. The auctions that are delayed from 2014 to 2016 will be rescheduled for later in the decade. • The price of permits has gained 40% to EUR 7 per tonne since the beginning of this year in anticipation of the backloading measure. — Bloomberg
The EU market pretty much is the global market:
“The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has operated since 2005 and represented 94% of the value and 88% of the traded volume of global carbon markets in 2013, the analysts said.”
The market fell so badly in 2012 that after a decade of glossy releases, the World Bank completely canceled the State of The Carbon Market report about 2012. Presumably they won’t bring it back after the even worse figures of 2013. It’s not like the figures mattered to the market then — it was all about the PR.
Where is the accountability for these distant bureaucratic enclaves funded with tax money? They don’t even try to appear impartial any more.
—————————
*I’ve seen €36bn, €38bn, and even a rounded €40bn for the 2013 global market value. The latest figure from 28th Feb is 36 from Point Carbon.
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please wait... Rating: 9.3/10 (73 votes cast)Written by a no-hype software developer we managed to borrow for this analysis. All of the estimates, numbers, technical considerations and ideas are based on the author’s previous work experience and common software development practices. If you enjoy this type of opinionated content make sure to let us know in the comment section.
Let’s be honest – Pokemon GO launch was a wild ride. The game had some technical ups and downs, servers were all over the place and features were taken out. Bugs and technical problems were introduced – some on purpose, some by accident.
Things are currently moving in a positive direction: the communication is better, the latest version re-introduced the Poke Tracker (albeit a bit disappointing) and the game is a lot more stable.
There is a new problem for Niantic: there is simply not enough content in the game currently to keep the player base engaged. Engaged players are important, as they spend time and money inside the app.
Niantic has confirmed that three new content features/patches are coming to the game, and we believe we figured out when these updates are coming:
Pokemon GO Trading releases in October 2016
releases in October 2016 Pokemon GO Trainer Battles releases in December 2016/January 2017
releases in December 2016/January 2017 Pokemon GO Gen II releases in May 2017
Let’s dive in.
Pokemon Go Trading releases in October 2016
The Trade system is one of the most requested in game features, as there is a long standing tradition of trading in the Pokemon franchise. The technical implementation of Pokemon GO Trade should not be a difficult task with only a few possible bottlenecks.
We strongly believe that the Trade system will support trading with nearby trainers only, at least in the first version. There are a few possible versions on how to implement a trade system:
#1 Optimistically – let the mobile apps perform the trade, then commit/rollback the trade after validating with the backend infrastructure Better UX as mosts trades will be successful Asynchronous, doesn’t block user actions while the server validates – user can be notified afterwards that something went wrong
– let the mobile apps perform the trade, then commit/rollback the trade after validating with the backend infrastructure #2 Pessimistically – request the backend infrastructure to perform the trade and notify both trainers after the trade is completed Safer as the backend orchestrates and validates the entire trade flow Synchronous, blocks the app while trade is in progress (similar experience to buying Poke Coins)
– request the backend infrastructure to perform the trade and notify both trainers after the trade is completed
Both options are valid and should not present a technical challenge, however it is more likely that Niantic will go for the option #2, as it’s more conservative and in line with their current technical solutions. Will it scale? That remains to be seen.
The estimated time required to develop, test and deploy this kind of feature is a bit more than 2 months. That estimation includes the following:
1 week for supporting current version, interviewing, meetings etc
for supporting current version, interviewing, meetings etc 3 weeks of development time
of development time 3 weeks of testing and bug fixing
of testing and bug fixing 2 weeks of regression testing and preparing the infrastructure
With that estimation in mind, it’s highly unlikely, if not almost impossible, that we’ll see the Trade system before October.
Pokemon GO Trainer Battles releases in December 2016/January 2017
When compared with the Trade system, the Trainer Battle system is more complex and expensive to develop. With that in mind, the estimate for this feature is quite bigger. The estimated time to develop, test and deploy Trainer Battles is around 4 months:
2 weeks product discussion and validation
product discussion and validation 1 – 2 weeks of technical Proof of Concepts and architecture overview
of technical Proof of Concepts and architecture overview 4 weeks of development time
of development time 4 weeks of testing and bug fixing
of testing and bug fixing 3 weeks of regression testing, architecture preparation and User Acceptance Testing
Unfortunately, as most of the development time is caught up with current features and bug fixing, only a small portion of the estimated work load can go in parallel.
We believe that there are already meetings being held on product planning and technical plans for this feature. It’s also quite likely that the trainer system will be implemented similar to the gym battles system:
Most, if not all, of combat calculation and validation will happen inside the mobile app, not on the backend infrastructure Lag, server rollbacks, bottlenecking and other problems that online games face will ruin the experience if it’s implemented on the backend only
, not on the backend infrastructure Trainers will be able to fight only nearby trainers using Bluetooth or NFC as communication channel Local combat helps reduce server load It’s unlikely/impossible to have real time server-client combat communication at Pokemon GO scale
trainers using Bluetooth or NFC as communication channel
The Trainer Battles will have a profound impact on the game and will radically change the way we play the game, as players will be incentivised to meet face to face. Thus, launching this feature during Winter and in time for holiday get togethers makes perfect sense.
Pokemon GO Gen II releases in May 2017
When comparing to previously mentioned features, the introduction of a new Pokemon Generation to Pokemon GO should be rather easy, right? Well, it turns out Generation II brings in quite a few changes that need to be addressed and implemented according to the current product we have.
So, if you expected that introducing Gen II only means to “slap another 100 Pokemon in the game”, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. Here’s a list of changes and considerations that Generation II will bring into the game:
100 new Pokemon and 86 new moves is introduced
is introduced Baby Pokemon
New mechanisms for PokeStops and PokeBalls
Diverging evolution lines and possible introduction of Evolution stones Example: Gloom -> Bellossom
and possible introduction of Evolution stones Moves changes and meta updates to accompany the new types and Pokemon
Overall, Pokemon GO Gen II should come conceptually after the previous two feature are introduced. That will enable the content to be multiplied and it’s longevity will increase.
We don’t have an estimate for the development of this feature, but we strongly believe it is currently not in the works. We expect it to go in product discussion somewhere in December or November, and in full production in February.
More considerations for the dates
If you think about the current state of the game and the easiest way to keep the players engaged, these dates have even more sense.
Launching Pokemon GO Trade in October gives the development team to test and prepare Trainer Battles for holidays. As most of the population stays indoor during winter, launching a social feature like Trainer Battles during that period is perfect.
Players do not like standing in the cold and battling, so while we expect the gym battle engagement to dwindle during winter, the Trainer Battles could give the game enough steam to roll through the holiday season. Of course, if they launch in December 2016.
And finally, the release of any major exploratory content should be delayed until late Spring or Summer, placing Gen II release somewhere around May 2017.APPROVED FOR RELEASE
CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM
22 SEPT 93
CONFIDENTIAL
Oriental prototype of the cloak-and-dagger man.
THE NINJA
W. M. Trengrouse
What cowboys have been to U.S. entertainment, the Ninja -- the stealers in -- are in contemporary Japan. But a Ninja is less like a cowboy than a dirty-dealing Superman. Originally a medieval cult of unconventional warrior-spies, as presented in the vogue now sweeping Japan from toddlers to grandparents they have the power to turn themselves into stones or toads, are as invisibly ubiquitous as gremlins, and can do things like jumping ten-foot walls and walking on water.
Television carries Ninja dramas from morning until night, kabuki and the serious stage put on Ninja plays, eighteen Ninja movies were made in 1963 and 1964, bookstores carry two hundred fiction and non-fiction titles on the occult art, children's comic books and the adult pulps are loaded with their adventures, toy stores sell Ninja masks and weapons, and even Kellogg's corn flakes has a Ninja mask on the box. It has got to the point that kindergarten classes have been asked to pledge they will not play Ninja, the police are plagued by moppet bands of Ninja, and hardly a castle wall in Japan has not been attacked by amateur Ninja scalers.
The legend of the stealers -- in as much a part of Japanese culture as Robin Hood and King Arthur are of the English -- has a reasonably firm if little researched basis in history, and its artifacts can be seen even today. The supernatural powers of the popular Ninja character are only an exaggeration of some remarkable accomplishments of his prototype, some of them strangely similar to things we regard as peculiarly modern. The Ninja did practice the art of invisibility -- ninjutsu -- through choice of clothes and other quite natural means. The inventions they used in their profession anticipated the skin diver's snorkel and fins, the collapsible boat, K-rations, the four-pronged scatter spike for traffic sabotage, tactical rockets, and water skis.
Origins
The Ninja most probably began with a group of "mountain ascetics" who lived in the hills around Kyoto and Nara when those towns were the capitals of Japan and Buddhism was being established. The Ninja beliefs and practices show the influence of Buddhism (with a mixture of Shinto), of the Chinese way of hand fighting, and of the ancient writings of the Chinese Sun Tzu, with his emphasis on spies and on stratagems, deception operations.1 By the end of the Nara period (710-784) this cult of mountaineers (Yama-bushi, those who sleep among the mountains), who were "men of lower caste representing the crude side of religion,... exercised a great influence upon the people by appealing directly to vulgar ideas and superstitions."2 Occult and dreaded, they lived and taught their blend of Buddhism (mainly of the Tendai and Shingon sects, the latter dealing in mystic hymns and secret formulas) and Shinto on such mountains as Koya and Hiei. They inducted young men into their secret orders, and they came down to the villages to get contributions in return for doing magical cures through formulas and medicines.
But their miracles were not enough to protect them in the face of government hostility to the cult, and the priests turned to guerrilla warfare, versing themselves in what was to become bujutsu, the martial art of eighteen methods -- karate, bojutsu, kenjutsu, and so on -- to protect their shrines and temples. These had been established twenty miles to the east of Nara at Iga-Ueno, then a farming village situated on a broad tableland rimmed by mountains. The area was so poor and isolated that it was not deemed worth fighting for by the warring landlords of Nara and Kyoto, and so it went by default to the mountaineer cult. Here ninjutsu became an independent art.
Before the end of the Heian period (794-1185), the first book treating ninjutsu appeared, written by the great Genji warrior Yoshitsune Minamoto (1159-1189), the "Book of Eight Styles of Kurama." Mt. Kurama, a training station of the mountain ascetics, was where Yoshitsune mastered his arts as a child. This book emphasizes the art of flying -- Yoshitsune is believed to have been a great jumper -- and the use of shock troops. It first distinguished among the three arts of strategy, bujutsu, and ninjutsu. Although ninjutsu was still embryonic, it was established as an art by Yoshitsune's "book of ninjutsu," so referred to and extant today.
The Iga area was so impoverished that families often killed their children, particularly girls, and they could not get their whole livelihood from farming. On the other hand adults, or any who could perform adult labor, were valuable. Warfare in the plains of Iga therefore tended to be carried on by stealth rather than by bloodshed. The mountain priests would teach the head of a strong family their secret arts, and these would be passed from a father to his sons, who might also visit the wilderness temples for indoctrination. Even today, says playwright-novelist Tomoyoshi Murayama, the people of Iga are known as sly, tricky, and crafty.
Three grades of Ninja sprang up -- the jonin (leader), who was head of a strong family, the chunin (middle class), a skilled Ninja, and the genin (lowest), a day laborer in ninjutsu. As the people of Iga became known for Ninja, fighting landlords in the period of the civil wars from the middle of the fourteenth to the end of the sixteenth century called upon the town for spies and warriors. There were two major families there, each having about three hundred Ninja. In addition, another settlement at Koga, some twelve miles away, had fifty-three families of roughly equal rank with a smaller number of Ninja. The heads of the Iga |
Celtics. A sneak peek we got today into his offseason training regime may help explain why.
Former NBA center Olden Polynice tweeted out a photo featuring Bass and a group of other NBA players such as Raptors forward DeMar DeRozan and Cavs guard Dion Waiters after a workout. The wildcard in the mix? Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.
The Celtics were reportedly considering dealing away Bass to the Golden State Warriors earlier this month but as of now, the power forward remains on a crowded depth chart alongside Jared Sullinger and Kelly Olynyk. If his offseason training partners are any indication, he'll be in some of the best shape of his life as he enters a contract year for the Celtics this season.Ukraine, not Iraq, May Start a Very Short World War: Roberts
“Washington has been convinced by neoconservatives that Russian strategic nuclear forces are in run down and unprepared condition and are sitting ducks for attack. This false belief is based on out-of-date information, a decade old, such as the argument presented in “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy” by Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press in the April 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs, a publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, an organization of American elites.
Regardless of the condition of Russian nuclear forces, the success of Washington’s first strike and degree of protection provided by Washington’s ABM shield against retaliation, the article I posted by Steven Starr, “The Lethality of Nuclear Weapons,” makes clear that nuclear war has no winners. Everyone dies.
In an article published in the December 2008 issue of Physics Today, three atmospheric scientists point out that even the substantial reduction in nuclear arsenals that the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty hoped to achieve, from 70,000 warheads in 1986 to 1700-2200 warheads by the end of 2012, did not reduce the threat that nuclear war presents to life on earth. The authors conclude that in addition to the direct blast effects of hundreds of millions of human fatalities, “the indirect effects would likely eliminate the majority of the human population.” The stratospheric smoke from firestorms would cause nuclear winter and agricultural collapse. Those who did not perish from blast and radiation would starve to death.
Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev understood this. Unfortunately, no successor US government has. As far as Washington is concerned, death is what happens to others, not to “the exceptional people.” (The SORT agreement apparently failed. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the nine nuclear-armed states still possess a total of 16,300 nuclear weapons.)
It is a fact that Washington has policymakers who think, incorrectly, that nuclear war is winnable and who regard nuclear war as a means of preventing the rise of Russia and China as checks on Washington’s hegemony over the world. The US government, regardless of party in office, is a massive threat to life on earth. European governments, which think of themselves as civilized, are not, because they enable Washington’s pursuit of hegemony. It is this pursuit that threatens life with extinction. The ideology that grants “exceptional, indispensable America” supremacy is an enormous threat to the world.”
“If the White House Fool, Washington’s media whores and European vassals convince Russia that war is in the cards, war will be in the cards. As there is no prospect whatsoever of NATO being able to mount a conventional offensive threat against Russia anywhere near the size and power of the German invasion force in 1941 that met with destruction, the war will be nuclear, which will mean the end of all of us.”
More:
Paul Craig Roberts: US beating nuclear war drums
See Also:
Bid for naval dominance: Russia significantly boosts nuclear fleet
Indications that the U.S. Is Planning a Nuclear Attack Against Russia
Russian nuclear forces, 2013
Russian Nuclear Capabilities
What would a U.S.-Russia war look like?
Will Mutual Assured Destruction Continue to Deter Nuclear War?
World Powers Keeping Firm Grip on Nuclear Weapons Arsenals: Report: Despite pledges to disarm, nations in possession of nuclear weapons are modernizing their inventories as some expand their stockpiles1999 soundtrack album by Phil Collins
Professional ratings Review scores Source Rating AllMusic [1] Filmtracks [2] Sputnikmusic 4.5/5[3]
Tarzan: An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack is the soundtrack for the 1999 Disney animated film, Tarzan. The songs on the soundtrack were composed by Phil Collins, and the instrumental score by Mark Mancina. The song "You'll Be in My Heart" won both the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, while the soundtrack album won a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album. For his contribution to the soundtrack, Collins received an American Music Award for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist.
Tarzan was the first Disney soundtrack to be recorded in multiple languages for different markets, with Collins recording English, Italian, German, Spanish, and French versions of the soundtrack. Collins was assisted by composer Éric Serra to record and produce the French versions of the songs.
Commercial performance [ edit ]
The Tarzan soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records on May 18, 1999. The soundtrack peaked at #5 on the Billboard charts during the week of July 10, 1999, coinciding with the film's theatrical run. The album was a major comeback for Phil Collins, and put him back in the public eye.[citation needed]
A promotion was held at the Disney Store. Customers who bought the soundtrack received a free and exclusive single of "You'll Be in My Heart". The soundtrack itself was labeled limited edition, including a holographic cover and an individual collector's number.[citation needed]
The album has sold 2,586,000 copies in the U.S. as of April 2014.[4]
Track listing [ edit ]
All songs written and composed by Phil Collins, with score composed by Mark Mancina.
Charts [ edit ]
Album [ edit ]
Year-end charts [ edit ]
Chart (1999) Position German Albums Chart[18] 79
Singles [ edit ]
Certifications [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]Philadelphia Police are giving safety tips to people who are playing the popular mobile game Pokemon Go. They also say they've seen a string of robberies in the area targeting people who are playing the game. (Published Monday, July 11, 2016)
As Pokemon fever sweeps the nation thanks to a new phone app, Philadelphia police are providing safety tips to the many residents caught up in the craze.
Pokemon, short for ‘pocket monsters’, became popular with the release of a television show and video games in the 1990s and has become a cultural phenomenon across the globe. The newest installment of the Pokemon franchise has come in the form of the smart phone app, Pokemon Go. The game allows users to leave the house and explore their surroundings to catch Pokemon through augmented reality.
But officials are warning folks to be aware of their surroundings while playing. Since the app’s U.S. launch on July 6, reports of crime have begun to surface- including one armed robbery out of Missouri where it was believed the suspects targeted the victim through the application. The Philadelphia Police 35th District also tweeted Sunday night that they were seeing a string of robberies targeting victims who were using the app.
As app players enjoy the new, unexplored world around them, Philadelphia Police spokesman Eric Gripp sent NBC10 a few simple tips to keep people safe while ‘catching them all.'
Tell your kids about stranger-danger. The way that the game is designed can bring people together in the real world as they search for Pokemon in common areas called gyms and pokestops. Obviously, you never know who you could run into while playing.
Set limits on where your kids can go. "Don't leave the street/neighborhood without me" can limit the amount of strangers that you or your kids could encounter.
Watch the road! I've already seen a number of people - both kids and adults - so engrossed while staring at their phones and following a map, that they've walked right into the street and into objects. Pay attention!
And as always, if you run into an individual that is seemingly up to no good - don't hesitate to dial 911!
Besides the new app, Pokemon fans in the area are also enjoying music from the franchise. ‘Pokemon: Symphonic Evolutions with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’ is underway Sunday evening at the Mann Center in Philadelphia. The Orchestra is bringing to life new music arrangements and visuals from eras of the Pokemon video games.Like most mainstream operating systems these days, fully patched installations of Linux provide a level of security that requires a fair amount of malicious hacking to overcome. Those assurances can be completely undone by a single unpatched application, as Andre' DiMino has demonstrated when he documented an Ubuntu machine in his lab being converted into a Bitcoin-mining, denial-of-service-spewing, vulnerability-exploiting hostage under the control of attackers.
A security researcher with George Washington University, DiMino noticed several IP addresses attempting to hijack the Linux server by exploiting a now-patched PHP flaw that gave attackers the ability to remotely execute commands on vulnerable machines. DiMino was curious to know what the people behind the attacks intended to do with his machine, so he set up a "honeypot" box that, for research purposes, ran an older version of the Web development language.
The attackers' HTTP POST request contained a variety of commands that in short order downloaded a Perl script that was disguised as a PDF document file, executed it, and then deleted it. To ensure success, the attackers repeated the steps using curl, fetch, lwp-get requests. The Perl script was programmed to sleep for periods of time, presumably to prevent administrators from noticing anything amiss. Eventually, the compromised machine connected to an Internet relay chat channel, where it downloaded another script and executed it. Then he ran forensic software and snapped lots of screen shots so everyone could follow along.
In short order, the machine was running a host of apps installed by the attackers. Some of them hijacked the server hardware to perform the mathematical operations required to "mine" Bitcoins and another digital currency known as Primecoin. The server was also equipped with apps to perform denial-of-service attacks on other machines and to scan other machines for known vulnerabilities and exploit them when found.
"Across my honeypots, I'll see dozens of these a day, including Linux ELF [executable and linkable format] files, perlbots, and vintage shells," DiMino wrote in a blog post published Tuesday. "While these injected perl and shell scripts are typically considered the patio gnats of the Internet, more annoying than anything else, they do have the potential to cause considerable harm."
Not just for Windows anymore
DiMino's anatomy lesson is a graphic demonstration of recent advances in exploits for Linux. Once primarily the domain of machines running Windows, point-and-click exploits are used to commandeer machines so attackers can use them in online crime schemes. The increased horsepower and bandwidth available in many Linux servers often makes them more attractive than personal computers running Microsoft OSes. And as has always been the case, hijacked bots don't come with expensive electricity bills, and they often make it easy for criminals to cover their tracks.
The takeaway from the demonstration is just how important it is for admins working with any OS to stay on top of security patching. DiMino counsels admins to go a step further by learning how to actively monitor network activity on the machines they watch over. His blog post provides instructions for using the Volatility software framework to perform forensics on server memory. Among other things, it allows users to identify remote connections and the processes that initiate them.
"Besides ensuring that Internet facing servers are properly patched and hardened, knowing how to quickly track such a compromise should be part of best practices," DiMino wrote.Time Magazine is shooting down President Trump’s claim that he rebuffed the chance to be the publication’s Person of the Year for the second year in a row, saying a dismissive message he posted to Twitter Friday night was “incorrect.”
“Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot,” Trump wrote to his 43 million followers. “I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!”
But a few hours later, Time responded with a tweet of its own, writing, “The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year. TIME does not comment on our choice until publication, which is December 6.”
The rebuttal unleashed a tidal wave of similar tweets from celebrities and athletes, many of whom mirrored Trump’s message but replaced Time with a publication related to their respective professions.
Among them was “Veep” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who wrote, “@nytimes just called to say I was PROBABLY going to be named comedienne of the year but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!”
The magazine’s former managing editor Richard Stengel also weighed in on Twitter, writing, “Hate to tell you but that PROBABLY means you’re NOT Person of the Year. They just wanted a photo shoot. But I’m sure you still have that fake TIME cover somewhere in storage.”
Stengel was referencing news reports earlier this year that revealed several of Trump’s private golf clubs displayed fake issues of Time with Trump on the cover.
In the past, Trump has falsely claimed to hold the record for cover appearances.
But Fox News host Sean Hannity was among those to come to Trump’s defense, tweeting, “I call total (expletive) on Time. Answer the question; did you or did you not call the WH and say @realDonaldTrump @POTUS was being considered for person of the year and ask for an interview?”
Later in the night, Hannity wrote: “Waiting…”
Every year since 1927, Time has featured one person who has “for better or for worse” done “the most to influence the events” of that year.
The weekly magazine gave Trump that distinction last year and motivated it with a scathing feature piece that appeared to lean more toward “worse” than “better.”
The White House did not comment on the back-and-forth yesterday. Time didn’t return a request for comment.
Time will announce its choice for Person of the Year Dec. 6.
Herald wire services contributed to this report.The Danish Scout Association has bought Middelgrund Fort, a small artificial island in the Øresund, just off the coast near Hellerup.
The acquisition cost 20 million kroner and was made possible thanks to a donation from the Nordea Foundation and the AP Møller Foundation.
The scouts plan to turn the place into an original activity-laboratory, created by and for children and young people.
READ MORE: Buy your own Danish island
Developing social responsibility
The Isle of Youth, as the Middelgrund Fort will be called, will offer a range of activities and experiences that will help children and young people to develop a sense of community and social responsibility.
"Middelgrundsfortet has a unique location and surroundings," David Hansen, the head of the Scout Association, said in a statement.
"It is far-removed from the everyday environment, which works well for the creative challenges children and young people can experience there."
Ideal for outdoor activities
According to the sale advert, the basement of the fort has more than 15,000 sqm and 30 rooms.
An additional 50,000 sqm outdoors will provide the scouts with lots of space for their activities.
Middelgrunds Fort was originally put up for sale in 2010 for a price of 75 million kroner.
Built to protect against bombing
The fort is one of the world's largest man-made islands and was built in the early 1890s by King Christian IX to protect Copenhagen against bombing.
The Danish Scout Association will take over Middelgrundsfortet on April 1.A 3-year-old girl died Friday after being pinned under an automatic garage door at a home in the Waldorf area, Charles County sheriff’s officials said.
The girl had slipped out of the house in the 2900 block of Eutaw Forest Drive and into the garage just before 4 p.m., said Diane Richardson, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.
Investigators think that she might have pushed the door’s control button and then tried to run out of the garage, authorities said.
An adult in the house heard the door and within minutes went to check, according to authorities.
The door apparently struck the girl’s back and pinned her, Richardson said.
Based on a preliminary investigation, the girl may have died of asphyxiation, the spokeswoman said. An autopsy is scheduled.
Many garage doors have safety features to keep them from closing when something is in the way. Authorities said they will look into the door’s mechanism.The number of oil and gas wells drilled within central Canada and central USA has continued to rise, with an average of 50,000 new wells per year since 2000. These wells bring economic benefits and expectations of at least a temporary energy security. However, the benefits also come with a downside: the potential loss or degradation of local ecosystems.
Recently, a team of scientists explored this threat, providing the first empirical analysis of the consequences of drilling on our ecosystem. In their new study, high resolution satellite data of vegetation dynamics was combined with industry data and publicly available historical records of oil and gas well locations. The research team also evaluated patterns of land-use change and water use.
The team first investigated changes in the amount of carbon fixed by plants and then accumulated in biomass. Changes in this process were examined because carbon fixation and accumulation are fundamental to the life cycle on Earth.
Analysis revealed that across central North America, oil and gas activity reduced the amount of carbon fixed and accumulated in biomass by ~4.5 Tg of carbon (equivalent to a month of forage for five million animals) or 10 Tg of dry biomass (equivalent to ~6 percent of wheat produced in the region in 2013). The reduction comes largely from the direct removal of vegetation due to construction of the drilling sites and necessary roads. This downward trend will likely persist with continued growth in oil and gas activities.
Wildlife habitat and landscape connectivity are two other major ecosystem functions that the team looked at. They estimated that the land area occupied by oil and gas equipment from 2000-2013 is equivalent to the land area of three Yellowstone National Parks. The takeover of this much land can interfere with migratory pathways, alter wildlife behavior and mortality, and increase the likelihood of a disruptive and invasive species infiltrating the ecosystem.
In addition to land use, water use is also a concern. The hydraulic fracturing technology currently in use requires 8,000 to 50,000 m3 of water per well for the first fracturing; in total, this process used anywhere from 7,187 to 33,903 million m3 for wells drilled across the region from 2000 to 2012. Roughly half of these wells are located in regions that were already water-stressed.
The data paints a clear picture of the current and future consequences of the continued increase in oil and gas activity. Most land-use decision making is too focused to result in a truly comprehensive assessment of ecological trade-offs and economic benefit. It is now more important than ever that key decision-makers and scientists team up to ensure the most accurate information is used to shape the policies dealing with delicate water/energy/food balances.
While the data tells a clear story, only integration of the data into land-use planning and policy across many scales will allow us to ensure that damage to the ecosystem is minimized.
Science, 2015. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa4785 (About DOIs).Your New Cut For 2015
From burgeoning trends to essential gym kit, we’ve given you plenty of inspiration for switching up your personal style in 2015. But what about that all-important and ever-present accessory: your hair?
We caught up with resident hairstylist Dion Padan, who shed some light on finding your new hairstyle for the new year.
1. Make Waves
A lot of my clients come to me asking how best to achieve more movement in their hair. There are several ways to get a wavier look, though a large part of a wavy style’s success is dependent on how straight your hair is to begin with.
Start by applying a sea salt spray or texturising lotion to towel dry hair. Next, you could try blow drying with a hair diffuser, which will help to form waves as part of the drying process. A diffuser is a hair dryer attachment that – unsurprisingly – diffuses the air the dryer emits, allowing it to spread softly through the hair rather than blasting it full-on.
You should aim to get the diffuser as close to the root area as possible and slowly rotate the dryer to create the movement. You’ll also want to select a low speed setting to avoid creating a big fluffy head of hair. If you don’t have a diffuser at your disposal, use a hair dryer, again set at a low speed, and simply scrunch your hair with your hand to create the desired movement.
If it’s a more structured wave you’re after, then a ghd Mini Styler works particularly well, even on short hair. What’s key here is that you’re painstakingly methodical in the way that you manipulate the hair using the styler, taking care not to twist too tight or your hair will appear curly rather than wavy. Starting at the root area, twist the styler down the hair shaft to achieve the wave.
If using an electrical styler on a regular basis seems like more hassle than it’s worth, then there’s also the option of getting your hair permed. Yes, I did just say that. And no, I know you’re not trying out for the latest stage production of Fame. It sounds terrifying but having your hair permed on a large perm rod would not only create an exceptional wave, it’d also ensure your hair stays wavy until the perm grows out. Remember, the larger the rod the looser the wave. Speak to your stylist to see if it would be suitable for your hair.
Once you’ve laid the foundations, you can further accentuate your waves by using the right styling product; we recommend Fat Hed by Fudge, Easy Rider/Night Rider by Kevin Murphy or L’Oreal’s Deviation Paste. Try scrunching in a little at the root area to give your waves optimal support.
Wavy Hairstyles Lookbook
Key Products
Ghd Air Kit Ghd Diffuser And Size 3 Ceramic Brush
Loreal Professionnel Tecni Art Fix Deviation Paste 100ml
Fudge Fat Hed 75g
Kevin Murphy Hair Resort Spray
Ghd Gold Mini Styler
Kevin Murphy Easy Rider 110ml
Redefine The Curl
Given the popularity of a short back and sides, going curly on top can create an eye-catching contrast that’s chock full of texture.
Much like sculpting waves, a great curl is best achieve using a ghd Mini Styler; clump together a portion of your hair and rotate the styler down through the shaft as tight as possible to maximise the curl.
Again, a perm is preferable (and not to be sneered at) for those who want a style that’s as low maintenance as possible. For a tighter curl, your stylist will need to apply a slightly different perming technique; talk to them to discuss exactly how tight you want your curl to be, and what’s most suitable for your hair type.
To style, apply some Fudge Liquid Skrewd or Bumble & Bumble Holding Foam to the hair before blow drying, and then use a product like Bumble & Bumble Curl Conscious Defining Cream, Kevin Murphy Easy Rider or Fudge Ends to achieve your desired finish.
Curly Hairstyles Lookbook
Key Products
Fudge Liquid Skrewd 150ml
Bumble And Bumble Curl Conscious Holding Foam 100ml
Bumble And Bumble Curl Conscious Defining Creme 250ml
Kevin Murphy Easy Rider 110ml
Fudge Fat Hed 75g
American Crew Curl Construct 125ml
2. Go Longer
Long hair is set to have a moment in 2015. Granted, this type of cut isn’t for everyone but – on the right guy and styled the right way – it can look superb. One caveat: it’s best to avoid growing your hair long if it’s thick or unruly, as it will take a lot of time to blow dry and style each day.
Arguably the worst part of growing your hair long are those awkward, in-between stages where the length is not quite short, not quite long, and not quite fit for being seen by the general public. If you find yourself at one of these lousy, transitional periods, head straight to your stylist so that they can tidy it up and offer some expert advice on how best to get over the hump.
The key to making long hair work is taking good care of it and ensuring you get it cut regularly, so that you avoid excessive dryness and split ends. Care-wise, you’ll need a good quality shampoo and conditioner; a deep conditioning treatment or leave-in conditioner applied every week or so can also help keep your hair looking its absolute best.
When it comes to creating your style, there’s a particularly fine line between Fabio Lanzoni and Scandi-inspired cool. The trick is to aim for a look that’s relaxed and laid-back rather than overly preened.
With this in mind, many of my clients simply choose to wash their hair in the evening and let it dry naturally overnight for a lived in appearance. A similar finish can also be achieve with products like Kevin Murphy Undressed or Fudge Ends, which can be scrunched into blow dried hair.
Alternatively, you could try working some L’Oreal Mythic Oil or Moroccan Oil through towel dried hair and then let it dry naturally – this helps smooth the hair and gives it a super healthy shine.
However, if you’re growing your hair precisely to avoid all this precision styling, the ‘man bun’ and ‘top knot’ are both extremely on-trend styles at the moment, yet completely fuss-free.
Long Hairstyles Lookbook
Key Products
Moroccanoil Moisture Repair Shampoo And Conditioner Duo 500ml
Redken Clear Moisture Duo 2 Products
Kevin Murphy Undressed
Fudge Ends Miracle Treatment 50ml
Loreal Professionnel Mythic Oil 125ml
Moroccanoil Treatment 100ml
3. The New Short: Lower Fades & Tramlines
Super tight sides have been the go-to for many guys for a while now. This year, why not experiment with slightly lower fades and maintain a little more length through the sides? This technique reduces the degree of scalp exposure, but still keeps the edges looking smart and sharp, as well as giving you a little more hair to play with when creating slick styles.
When creating a high shine style, preparation is key, so make sure to apply product to lightly towel dried hair. Rub some Fudge Fat Hed, Kevin Murphy Super Goo, or American Crew Pomade/Grooming Cream through the hair and blow dry while combing back or to the side to achieve the slick, precise finish we’re after.
For those keen to push the envelope, tramlines have been making a slow but sure comeback, aided by the 1990s style revival. Contrary to popular belief, tramlines don’t have to be tacky; there’s a whole spectrum of styles from subtle to statement-making. If you want to try it out, opt for a shaved-in parting, or if you’re up for going all out, ask your stylist to suggest a design they think would work for your specific hair type and head shape.
Short Hairstyles Lookbook
Key Products
Kevin Murphy Super Goo
American Crew Pomade 85gm
Pomade Wax Mr Natty
Baxter Of California Soft Water Pomade
Fudge Fat Hed 75g
American Crew Grooming Cream 85gm
Bringing Hair Quirks Into Check
Your mum might have described them as ‘charming’ but trust us, keeping hair quirks in check comes highly recommended. If you struggle with strong hair growth patterns such as a double crown, nape whorl or widow’s peak, then it’s best to blunt cut these areas to keep the hair under control, as they can become particularly unruly as the hair grows out.
Here are a few tips for controlling or disguising these common hair growth patterns:
Double Crown: Try growing a good bit of length through the top so that you can slick it back easily; this will help keep the crown under control. Alternatively, you could cut the crown area short and keep the length at the front – perfect for styling into a pompadour.
Try growing a good bit of length through the top so that you can slick it back easily; this will help keep the crown under control. Alternatively, you could cut the crown area short and keep the length at the front – perfect for styling into a pompadour. Nape Whorl: Ask your stylist to taper the hairline to blend it in, and remember – the shorter the length the better, for optimal concealment.
Ask your stylist to taper the hairline to blend it in, and remember – the shorter the length the better, for optimal concealment. Cowlick: If you’re lucky, you may be able to embrace your cowlick, growing and styling your hair in such a way that it doesn’t bother you. However, if your lick tends to split or veer off in an odd direction, then it’s best to have your stylist cut the section as close as possible to the scalp.
Final Word
Whether you’re looking to tweak a tried and trusted style or opt for a complete overhaul, the aforementioned cuts are set to be key for the coming year.
Is changing up your hairstyle on your list of resolutions? Which style do you expect to explode in 2015?
Let us know in the comments section…He said the blockchain "is an opportunity for banks to learn together about something that could have a very significant impact on our business in future years. It could be a virtual banking system."
Other banks are also investigating how the blockchain might be employed. Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer said last month the development of the blockchain "will certainly have a very interesting and potentially disruptive impact on financial services". Westpac and CBA are also conducting trials with Ripple Labs to develop blockchain-like technology to allow banks to send information to each other.
Development of the blockchain has been one of the hottest topics at the SIBOS 2015 payments conference in Singapore this week, which is being attended by 8000 delegates.
Despite their enthusiasm for the blockchain, banks appear less supportive of bitcoin start-ups, with the competition watchdog considering an inquiry into the actions of banks for shutting down accounts of local bitcoin operators.
In a lunchtime speech to the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, Mr Thorburn also said NAB would put more funding into NAB Ventures, an innovation fund seeded with $50 million in July to invest in potentially disruptive businesses. He added the fund was not established to make a profit. "We are doing it to learn. It is equity capital at risk so we can learn faster to protect the core, grow our business and serve our clients better."In 1973, two years after President Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” New York Governor Rockefeller passed the toughest drug laws in the nation. The notorious Rockefeller Drug Laws demanded mandatory sentences for people convicted of drug law violations, while removing the Judge’s power to consider each case individually. They also turned New York’s prisons into merciless machines, destroying families and lives, and locking up tens of thousands of first-time offenders, many addicted to drugs. Eventually these laws became the template for the federal government’s draconian sentencing laws passed in the 1980s that imprisoned millions of Americans with mandatory minimum sentences.
In 1985, I made the biggest mistake in my life – and it cost me my freedom, my soul, and my humanity. Because I was desperate for cash I was convinced by a bowling teammate to get involved with a drug deal. In exchange for $500, I transported an envelope containing 4 ounces of cocaine from the Bronx to Mt. Vernon, NY. To my surprise I walked into a police sting operation where 20 undercover cops were waiting for me. I did everything wrong and was convicted and sentenced to 15 years-to-life under the Rockefeller Drug Laws. I served 12 years in a maximum security prison until I was granted executive clemency by Governor George Pataki in 1997.
Upon my release, I struggled with my newfound freedom and realized that the freedom I fought so long and hard to win was not what I imagined it would be. The way of life I once knew was gone, along with my friends and support base. I discovered I was quite alone in a new world that had drastically changed. But I could not forget those I left in prison and decided to go on a rescue mission to save them and change the laws that had imprisoned me.
– Read the entire article at AlterNet.Bangladesh’s top court on Tuesday rejected a final appeal by the leader of an Islamist party against a death sentence over atrocities committed during the 1971 war of independence, lawyers said, meaning he could be hanged at any time.
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The verdict comes as the Muslim-majority nation suffers a series of militant attacks, the most serious on July 1, when gunmen stormed a cafe in the capital, Dhaka, and killed 20 hostages, most of them foreigners.
In March, the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for Mir Quasem Ali, 63, a media tycoon and key financier of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, for murder, confinement, torture and incitement to religious hatred during the war to separate from Pakistan.
The war crimes tribunal set up by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2010 has sparked violence and drawn criticism from opposition politicians, including leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami, who say it is victimising her political opponents. The government denies the accusations.Advertisement
That 2012 paper from UC Berkeley on the advantages of giving mobile robots tails continues to inspire roboticists, nearly two years later. At IROS 2013, we checked out a new implementation of an actuated tail that makes for one seriously maneuverable robot car.
The robot is called Dima (a name derived from a Sotho word that means "flash of lightning"), and it was deliberately designed to be able to achieve high speeds with a high center of mass, a combination that works best (or only) when driving in straight lines. Turning at any speed that you might charitably call exciting leads to an immediate toppling over, but the addition of an actuated tail that can swing in the roll axis of the robot can effectively keep it stable:
This is a bit different from some of the other tail-assisted turns that we've seen robots doing (most notably this robot from UC Berkeley), because in this case, the tail is being used to counteract the torque that the robot generates while turning, rather than being used to generate torque to turn the robot. Also, the tail is being turned in a roll axis instead of a yaw axis, an idea that the researchers got after watching how a cheetah's tail moves when it makes high-speed turns.
After a bunch of experiments with both tail-less and tailed versions of Dima, results showed that the addition of the actuated tail allowed the robot to make stable turns at over twice the speed that it would be able to otherwise (7.5 m/s as opposed to 3.1 m/s).
So, the obvious question now is whether there are any rules in Formula One specifically prohibiting the use of active tails, and if not, when we'll start seeing them on race cars.
"Rapid Turning at High-Speed: Inspirations from the Cheetah's Tail," by Amir Patel and Martin Braae from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, was presented last week at IROS 2013 in Tokyo, Japan.
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The IRS has finally publicly admitted that patriots and Tea Party groups were being specifically targeted for “extra scrutiny”, but the truth is that top IRS officials knew that this intimidating and harassing behavior was taking place two years ago. A report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration that is going to be released this week shows that the targeting of patriots and Tea Party groups began as early as March 2010, and that the head of the IRS tax-exempt organizations division was specifically told about this targeting in June 2011. But then the IRS lied to Congress five separate times between November 18th, 2011 and June 15th, 2012 about what was going on. IRS officials flat out lied to Congress and adamantly denied that patriots and Tea Party groups had been specifically targeted. So should we believe the IRS now when they try to pin the blame on a few “low-level” employees in Cincinnati? And were Barack Obama or any members of his administration ever told about any of this? After all, patriot groups and Tea Party organizations were screaming bloody murder about this harassment at the time and if the truth had come out before the election it could have been a massive embarrassment for the Obama campaign. Are we to believe that nobody inside the Obama campaign ever had any discussions about this? If Obama or those close to him did know what was going on, why didn’t they ever do anything to stop it?
According to Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt groups, any groups that had the words “patriot” or “tea party” in their names were specifically targeted for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. The demands that were made on some of these groups were extraordinary.
One group from Kentucky was sent an 88 page questionaire…
Conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They said the agency asked them an inordinate number of questions to justify their tax-exempt status, and 27 Tea Party groups joined with conservative lawyer Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice to push back on the IRS. Kentucky 9/12 Project is one of the conservative organizations that joined with Sekulow to complain of government overreach. Its executive director, Eric Wilson, said his group applied for tax-exempt status in December 2010. He said the IRS responded with an 88-page questionnaire that sought all the organization’s correspondence, the names of its members — along with details of group’s activity on Facebook and Twitter.
In other instances, the level of information that was requested was beyond absurd…
Stephanie Scruggs, who works with The912Project and United in Action, said, for example the IRS demanded copies of every single post to every single organization website page, Twitter feed and Facebook feed. The IRS also requested contact information for family members of each board member. And yet another demand was for |
colonial gentleman.
Except for two miserable years that he spent in New York City, he resided in Providence, Rhode Island for his entire life.
He was exceedingly fond of cats and ice cream, and exceedingly repelled by cold temperatures and the smell of seafood.
He invented a fictional book of occult lore, the NECRONOMICON, and succeeded so well in his attempts to lend it an air of authenticity (via, e.g., the composing of a faux history of its various editions and translations, and also numerous lengthy "quotations") that he inadvertently created a hoax whose influence survives to this day.
He died of intestinal cancer at the age of 46 after a brief hospitalization, during which he experienced agonizing pain. He kept a written record of his sensations of dying, in hopes that this would be of use to medical science, but it was discarded by a nurse who did not know what it was.
After his death, two of his friends and correspondents, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, founded the publishing company Arkham House, named after Lovecraft's fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, in order to keep his work alive. Arkham House went on to become a major force in the field of horror, fantasy, and science fiction publishing, largely by dint of its publishing first books by many authors who later achieved major renown, such as Ray Bradbury and Ramsey Campbell. Lovecraft's life is so well chronicled, both in books and in readily available essays and articles on the Web (regarding which, see below), that the interested reader will have no trouble learning more.
Works
STORIES
At present Lovecraft is presently remember primarily for his stories. The very first collection of these, titled The Outsider and Others, was published in 1939 by Arkham House. Today it is a highly prized collector's item, as are other early collections such as Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1943) and Marginalia (1944), both from Arkham House. These were based on questionable texts, however, which later scholars and editors, especially S.T. Joshi, worked to correct.
In the 1980s the definitive editions of Lovecraft's collected prose fiction, with texts edited and corrected by Joshi, were published in four volumes by Arkham House: The Dunwich Horror and Others
Dagon and Other Macabre Tales
At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels (currently listed at the Arkham House Website as At the Mountains of Madness and Other Macabre Tales)
(currently listed at the Arkham House Website as At the Mountains of Madness and Other Macabre Tales) The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions In the English-speaking literary world, Lovecraft has long been widely dismissed as a genre writer and pulp hack, but the turn of the twenty-first century saw the publication of several new editions that went a long way toward canonizing him as a mainstream American author. Penguin, the New York publisher well known for its line of trade paperback classics, published three Lovecraft collections, all of them edited by Joshi and using his corrected texts: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (1999), The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (2001), and The Dreams in the Witch-House and Other Weird Stories (2004). Each volume includes a long introduction and extensive notes by Joshi, and together the series reprints almost the entire contents of the Arkham House three-volume definitive set. In 2004 The Modern Library, whose editions of classic works by classic authors have long served as an informal registry of literary canonization in America, announced the publication of two Lovecraft volumes for 2005: H.P. Lovecraft: Tales, edited by Peter Straub and containing twenty-two stories, and At the Mountains of Madness: The Definitive Edition, with an introduction by China Mi?ville. H.P. Lovecraft: Tales was published in March of 2005 and predictably drew much popular and critical attention to Lovecraft and his literary legacy.
Also of note are two volumes of annotated stories. The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft (Dell, 1997) contains extensive annotations by S.T. Joshi. More Annotated Lovecraft (Dell 1999) contains annotations by Joshi and fellow Lovecraft scholar Peter Cannon. Both volumes feature numerous photographs and illustrations.
Aside from the editions named above, numerous mass market and trade paperback collections of Lovecraft's stories have been published by Ballantine, Del Rey, and other publishers since the 1960s. However, these do not contain the corrected texts and are therefore criticized by purists. For a time these alternative editions could be recommended simply because they were inexpensive and more easily procurable than the Arkham House ones, but the appearance of the affordable Penguin collections effectively nullifies this rationale.
At various times, large numbers of Lovecraft's stories, utilizing the uncorrected texts, have been available for free on the Internet. One prominent site, The H.P. Lovecraft Library, which for a number of years provided e-texts of almost all of Lovecraft's published stories, has at the time of this writing either moved or been shut down due to copyright restrictions. Other sites are currently available that relist most or all of what appeared at The H.P. Lovecraft Library, but given the inherent instability of Internet content, the interested reader is advised to use a good search engine to obtain the most current results. Beyond that, the truly interested reader should purchase one or more of the print collections described above.
POETRY
In addition to prose, Lovecraft wrote a huge amount of poetry, and the collected results can found in The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft, edited by Joshi and published by Nightshade Books. This book contains, in the words of the introduction, "all known poems by H. P. Lovecraft in existence, including untitled or fragmentary poems found in letters and other documents." Although on the whole Lovecraft's poetry is decidedly inferior to his other work, some of it, such as the long cycle titled Fungi from Yuggoth, is quite accomplished and absorbing.
NONFICTION
Letters
By all accounts Lovecraft wrote literally tens of thousands of letters in his lifetime-one popular estimate places the number at over 80,000-and is therefore, in the words of his biographer and chief scholar, S.T. Joshi, "one of the most self-documented individuals in human history." Joshi is so bold as to speculate that perhaps these letters represent Lovecraft's chief literary achievement: "Although at the moment they are known only to the inner circle of Lovecraft scholars, they are arguably some of the most remarkable literary documents of the century, and it is even conceivable that in the distant future his reputation will rest more on them than on his fiction." It is in his letters, Joshi says, and especially in the longer ones, some of which run to seventy pages, that Lovecraft "reveals his true greatness and diversity as an artist," and also his full humanity (Joshi 2000).
Five volumes of selected letters, representing only a fraction of his total epistolary output, have been published by Arkham House:
Selected Letters I (1911-1924)
Selected Letters II (1925-1929)
Selected Letters III (1929-1931)
Selected Letters IV (1932-1934)
Selected Letters V (1934-1937)
Additional book-length collections of Lovecraft's letters are available from various publishers, including Necronomicon Press and Nightshade Books.
Essays
Lovecraft's renowned survey of supernatural horror fiction, Supernatural Horror in Literature, can be found in the Arkham House collection Dagon and Other Macabre Tales. It is also available in a number of stand-alone editions and at several Websites. As always, the definitive text from Arkham House is to be preferred.
In 2004 Hippocampus Press published five volumes of Lovecraft's essays. The Hippocampus Website states, "This edition gathers Lovecraft's complete nonfictional output for the first time, arranged in broad thematic groupings. S. T. Joshi, the world's leading authority on Lovecraft, exhaustively annotates all texts, also providing critical and bibliographical notes." The complete series consists of:
Volume I: Amateur Journalism
Volume II: Literary Criticism
Volume III: Science
Volume IV: Travel
Volume V: Philosophy, Autobiography and Miscellany
OTHER
For those who want to gain a knowledge of Lovecraft's marginalia but are loath to invest in multiple volumes, a generous sampling of such material, including philosophical and political writings, juvenilia, amateur journalism, prose poems, and more, can be found in Arkham House's Miscellaneous Writings, which serves as a companion volume to their four volumes of stories and five volumes of letters.
Secondary Materials
BIOGRAPHIES
H.P. Lovecraft: A Life by S.T. Joshi. Necronomicon Press, 1996. Currently in its 3rd edition, this book will likely remain the definitive Lovecraft biography. Joshi's research and scholarship are impeccable and his writing style engaging and clear. He provides many insights into Lovecraft as an author and a human being, and paints a rounded portrait that shows all sides of Lovecraft's character.
H.P. Lovecraft: A Biography by L. Sprague de Camp. Barnes & Noble Books, 1996. Originally published as Lovecraft: A Biography in 1975. This book has the distinction of being the first full-scale Lovecraft biography, but its defects have long been recognized: it contains many factual errors and is larded with the opinions of its author, who took it upon himself to evaluate every aspect of Lovecraft's life and behavior in moral terms. The result is a book that feels arbitrarily and annoyingly judgmental. De Camp's frequent opining about Lovecraft's need to "grow up" and achieve a "mature" and "manly" outlook on life quickly becomes tiresome. Nevertheless, the book does possess an inherent fascination, largely owing to its subject matter, and it has the virtue of collecting between a single set of covers virtually every scrap of information that was known about Lovecraft at the time of its writing.
In addition to these two biographies, numerous other biographical pieces, including memoirs, remembrances, and even a collection of Lovecraft's essays and letters arranged to form an autobiography, have been published. Most are readily available either new or on the used market. Among the most well known are the memoir Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside by Lovecraft's close friend and fellow horror writer, Frank Belknap Long, and Lovecraft at Last by Willis Conover, which collects Conover's extensive correspondence with Lovecraft when he (Conover) was an adolescent. Sixty-five personal reminiscences of Lovecraft are published together in Lovecraft Remembered, edited by Peter Cannon.
CRITICISM
Books
Far too many book-length critical studies have been published to list them all here. Among the most prominent are: H.P. Lovecraft: A Critical Study by Donald Burleson (1983)
H.P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism edited by S.T. Joshi (1980). As the title would indicate, this book collects forty years' worth of seminal Lovecraft criticism, which makes it particularly helpful for giving the reader an awareness of the fundamental changes that have occurred in this field over time.
Lovecraft: A Study in the Fantastic by Maurice Levy, translated by S.T. Joshi (1988)
Primal Sources: Essays on H.P. Lovecraft by S.T. Joshi (2003)
H.P. Lovecraft: contre le monde, contre la vie by Michel Houellebecq. This book, whose title translates as H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, is scheduled for its first official English-language print publication in March or April 2005. But a PDF file of a translation by Robin Mackay (who is apparently not the same person who translated the forthcoming print version) is already available for free download on the Internet. Houellebecq's "take" on Lovecraft may be of particular interest to Ligotti fans, since it focuses sharply on the nihilistic overtones of Lovecraft's oeuvre. At the end of his exploration, Houellebecq writes, "Here is the deepest secret of Lovecraft's genius, and the pure source of his poetry: he succeeded in transforming his disgust for life into an active hostility." There is every reason to think this assessment would resonate deeply with Ligotti. Periodicals
A number of periodicals devoted entirely or partially to the study of Lovecraft and his writings have been published over the years. The two most prominent are Crypt of Cthulhu and Lovecraft Studies.
Internet Resources
This is of course only a partial listing of the available resources, since there are literally thousands of sites devoted wholly or partly to Lovecraft. Many that are not listed here are quite worthy of attention. The H.P. Lovecraft Archive -http://www.hplovecraft.com-Created and maintained by Donovan Loucks, this is effectively the official Lovecraft site on the World Wide Web. It contains detailed information on Lovecraft's life, writings, and fictional creations, as well as information and resources relating to his place in popular culture, the criticism of his work, and more. It also features a wealth of links to, and information about, other Lovecraft-related resources, both on the Web and in print, thus rendering it the single best resource for those hoping to learn more about Lovecraft (although the Wikipedia article listed below is so thorough that it presents some valid competition).
-http://www.hplovecraft.com-Created and maintained by Donovan Loucks, this is effectively the official Lovecraft site on the World Wide Web. It contains detailed information on Lovecraft's life, writings, and fictional creations, as well as information and resources relating to his place in popular culture, the criticism of his work, and more. It also features a wealth of links to, and information about, other Lovecraft-related resources, both on the Web and in print, thus rendering it the single best resource for those hoping to learn more about Lovecraft (although the Wikipedia article listed below is so thorough that it presents some valid competition). "H.P. Lovecraft" by S.T. Joshi -http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/lovecraft.html-One of the longest and most comprehensive essays about Lovecraft available online at the time of this writing. It originally appeared as the introductory essay to An Epicure of the Terrible: A Centennial Anthology of Essays in Honor of H.P. Lovecraft (1991), edited by David E. Schultz and S.T. Joshi. Here, it has been revised and updated by Joshi for its Web appearance. In addition to focusing on Lovecraft's biography in some detail, it delves into his fiction, letters, essays, philosophical and political thought, and more. In effect, the essay represents a condensation of Joshi's H.P. Lovecraft: A Life.
-http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/lovecraft.html-One of the longest and most comprehensive essays about Lovecraft available online at the time of this writing. It originally appeared as the introductory essay to (1991), edited by David E. Schultz and S.T. Joshi. Here, it has been revised and updated by Joshi for its Web appearance. In addition to focusing on Lovecraft's biography in some detail, it delves into his fiction, letters, essays, philosophical and political thought, and more. In effect, the essay represents a condensation of Joshi's. H.P. Lovecraft: A Pictorial Bibliography -http://mysite.verizon.net/hplovecraft/index.html-A comprehensive and ongoing bibliography of books, articles, and essays by and about Lovecraft, beginning with Lovecraft's 1915 pamphlet "The Crime of Crimes: Lusitania, 1915" and continuing down to the present. What makes it an even more valuable and interesting resource is that it includes cover scans of most works (when they are available).
-http://mysite.verizon.net/hplovecraft/index.html-A comprehensive and ongoing bibliography of books, articles, and essays by and about Lovecraft, beginning with Lovecraft's 1915 pamphlet "The Crime of Crimes: Lusitania, 1915" and continuing down to the present. What makes it an even more valuable and interesting resource is that it includes cover scans of most works (when they are available). Wikipedia article on Lovecraft-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft-Admirably detailed article that devotes separate sections to Lovecraft's biography, fictional writings, poetry, marginalia, critical study and reputation, and more. Well-stocked with links to books, publishers, and other items of interest, including several online texts of Lovecraft's stories. PART TWO: The Masters' Eyes Shining with Secrets
I. Introduction: The Shade of Lovecraft
Jonathan Padgett, the originator of Thomas Ligotti Online, relates the following anecdote in his Ligotti FAQ: "In a phone conversation I had with Mr. Ligotti in the Spring of 1998, he explained that Lovecraft's fiction had had the most profound influence on his life rather than his fiction, as reading HPL's work was the impetus for Ligotti's writing career. Aside from this fact, Lovecraft really has had very little to do with the subject or style of Ligotti's writing" From this, one might infer that Lovecraft's influence is not readily apparent in Ligotti's work. But if this is so, then what are we to make of the phenomenon noted by Ramsey Campbell, who in his introduction to Ligotti's first book, the short story collection Songs of a Dead Dreamer, stated, "At times [Ligotti] suggests terrors as vast as Lovecraft's, though the terrors are quite other than Lovecraft's" (
It is tempting to try to answer this question simply by turning to the available Ligotti interviews and assembling a montage of quotations, since he has spoken repeatedly and extensively about his relationship to Lovecraft. But a more thorough and satisfying answer can only come from examining the evidence and extrapolating independent conclusions from it. This will also give us the opportunity to examine in depth some of Lovecraft's own writings and representative attitudes, and to compare and contrast them with Ligotti's in order to arrive at a general understanding of where both men stand in relation to each other.
We may begin, however, with the aforementioned interviews, and in perusing them construct a chronology of Ligotti's acquaintance with Lovecraft, and also with the field of horror fiction in general, that may prove instructive.
II. Dark Guru, Personal Presence: Lovecraft in Ligotti's life
Ligotti was born in July of 1953 and, by his own account, had no significant exposure to horror fiction, nor any serious desire to read it, until he was eighteen years old and accidentally discovered Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House at a garage sale in 1970/1971. In fact, prior to this he had never felt much interest in books and literature at all. In his own words, "Until reading Jackson's horror novel, I had read only a few works of literature in my entire life and almost all of those were reluctantly scanned under the duties of assignments in school. Having been something of a burnout in the late 1960s, I never really learned my way around a library and the concept of bookstores was wholly alien to me." When he began reading Jackson's novel, it came as a sort of revelation to him to realize that the book had served as the basis for a film he had liked, director Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963). Upon finishing the book, he "felt a definite hunger for more horror stories, but not necessarily those of the Jacksonian type." What he wanted to read were not stories about modern characters set in modern times, but ones more like the movies he had enjoyed as a child, "the more clich?d Gothic horror movies set in the Victorian era....[T]his was the kind of horror fiction I was seeking, the progeny of Poe's tales" (Ford, p. 31).
Before going on to describe Ligotti's successful search for of this type of story, it is necessary to step back briefly and look to an event that had occurred prior to all of this, and that had laid precisely the right emotional and philosophical foundation to render him exquisitely responsive to Lovecraft's fictional vision of the universe. It had occurred when Ligotti was seventeen years old and under the influence of drugs and alcohol. He himself describes the event, and also his mindset leading up to it, thus: "As a teenager I had a tendency to depression. To me, the world was just something to escape from. I started escaping with alcohol and then, as the sixties wore on, with every kind of drug I could get. In August of 1970 I suffered the first attack of what would become a lifelong anxiety-panic disorder" (Angerhuber & Wagner, p. 53). Elsewhere he has described the event as an "emotional breakdown" and averred that although it occurred "following intense use of drugs and booze," we should not assign a purely causal role to these intoxicants, since they "served only as a catalyst for a fate that my high-strung and mood-swinging self would have encountered at some point" (Schweitzer, p. 30).
More than a mere panic attack, the episode involved a terrifying vision of the universe, and of reality itself, that permanently altered his worldview in a direction that was, although he could not know it at the time, proto-Lovecraftian. He has made this connection clear in several interviews, such as the one conducted by Robert Bee, in which Ligotti described Lovecraft's famous "cosmic perspective" as "the idea, as well as the emotional sensation, that human notions of value and meaning, even sense itself, are utterly fictitious," and then added, "Not long before I began reading Lovecraft's stories I experienced-in a state of panic, I should add-such a perspective, which has remained as the psychological and emotional backdrop of my life ever since" (Bee). Similarly, he told Thomas Wagner and Monika Angerhuber that he discovered Lovecraft "not too long after" that first attack and "found that the meaningless and menacing universe described in Lovecraft's stories corresponded very closely to the place I was living at that time, and ever since for that matter" (Angerhuber & Wagner, p. 53).
So: In August of 1970-the very month in which, eighty years earlier, H.P. Lovecraft had been born-a seventeen-year-old Thomas Ligotti experienced a horrifying vision of the universe as a "meaningless and menacing" place in which "human notions of value and meaning, even sense itself, are utterly fictitious." Shortly afterward, near the end of 1970 or beginning of 1971, he discovered Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, read it, and hungered for a different type of horror fiction. Since he was not familiar with libraries or bookstores, his search took him in an unlikely direction that produced an equally unlikely, though fortuitous, result: "The first place I looked in my quest for horror literature was the local drugstore, of all places. What strange luck that contained in its racks was a paperback entitled Tales of Horror and the Supernatural by Arthur Machen. And I soon discovered that this was exactly what I had been looking for" (Ford, p. 31). Shortly after reading the Machen collection, at some point in 1971, he returned to the same drugstore and bought another book. It was the Ballantine edition of Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Volume 1 (Ford, p. 31; Bryant). And even though he had enjoyed the Machen book, the experience of reading Lovecraft did what Machen had not: it set off an explosive sense of identification and inspired Ligotti with a desire to write horror stories himself.
The reasons for this are various, but they all center around the overwhelming sense of empathy that he felt for Lovecraft's outlook. Lovecraft was "the first author with whom I strongly identified...a dark guru who confirmed to me all my most awful suspicions about the universe" (Paul & Schurholz, p. 18 ). Still fresh from the initial attack of his anxiety-panic disorder and still living in the grip of the horrific worldview it had opened to him, Ligotti felt "grateful that someone else had perceived the world in a way similar to my own view" (Angerhuber & Wagner, p. 53). And although the inspirational connection may not be obvious or necessary, for Ligotti it was an organic part of his remarkably intense emotional response to Lovecraft: "When I first read Lovecraft around 1971, and even more so when I began to read about his life, I immediately knew that I wanted to write horror stories" (Wilbanks).
As it turned out, Ligotti did not actually undertake the writing of fiction or anything else besides school assignments until late in his college career, when he "found the required writing that I was doing to be very stimulating: it made me high, or at least distracted me from my chronic anxiety, and I wanted to do more of it" (Schweitzer, p. 24). But his path as a writer had already been determined by that initial experience of responding to Lovecraft from the depths of his being, in the wake of which "there was never a question that I would write anything else other than horror stories" (Angerhuber & Wagner, p. 53).
Recently (as of February 2005), he has provided a bit more explanation about the specific nature of Lovecraft's inspirational influence upon him:
From what has already been said, it should be obvious that Ligotti is speaking autobiographically here. Elsewhere, he has stated directly that he took Lovecraft not only as a literary model, but also as a model for living itself:
Thus it seems impossible to overstress the importance of Lovecraft to Ligotti, not just as a writer whose works he loves, but as a human being with whom he feels a deeply personal sense of kinship. Ligotti himself has stated the matter definitively: "H.P. Lovecraft has been, bar none other, the most intense and real personal presence in my life" (Paul & Schurholz, p. 18 ). "I don't know what would have become of me if I hadn't discovered Lovecraft" (Wilbanks).
III. Notes on the Horror of Writing: Lovecraft in Ligotti's Work, and vice versa
What remains is the question of whether and how Lovecraft's influence can be seen in Ligotti's actual writing. Darrell Schweitzer offered a typical observation, and one that echoes Ramsey Campbell's sentiment expressed above, when he told Ligotti that "your stories only resemble Lovecraft's in the most tenuous manner, in that you too seem to depict a bleak and uncertain universe in which human assumptions don't apply very far. But the more overt Lovecraftisms, from the adjectives to the tentacular Things >From Beyond, are conspicuously absent" (Schweitzer, p. 25). This amounts to saying that Ligotti's stories recall Lovecraft purely in terms of mood and worldview, and for the most part this is correct, although a number of Ligotti's stories do incorporate specific Lovecraftian names and themes. One example is "The Sect of the Idiot," in which Ligotti mentions Azathoth, the deity or cosmic principle which Lovecraft created to symbolize the ultimate ontological horror. Another is "The Last Feast of Harlequin," the earliest-written of Ligotti's published tales, whose plot motifs explicitly recall Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "The Festival," and which ends with a dedication "To the memory of H.P. Lovecraft." But even in these and the few other stories in which definite Lovecraftian elements can be discerned-e.g., "Nethescurial," "The Tsalal," "Dr. Locrian's Asylum"-Ligotti does not mimic Lovecraft's prose style or call out a litany of fictional gods and monsters in the manner that has come to typify Lovecraftian "mythos" fiction. Instead, he returns to the same psychological/spiritual source of nightmarish horror that animated Lovecraft's stories, and works it outward into original tales told in an original style. This style itself may be decidedly non-Lovecraftian-Ligotti's stylistic masters, let it be recalled, are Poe, Nabokov, Burroughs, Schulz, and the like-but the spirit is Lovecraftian to the core.
And this is all to say that Ligotti nowhere apes Lovecraft, but instead, in a certain (purely metaphorical) sense, embodies him, or at least a version of him (see below). In my essay "Thomas Ligotti's Career of Nightmares," I have speculated that Ligotti's writing may be taken "as a kind of distillation and expression in contemporary terms of what was best in Lovecraft" (Cardin, p. 16). Regarding what qualifies as Lovecraft's "best," Ligotti has expressed a definite preference for the earlier, more poetic, dreamlike tales over the later, longer ones such as "The Shadow Out of Time" and At the Mountains of Madness in which Lovecraft attempted to build a combined atmosphere of cosmic horror and scientific/documentary realism. "I find Lovecraft's fastidious attempts at creating a documentary style'reality' an obstacle to appreciating his work," he has said. "To me, reading a horror story should be like dreaming and the more dreamlike a story is, the more it affects me" (Ford, p. 33).
Given such a literary predilection, we can appreciate why Ligotti has designated Lovecraft's dreamlike "The Music of Erich Zann" as his favorite amongst Lovecraft's works. "To me," he has said, "it was in 'Erich Zann' that Lovecraft came up with the perfect model of horror story" (Ayad). He has described this story as "Lovecraft's early, almost premature expression of his ideal as a writer: the use of maximum suggestion and minimal explanation to evoke a sense of supernatural terrors and wonders" (Ligotti 2003, p. 82). "Erich Zann" has long been recognized as one of Lovecraft's most successful stories, and for our purposes here, it is important to recall that Lovecraft wrote it in 1921, only four and a half years into his mature fiction-writing career, which had begun in 1917 with "The Tomb." When we recall his famous assertion from 1936, just a little over a year before his death, that "I'm farther from doing what I want to do than I was 20 years ago" (SL V.224) and put this together with Ligotti's claim that he himself has "tend[ed] to take more cues from Lovecraft's earlier work" (Bryant), we can at last understand what it really means to say that Ligotti's writing distills the essence of Lovecraft's best. Lovecraft himself felt that he had produced his best writing early on, and Ligotti agrees. Considering the deep affective kinship between the two men, it seems reasonable to regard Ligotti's writing as a continuation of the type of writing Lovecraft produced early his fiction writing career, before he made the changes in his approach which hindsight later represented to him as a misstep.
Perhaps this is the appropriate point to highlight the obvious fact that not everyone agrees with Ligotti's preference for Lovecraft's earlier work, and thus not everyone agrees that Ligotti's own authorial choices have been for the best. In the world of horror literature and entertainment at large, most people associate Lovecraft with, and venerate him for, the branch of his writing typified by "The Call of Cthulhu," At the Mountains of Madness, "The Shadow Out of Time," and his other, longer stories told in a realistic tone and mounted as documentary-type expositions of cosmic and/or supernatural themes, as opposed to the earlier stories that Ligotti values most. S.T. Joshi is one prominent figure who believes that Lovecraft produced his most significant work in this later "supernatural realist" mode and that, moreover, this mode has characterized the greatest works in the supernatural horror genre as a whole. "Ligotti's own tastes notwithstanding," he has said, "few will doubt that Lovecraft initiated the most representative phase of his career when he adopted the documentary realism of 'The Call of Cthulhu' in 1926; if he had stopped writing before that point, we would have little reason to remember him" (Joshi 1993, p. 152). By contrast, Ligotti believes that Lovecraft "was at his worst when he tried to be 'convincing' in the manner derived from the late 19th century realist-naturalist writers," and that these attempts failed to achieve the effect Lovecraft had intended. "Lovecraft," he says, "always veered off into a highly unrealistic, as well as highly poetic style," and it is this very deviation from the ideal of realism that Ligotti finds most laudable and valuable (Schweitzer, p. 26). The upshot of the matter, generally speaking, is that Ligotti thinks Lovecraft was at his worst in the very stories where Joshi thinks he was at his best.
What we have here is a case of methodological and even philosophical disagreement, the details of which come out most clearly in the two men's respective assessments of "The Music of Erich Zann." Joshi, like Ligotti, notices something distinctive about this story. On the one hand, he praises it, saying that it "justifiably remained one of Lovecraft's own favourite stories, for it reveals a restraint in its supernatural manifestations (bordering, for one of the few times in his entire work, on obscurity), a pathos in its depiction of its protagonist, and a general polish in its language that Lovecraft rarely achieved in later years." And yet he also expresses a reservation, already hinted at in the parenthetical aside quoted above, about "the very nebulous nature of the horror involved" in the narrative. "There are those," he writes, "who find this sort of restraint effective because it leaves so much to the imagination; and there are those who find it ineffective because it leaves too much to the imagination, and there is a suspicion that the author himself did not have a fully conceived understanding of what the central weird phenomenon of the story is actually meant to be. I fear I am in the latter camp." Although Joshi, like Ligotti, thinks Lovecraft was sometimes a bit too overexplanatory in his later stories, "in 'The Music of Erich Zann' I cannot help feeling that he erred in the opposite direction" (Joshi 1996, pp. 271, 272). But this is of course the complete opposite of Ligotti's opinion, since Ligotti, as we have seen, regards the same story as a masterpiece precisely because of its use of "maximum suggestion and minimal explanation" to evoke a specific type of philosophical-aesthetic response. For him, the story's refusal to give any hint of explanation regarding the precise nature of its central horror, in tandem with the skill of its telling, "suggest[s] to us the essence, far bigger than life, of that dark universal terror beyond naming which is the matrix for all other terrors" (Ligotti 2003, p. 80), whereas for Joshi the same quality merely hints at the author's underdeveloped conception of his own theme.
In light of this, we should not be surprised that Joshi has criticized Ligotti's stories for falling short of the ideal of supernatural realism. In 1993 Joshi expressed concern at the fact that Ligotti "seems, apparently by design, not to care about the complete reconciliation of the various supernatural features in a given tale," which, in conjunction with several other problems Joshi perceives in Ligotti's style (including obscurity, excessive self-consciousness and self-referentiality, and a lack of "spontaneity and emotional vigour"), prevents his work from ranking with the best in the supernatural horror genre. Joshi opined that Ligotti needs to produce more completed tales, as opposed to vignettes and such, and more work in the supernatural realist mode of the later Lovecraftian stories "if he is to join the ranks of Lovecraft, Blackwood, Dunsany, Jackson, Campbell, and Klein, as he is on the verge of doing." Among Ligotti's works that already fulfill this order, Joshi counted "The Last Feast of Harlequin," "Nethescurial," and "Vastarien" (Joshi 1993, pp. 151-152).1
Ligotti, for his part, is quite self-aware about the choices he has made in matters of style and authorial philosophy. He has even employed a metafictional approach to incorporate his thoughts about such matters into some of his stories. "Nethescurial" is one such story, and ironically (in light of Joshi's praise), we can find within it an answer to Joshi's criticism of Ligotti's supposed over-vagueness. "Nethescurial" is constructed as a series of frame stories, and the narrator of the topmost frame is portrayed as possessing a certain savvy about the field of supernatural horror. In commenting on the contents of a manuscript he has found, which forms one of the lower-level frames, and which purports to give an account of a supposedly true quasi-supernatural/metaphysical horror story, he says, "The problem is that such supernatural inventions [i.e. the god Nethescurial, a "demonic demiurge"] are indeed quite difficult to imagine. So often they fail to materialize in the mind, to take on a mental texture, and thus remain unfelt as anything but an abstract monster of metaphysics-an elegant or awkward schematic that cannot rise from the paper to touch us" (G, p. 82).
Although in this passage the narrator/Ligotti is talking not about the problem of authorial vagueness, but instead the ontological and affective barrier that separates the world of written words from the world of existential reality, we may still read these thoughts as addressing the former issue as well. This is especially true since the "demonic demiurge" Nethescurial, which forms the story's central metaphysical horror, remains fully and fundamentally as unexplained in the end as does the nameless horror confronted by Lovecraft's Erich Zann. Ligotti's concluding words at the end of the passage quoted above may thus be |
onion and.i2p websites, which allows users to access the Dark Web as easily as typing a regular domain.
Indeed, the dream of a decentralized domain name system (DNS) has been part of the blockchain tech revolution since 2010, with pioneers like Aaron Swartz helping move it forward. From that dream was born Namecoin (NMC), which was intended to store and serve as a decentralized DNS in order to provide certainty that when you want to connect to funnycatpix.com, you are not secretly rerouted to the servers of funnydogsite instead.
In all seriousness, this kind of man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack is a big concern for security agencies and the companies that get spoofed, while also being a common means for stealing passwords and other key information all over the net. This is one of the many security and privacy vulnerabilities within the White Web.
One of the problems with getting Namecoin’s awesomeness to mainstream use may be the need for users to install special browser extensions, modify their browsers, or run their own NMC node, since NMC does not quite fit the White Web DNS model. Dorkbot, the anonymous cryptographer of Cryptostorm, says getting everyone to run a NMC node “will never happen.”
Mike Ward, Namecoin evangelist and member of the OkTurtles foundation agrees, saying:
“I believe future growth in [top-level domains like.com or.org] will be blockchain based. It's not realistic to imagine every connected device running lightweight nodes for each chain, even if most TLDs live on a small number of chains.”
Cryptostorm seeks to solve this problem by using DNSchain, a blockchain agnostic, DNS-like system that connects users to IP addresses stored on the Bitcoin, NXT and Mincoin blockchains, among others. Cstorm allows access to Namecoin domains by connecting Cstorm’s own VPN infrastructure to DNSchain, so users won’t need to make special downloads or installations.
The most paranoid and arguably wise might raise concerns that Cryptostorm is centralized because it serves as intermediary between users and websites, thus they could themselves enable MITMs, just as domain name servers can today. Dorkbot said that this is a problem they are working on under code name DAfree, a project that Cointelegraph will be covering in more detail soon.
He pointed out that web browsers could triple-check IP addresses with other Namecoin or Bitcoin DNS-like services, such as Onename, Keybase or Okturtles’ DNSchain.
He also mentioned that Cryptostorm already follows a similar procedure, pointing to their public profile on Keybase that communicates with the Bitcoin blockchain, as well as a tweet from Okturtles to verify Cstorm’s use of their platform.
We think it’s great that there are cutting edge service providers out there like @cryptostorm_is experimenting with @DNSChain!? — okTurtles (@okTurtles) March 18, 2015
Finally, he suggested such users run their own instance of Okturtle’s DNSchain, saying:
“Their code is public. You can self-compile, and they code-sign via writes to the blockchain, so you can even verify source integrity that way."
Easy Access, No Questions Asked
Thanks to Cstorm, there’s no longer a need to download and install special browsers, full Namecoin clients nor browser extensions to access the Dark Web. Simply buy a monthly token for the cost of a Starbucks Venti Chai Creme Frappuccino, follow their installation guides and you are in.
They offer a painless install widget for Windows, along with Cryptofree, their free VPN service with 256kb download speed, which you can get running on your phone in minutes.
To provide optimal privacy and further disrupt contemporary VPN providers, Cstorm uses a “zero knowledge” model to sell its customers access to their network. They ask no questions. Just give them an email and send them some Bitcoin, and you’ll receive a cryptographic token that serves as a username on your VPN network manager. For a password, instructions on their forums say you can type, “Snowden rocks!” or whatever you’d like, just “type something.”
I personally bought mine on the web version of NXT’s FreeMarket from a trusted reseller and had it delivered through their messaging system, no email needed.
They have exit nodes all over the world, including but not limited to Iceland, Singapore, Paris, Central and Western United States, Montreal and London.
Uhm … What Is a VPN?
VPNs mask your geographical location when surfing the web and they encrypt your traffic, allowing you to access websites all over the world. You can sail under the radar of oppressive regimes such as The Great Firewall of China, or if you are so inclined, the Western copyright monopolies.
Wherever you stand on these complex issues of copyright versus piracy versus freedom of speech, you’ve probably run into a YouTube link on Facebook or Twitter that your friends around the globe were enjoying and discussing, but you could not watch. Why? Well, you were in the “wrong country.”
One neat thing VPNs can do is get you past these … constraints and straight into fresh foreign media, though they can do much more.
VPNs are routinely recommended by information security authorities, such as Kaspersky, as a way for professionals to protect against various kinds of corporate espionage. One example is Darkhotel, which the Russian Infosec called out late last year as an “advanced persistent threat” against business leaders traveling abroad and getting hacked during their internet sessions in luxury hotels.
The same goes for journalists, who depend on secure communications with sources and whistleblowers. And of course, post Snowden's revelations, some VPNs even claim to protect you against government spying.
However, there’s often the problem of honeypots, or fraudulent, vulnerable or compromised VPN service providers that claim to be utilizing cutting edge and secure services, but are not. So how does one know?
What Does It Mean to Be “Secure”?
Well, according to Dorkbot, who goes by the name of Pattern_Juggled on their forums, “If your network security provider doesn't sound a bit paranoid and unhinged to you, then they are either ignorant or too lazy to care.” He adds:
“Cstorm exists to provide secure network service. Secure has several components, from protection of physical IP/geolocation status, to limiting risks of active surveillance attacks, to ensuring routing of network requests is done via the standard public internet process and is not fiddled selectively by outside parties. … Secure also means confidence that one is visiting the resource one expects to be visiting based on public data. Yahoo is yahoo, not yah00.com or a fake yahoo set up by GCHQ. "Finally, secure networking encompasses the ability to access'meta-networks' like [.bit,] Tor and i2p with minimal risk of session subversion or mis-routing of one's traffic."
Here is their model for honeypot awareness and risk management.
For more details on their use of cryptography, degree of decentralization and an recent and excellent Q&A by an unnamed interviewer, check out this post.
Last but not least, Dorkbot mentioned that Cryptostorm is working on other related applications of the blockchain, and users can expect more to come.
Did you enjoy this article? You may also be interested in reading these ones:It was many many moons after all the other Redditors had received their Secret Santa presents and had settled down. It was the 3rd of January, 2012. I returned home from a trip to my Grandmother's house to find a white package, laying upon my doorstep. I blindly take the package in my arms, and walk in the house.
On closer inspection, the package was addressed to ME (I don't get many packages). I flipped the package over to reveal an adorably drawn Viking (best goddamn race) clutching a little axe. I promptly opened the package, gasping at the 3 packets of Haribo Tangfastics (my all time favourite sweet) and a pack of 6 colourful 'Party Play Flutes' (I have a thing for musical instruments). I then read the attatched letter, and jumped around for a bit.
This restored my faith in humanity. Go look up Ghoats, upvote all his posts or something. He's a truly great guy. Merry late Christmas, guys. Enjoy your 2012's.The will he/won’t he president.
In tweets sent Saturday afternoon, President Trump once again issued a veiled threat to North Korea, claiming that previous presidents’ diplomatic efforts with the country had failed and that “only one thing will work!” The comment came less than two days after Trump suggested a photo op with his military advisors was “the calm before the storm” — then refused to explain what the storm might be. “You’ll find out,” Trump told reporters instead, repeating the tease again on Friday, accompanied with a literal wink. Afterward, no one at the White House, on or off the record, would or could explain what Trump was talking about either. On Saturday, the war-teasing continued:
Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid...... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017
...hasn't worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017
Later Saturday, while taking some questions from reporters, Trump was asked once again to clarify his “storm” allusion, and responded that he had “nothing to clarify.” Asked what the “one thing” he tweeted about was, Trump just replied, “well you’ll figure that out pretty soon,” and smiled.
Last Sunday, Trump made some similarly cryptic and seemingly boastful remarks, tweeting that he had told his secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, that the secretary’s attempts to communicate directly and negotiate with Pyongyang were a “waste of time,” and that “we’ll do what has to be done” instead. “I won’t fail,” Trump later claimed, after insisting that previous presidents had.
State Department spokespeople eventually made the unconvincing suggestion that the president’s comments were strategic and part of a good cop/bad cop routine with North Korea. A few days later, Tillerson — presumably the good cop in that logically flawed scenario — then refused to deny that he had called Trump a “fucking moron” earlier in the year after the president compared coming up with a strategy for the war in Afghanistan “to the renovation of a high-end New York restaurant.”
So, after a week of Trump’s tenterhook-diplomacy regarding North Korea, there’s still no clarity as to what the president is actually talking about, just like there’s no clarity about why Trump has shifted from exchanging promises of annihilation with Kim Jong Un to teasing an epic season finale for the nuclear crisis. Trump has always been obsessed with keep-them-guessing tactics, but while doing that with a nuclear-armed rogue nation just makes most of us anxious, the risk of doing that with an antagonist like North Korea begs the question: What if the country sees these comments as empty threats and becomes bolder in its efforts, or worse, what if Pyongyang guesses wrong?Victim is Dalia Lemkos, 26, of Tekoa. Terrorist shot after second stabbing attack in Israel in 12 hours; two others wounded.
Dalia Lemkos hy"d, 26, of Tekoa, was stabbed to death, and two other people were wounded in a terrorist attack at a hitchhiking station outside the town of Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion Monday evening - the second such attack in less than 12 hours.
Lemkos died of neck wounds, according to paramedics.
Chilling CC TV video shows the terrorist plowing into Lemkos with his car, then returning to stab her.
The time of her funeral has not been released.
A 26-year-old man who was also stabbed is in light to moderate condition and a 50-year-old was hurt in the jaw and is in light condition.
Witnesses say the terrorist tried to run down his victims with a car at first, but failed, and then got out of the car and began stabbing.
The guard at the gate of the community of Alon Shvut came running to the scene of the rampage and shot the terrorist in the chest several times.
Police said the terrorist was evacuated to hospital with serious injuries. He has been identified as Maher Hamdi al-Hashalmoun, a resident of Hevron.
The bus station where the attack took place is the same one at which Israeli teens Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Sha'ar and Naftali Frenkel were abducted earlier this year before being brutally murdered.
The attack is the second stabbing in six hours, after a Palestinian worker stabbed a 20 year-old IDF soldier in Tel Aviv.
The 20-year-old victim of that attack is currently in critical condition after being stabbed numerous times, including in the upper body and waist, as he tried to fight off his attacker.
His attacker was chased down and by police, and has been identified as Nur al-Din Abu Hashiya, an 18-year-old from Shechem (Nablus) in Samaria who had illegally entered into sovereign Israeli territory - one of countless other illegal Palestinian workers.
Photos: ZAKA
Loading....
Loading....Media playback is not supported on this device Sunderland relegation a 'terrible' feeling
Sunderland's 10-year stay in the Premier League ended as Bournemouth scored a late winner at the Stadium of Light.
The result coupled with Hull City's draw at Southampton means David Moyes' side are 13 points behind the Tigers with four games left.
The defeat, Sunderland's 23rd of the season, means the Black Cats are relegated from the Premier League for a joint-record fourth time in Moyes' first season in charge.
Bournemouth's Joshua King scored the only goal with just two minutes left, tapping home from Ryan Fraser's pass.
The Norwegian had also gone close in the 20th minute, but his shot rebounded off the post and crossbar and into the arms of Jordan Pickford.
Bournemouth goalkeeper Artur Boruc saved from Jermain Defoe in the first half, and Fabio Borini and George Honeyman in the second, but the Black Cats failed to sustain any real pressure.
A run of remarkable survivals comes to an end
Sunderland needed to at least match Hull's result against Southampton to survive another week and were doing so - despite another lacklustre performance - until the 88th minute.
Southampton won a penalty at St Mary's in the closing stages which, if converted, would have seen Sunderland survive for now - but Eldin Jakupovic saved from Dusan Tadic.
Seconds earlier, Moyes' side had been hit on the counter for the winning goal, with Fraser sprinting clear before finding the in-form King, who made no mistake to score his 12th goal of 2017.
Sunderland again failed to score, for the 18th time in 34 league games this season, with just five of their 17 shots on target and few clear opportunities created.
The club have made a habit of remarkable survivals in their time in the Premier League, but the Black Cats' luck has run out and Moyes is relegated for the first time as a manager.
Sorry season for Sunderland
Little has gone right for Sunderland since Sam Allardyce - who saved the club from relegation last season with just one defeat in their final 10 games - was named England manager in late July.
Moyes was named as his replacement a day later but, after just two games of the season, told the fans to expect a relegation battle.
The Scot was left with little time to bring in summer recruits but those he did bring in - the majority his former players at Manchester United and Everton - have disappointed.
In the past 10 years, Sunderland have spent more time in the Premier League's bottom three than any other club. Wigan Athletic, on 590 days, are the nearest to them
Their first win did not come until November but they followed it with three victories in their next six games in a brief glimmer of success, largely built around Defoe's goals.
Since then, Sunderland have won just once in 17 games and Defoe is without a goal in 10 club games.
Black Cats fans have grown increasingly frustrated at Moyes' results, and what they consider his negative attitude and demeanour throughout the season, with chants for him to leave being heard in recent weeks.
Bournemouth break 40-point barrier
Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe said his side were not at their fluent best in the game but the win moves the Cherries up to 10th in the Premier League and onto 41 points.
While it does not mathematically ensure survival, Bournemouth are almost certain of a third successive Premier League season in 2017-18.
They are also just a point behind the 42 points they achieved in their debut top-flight season with three games left.
That total saw them finish 16th and an improvement this year would see Howe lead the club to their highest league finish for a fourth season in a row.
The comparison to Sunderland was stark, as the away side, while not at their best, looked much sharper and dominated the ball with 59% of the possession.
Joshua King has scored 12 league goals in 2017 - Sunderland have nine
'I feel for the supporters' - manager reaction
Media playback is not supported on this device Moyes 'feels' for Sunderland fans after relegation
Sunderland manager David Moyes: "It summed up our season. We played well for long parts. We had four or five good opportunities and did a good job.
"We're all disappointed and I feel more for the supporters. We take collective responsibility from top to bottom.
"We'll dust ourselves down and see what we have to do.
"I don't know what words you can say to the players. I told them they fought for the jersey. Because of that it's difficult to fault them.
"We're disappointed with the level of performance all season. We'll do everything we can to get it right."
Media playback is not supported on this device Bournemouth aiming for highest ever finish - Howe
Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe: "It was a scrappy game from our perspective. I wasn't happy with the way we played but happy with the result.
"Josh King has worked incredibly hard and shows great attitude every day. Technically he is a great player and it is nice to see him score.
"The second season is harder, having gone through it. The first season is a novelty, in the second there is expectation.
"It's a real achievement to get 40 points."
Man of the match - Joshua King
King was clinical with his goal and unlucky not to open the scoring when his first-half effort hit the woodwork
Sunderland's goalless record - the best stats
Since their last promotion to the Premier League in 2007, Sunderland have failed to score in 139 top-flight matches - at least 25 more than any other side in that time.
The Black Cats have failed to score in 11 of their past 13 Premier League games.
Josh King scored his 15th Premier League goal of the season - only the second Norwegian to reach this number in a single campaign after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in 1996-97 and 2001-02.
The Cherries won their first away league game of 2017, last winning on the road at Swansea on 31 December.
What's next?
With nothing but pride to play for, Sunderland travel to Hull on Saturday, 6 May (15:00 BST) while Bournemouth host Stoke at the same time.Britain’s new PM appoints Boris Johnson as foreign secretary and sacks George Osborne as chancellor in favour of Philip Hammond
Theresa May appeals to centre ground but cabinet tilts to the right
Theresa May promised to fight “burning injustice” in British society and create a union “between all of our citizens” as she sought to project a one-nation brand of Conservatism when she entered Downing Street for the first time as prime minister on Wednesday.
The radical change of direction at the heart of government was underlined by the sacking of George Osborne as chancellor, replacing David Cameron’s key lieutenant with former foreign secretary Philip Hammond.
Theresa May's speech: what she said and what she meant Read more
Speaking after visiting the Queen in Buckingham Palace, May made a direct pitch for the political centre ground, promising to speak for the “ordinary working-class family” struggling to make ends meet. But while her language was centrist and conciliatory, May’s first cabinet appointments suggested a shift to the right, with Boris Johnson appointed as foreign secretary and veteran right-wingers David Davis and Liam Fox back in government as secretary for Brexit and international trade respectively.
Amber Rudd, the energy secretary, will succeed May as home secretary – a rapid rise for a woman who has only been in parliament since 2010, and joined the cabinet last May. Rudd cemented her reputation as a strong political performer during the televised referendum debates, in which she made a series of barbed comments about Johnson, who will now sit alongside her in the May cabinet.
The new prime minister said: “The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few but by yours. We will do everything we can to give you more control over your lives.
“When we take the big calls, we’ll think not of the powerful, but you. When we pass new laws we’ll listen not to the mighty, but to you. When it comes to taxes we’ll prioritise not the wealthy but you.”
May’s first six cabinet appointments also demonstrated an attempt to reunite a Conservative party fractured by the EU referendum debate and tackle the tough task of negotiating Britain’s way out of the European Union.
Fox, the former defence secretary who resigned in disgrace in 2011, will return to government in the newly created post of international trade minister – a crucial role when Britain must renegotiate its trading relationships with the rest of the world in the wake of the Brexit vote.
Prime minister Theresa May pledges to protect the 'precious bond of United Kingdom' – Politics live Read more
Davis, another leading Vote Leave campaigner, will be the new secretary of state for exiting the European Union – likely to be known as Brexit secretary. Michael Fallon will stay at defence.
Speaking after his appointment as the new foreign secretary, Johnson told BBC News: “Obviously very, very humbled, very, very proud to be offered this chance. Clearly now we have a massive opportunity in this country to make a great success of our relationship with Europe and with the world and I’m very excited to be asked to play a part in that.”
Johnson’s job as foreign secretary is a more senior role than many in Westminster had expected after his last-minute decision not to stand as Tory leader. But with Davis negotiating the details of Brexit, and Fox in charge of international trade, the former mayor of London is likely to have a less sweeping role than his predecessors as foreign secretary.
May has repeatedly said since standing for her party’s leadership that “Brexit means Brexit”, but there are few clues as to how a new relationship with the other 27 EU member states will look.
On Wednesday night, May asked European leaders for time to prepare for the negotiations to take Britain out of the EU but restated her commitment that “Brexit means Brexit”.
In a series of congratulatory phone calls after taking over as prime minister, May spoke to German chancellor, Angela Merkel, French president, Francois Hollande, and Irish taoiseach, Enda Kenny.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “On all the phone calls, the prime minister emphasised her commitment to delivering the will of the British people to leave the European Union.
“The prime minister explained that we would need some time to prepare for these negotiations and spoke of her hope that these could be conducted in a constructive and positive spirit.”
Speaking from Kyrgyzstan, Merkel invited May to Germany and indicated they would meet for talks at the G20 summit in September. The spokeswoman added: “They agreed that they wanted to establish a constructive relationship, recognising the importance of close cooperation between the UK and Germany.”
The Guardian view on Theresa May: new PM, same old problems | Editorial Read more
May spoke to Hollande about the importance of the UK-France relationship, particularly with regards to security, defence and joint work on border controls in Calais.
The spokeswoman added: “The prime minister offered her best wishes to the president and the people of France for Bastille Day tomorrow and the president invited the prime minister to visit Paris.”
Kenny wished May luck and welcomed her commitment to helping the less well-off. “They both agreed that the strong collaboration between our countries should continue and the taoiseach offered to visit London soon for talks on how they could best work together to achieve this,” the spokeswoman added.
Hammond, who immediately drove to the Treasury to meet civil servants and take up his new role, becomes chancellor at a difficult moment, with economic growth widely thought to be jeopardised by the uncertainty created in the wake of the vote to leave the EU.
Osborne, who was central to Cameron’s modernising project, tweeted:
Cameron, who announced he would step down after his campaign to remain in the EU lost last month’s referendum, had earlier congratulated May as he made an emotional speech before leaving No 10 for the last time as PM with his wife and children. He said being prime minister had been “the greatest honour of my life” and highlighted gay marriage and boosting overseas aid as key achievements of his six years in power.
“It’s not been an easy journey, and of course we’ve not got every decision right,” he said, alongside his wife, Samantha, and children, Nancy, Elwen and Florence.
Cameron had received a noisy standing ovation from his backbenchers as he left the chamber of the House of Commons on Wednesday lunchtime after his last appearance at prime minister’s questions.
Many of his MPs had been shocked at the speed with which he has been swept from power since the public unexpectedly voted to leave the EU in the 23 June referendum. While Cameron had repeatedly pledged to stay on to handle the exit talks if Britain chose to leave, few in Westminster were surprised that he decided to hand the job to a successor.
The leadership race, expected to take place over months, was reduced to weeks as May’s opponents fell away, hastening Cameron’s departure from Downing Street. May was crowned the new Tory leader when her final opponent, the pro-Brexit campaigner Andrea Leadsom, dropped out this week.
Theresa May's new government - Politics Weekly podcast Read more
May served Cameron as home secretary throughout his six years in government, but she will now have to try to deliver on the expectations created during the referendum campaign that leaving the EU will allow politicians to “take back control” of immigration.
Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, ridiculed May’s claims to be speaking for the hard-pressed in society, saying: “We’ve today had warm words from our new prime minister about the need to stand up for more than a ‘privileged few’. The sentiments are good ones but, just like her predecessor, the rhetoric is much better than the reality. The truth is, Theresa May has been at the heart of the Tory government for the last six years and is tied to its record. It’s a record of failing to stand up for working people and backing policies that are putting vital public services like the NHS at risk.”
The Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron, welcomed May as prime minister but warned: “She will need to establish clear leadership quickly and effectively. Her approach to civil liberties, as demonstrated in her stewardship of the investigatory powers bill, is deeply worrying, and does not offer any reassurance to our party.”Early African Homo erectus fossils (sometimes called Homo ergaster) are the oldest known early humans to have possessed modern human-like body proportions with relatively elongated legs and shorter arms compared to the size of the torso. These features are considered adaptations to a life lived on the ground, indicating the loss of earlier tree-climbing adaptations, with the ability to walk and possibly run long distances. Compared with earlier fossil humans, note the expanded braincase relative to the size of the face. The most complete fossil individual of this species is known as the ‘Turkana Boy’ – a well-preserved skeleton (though minus almost all the hand and foot bones), dated around 1.6 million years old. Microscopic study of the teeth indicates that he grew up at a growth rate similar to that of a great ape. There is fossil evidence that this species cared for old and weak individuals. The appearance of Homo erectus in the fossil record is often associated with the earliest handaxes, the first major innovation in stone tool technology.
Early fossil discoveries from Java (beginning in the 1890s) and China (‘Peking Man’, beginning in the 1920s) comprise the classic examples of this species. Generally considered to have been the first species to have expanded beyond Africa, Homo erectus is considered a highly variable species, spread over two continents (it's not certain whether it reached Europe), and possibly the longest lived early human species - about nine times as long as our own species, Homo sapiens, has been around!COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Imagine a world where instead of college football teams playing for national championships, they play for land. And the winner claims the land of the loser.
Now imagine that in this world, Iowa State owns Columbus.
If you've seen the Buckeye Breakfasts throughout this season, we've featured a map of the United States if college football teams were empires and how it's changed each week.
That's the fictional world of college football imperialism.
It's the creation of Nathan Bingham, a junior at the University of Tennessee majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Known as nbingham196 on Reddit, Bingham had posted different maps on Reddit during the offseason before he decided to make it a season-long endeavor.
"It was relatively common that people would make a statement about fighting for land so I decided to make it a reality," Bingham said.
And so, the map of college football imperialism was born.
He started by finding out the closest FBS school to each county throughout the United States, charting them in an Excel file and coloring them in on a map by hand. Bingham said the whole process took 15 hours by hand before he started doing it by computer.
The way the map worked was that each week, the winner of each game claimed the land of the loser. And on it goes throughout the season.
So when you lose a game, like Ohio State did to Oklahoma, the winner gets all the loser's land. And when Iowa State beat Oklahoma, the Cyclones claimed the land Oklahoma had, which includes Columbus.
While it sounds like a version of the popular board game Risk, Bingham says that's not where the inspiration for the map came from.
He admitted that he initially thought the map was a "stupid idea" and wasn't sure what the reaction was going to be.
"I decided I might as well try and just see if a couple hundred people thought it was a good idea," Bingham said. "Next thing I knew the post on Reddit was the top post in r/CFB (college football's Reddit page) history."
Throughout the season, Bingham has kept very detailed tracking of the map including land owned in square miles, most counties owned and top teams by population.
After Week 7, Ohio State owns more counties than any other team, and has the second-largest amount of land.
But unless the Buckeyes beat a team that beats Iowa State, should the Cyclones lose, they will not regain control of Columbus.
College football was one undisputed champion at the end of the season thanks to the playoff. As far as the imperialism map is concerned, Bingham's champion is a little trickier to determine. But he does have an idea of how to determine a champ.
"Most likely it will be the team that owns land from the most teams," Bingham said. "For example Cal is currently leading with 11 (Cal, Stanford, USC, Washington State, Boise State, Rice, South Alabama, Troy, Ole Miss, UNC, and Western Michigan)."
Should Penn State beat Michigan on Saturday, Ohio State can, in the world of this map, win its way back into Ohio if it beats the Nittany Lions on Oct. 28.Promise.tv: a PVR that records EVERYTHING on TV for a whole week
Dominic Ludlam writes, "Promise.TV has launched the world's first Promiscuous TV recorder! Working on the UK's Freeview platform, it records every programme on every TV and radio channel and stores them for a whole week.
And for all Boing Boing readers who visit the site, we have a daily draw running this week to get a new Promise recorder half price!"
This was originally commissioned as an internal BBC project, and the Ludlams and their partners have been productizing it ever since. It really does what it says on the tin: records the whole Freeview multiplex for a week at a time, which means that you don't have to program your PVR with the shows you like: you always have the last week's TV on tap (this'd be especially cool for when scandalous material is broadcast from Parliament -- if you find out about it after the fact you can go back and check). The Promise.tv folks have worked out several ingenious ways of navigating all this stored material as well.
I've written about this before, and I'm awfully glad to see it finally come to market.
The Promise Home is a recorder that connects four additional televisions in other rooms around the home. All connected TVs can play any of the stored or saved programmes independently, and in they can also share bookmarks. This lets you start watching a programme in one room, set a bookmark and carry on watching from the same point in another room.
Promise.TV
(Thanks, Dom!)Will This Economy Finally Push the Toyota Way Into Software Development?
This summer, I worked under marketing thought-leader Seth Godin. I’ll never forget his quote about innovation: “Creativity thrives under constraints.”
Last spring, I spent a week shadowing one of the world’s top lean manufacturing experts–a Japanese sensei who had worked under Taiichi Ohno. The lean manufacturing movement began when the Japanese realized they couldn’t directly compete with Detroit. So they innovated the car manufacturing process. Their success is evident.
Gradually, concepts from the Toyota Way permeated all manufacturing industries. But only now is it starting to hit mainstream knowledge management process–like software development. Wikipedia calls it “Agile Software Development.”
Certainly, moving to Agile isn’t pain free–there is risk involved–but companies that take the risk consistently report strong results, including those listed on the banner above. (Expect it to be flavor of the week if you apply it like the flavor of the week.)
On Friday, I interviewed Ryan Martens, CTO & founder of Rally Software, about agile development. (Rally offers Agile lifecycle management products and is a key player in the online Agile development community.)
Ryan told me that approximately 30-40% of ISV’s have begin experimenting with Agile practices, but it’s only penetrated 10-15% of major enterprises. Enterprises typically use success metrics oriented towards cost, rather than time-to-market.
If you want to experiment, Rally recently created an ROI calculator based on previous client work. Some of it feels like smooth marketing, but there’s also a few gems about the radically different paradigms in Agile development.
I wonder.
If Seth’s quote implies Agile adoption rates will skyrocket in the face of a tanking economy.ADVERTISEMENTS
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In a major 88 page tome on Blockchain and distributed ledgers published today, the UK Government’s Chief Scientist, Sir Mark Walport, sets out how this technology could transform the delivery of public services and boost productivity.
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The UK report states that Blockchain technology could provide government with new tools to reduce fraud, error and the cost of paper intensive processes and it also has the potential to provide new ways of assuring ownership and provenance for goods and intellectual property.
From the report:
The first role for government in supporting the development of distributed ledgers is to develop a clear vision of how this technology can improve the way government does its business and is able to deliver services to citizens. This needs to be followed by government acting as an expert customer to implement the technology — procuring distributed ledger solutions where they are applicable. In doing so, government can support and influence the development of economic activity in this sector, including new and growing businesses as well as larger incumbent businesses. The opportunity is for government to enable a future where the delivery of government services is more personal, immediate and efficient. Wherever appropriate, citizens should have the opportunity to signal their individual preferences and needs through participation in smart contracts. The implementation of distributed ledgers with embedded smart contracts should lead to substantial improvements in compliance, cost-efficiency and accountability. The UK Government Digital Service is developing a digital platform for government to deliver its services and distributed ledgers could be at the heart of this.
The report recommends that the government should provide ministerial leadership to ensure that government provides the vision, leadership and the platform for distributed ledger technology within government. Specifically, the Government Data Service should lead work in government as a user of distributed ledgers and the DCMS Digital Economy Unit should lead work on government as an enabler of distributed ledgers (working with the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and with Innovate UK).
They also state that the Government Digital Service and the DCMS Digital Economy Unit should develop a high-level capability road map and a supporting outline plan based on the work of this report and very early stage activity already underway in departments, and deliver this in a timely fashion; and continue to oversee the recommendations made in the rest of this report, to maintain momentum and rapid action. In undertaking this work, they should work closely with other government departments and with industry and academia and should consider setting up a time-limited expert advisory group in support.
Other recommendations from the report include that the UK research community should invest in the research required to ensure that distributed ledgers are scalable, secure and provide proof of correctness of their contents and they need to provide high-performance, lowlatency operations, appropriate to the domain within which the technology is being deployed as well as need to be energy efficient. The newly-created Alan Turing Institute, working with groupings such as the Whitechapel Think Tank, could play an important role in co-ordinating and ‘self-organising’ the public and private research and development sector interested in this and related technologies. The private sector should consider investing in the Alan Turing Institute to support the pre-competitive research that will ultimately facilitate new commercial applications that are robust and secure. This includes work on obvious areas such as cryptography and cybersecurity but also extends to the development of new types of algorithm.
The report also recommends that the movernment could support the creation of distributed ledger demonstrators for local government that will bring together all the elements necessary to test the technology and its application. A demonstrator at a city level could provide important opportunities for trialling and implementing distributed ledger technologies. Innovate UK could use its work with cities in the development of ‘city deals’ |
with only a fitful stream of officially censored letters fluttering back from the remoteness of the world to say that everything was still OK. New recruits in the later years of the war were going in essentially as innocent of the realities of combat as enlistees had been before Pearl Harbor.
During basic training, it's true, some of them did begin to wonder what being in a war really meant. That was when they met real soldiers for the first time -- combat veterans who'd been rotated home to serve as instructors. There was something odd about them. One marine enlistee later said they all had "an intangible air of subdued, quiet detachment... as though lost in some sort of melancholy reverie." But the recruits didn't stop to wonder what might have prompted it. They were too caught up in the glory of being soldiers, in the urgency of their imminent departure overseas, in the certainty that they were part of an unimaginably vast tide of victory.
They soon invented a ritual to be performed as soon as they were fitted with their new uniforms. They'd rush out to photographers' studios and document the occasion for their proud families. The mantels and nightstands of America were strewn with these relics -- soldiers posed with quiet dignity against a studio backdrop, half turning to face the camera with an expression both grave and proud. Some guys couldn't help clowning and left photos that baffle people to this day: foreheads furrowed, jaws clenched, eyes fixed and furious -- tinted by the studio not ordinary pink but a belligerent orange rose, like a Halloween mask. When you see these photos now, they look like antique novelty items from carnivals, or illustrations for Ripley's Believe It or Not: "The Angriest Soldier in the World." We don't remember the pride behind them, the innocence, the mysterious and happy ferocity -- the warning to all enemies of just how tough the American soldier would be when he got into the war.
***
Nobody had to be told that the German soldier was tough. From the beginning the soldiers of the Wehrmacht had acquired a reputation for implacable savagery. Around the world they were known as the sadists, the storm troopers, the Nazi beasts, the stone-faced Aryan enforcers of the Thousand Year Reich. So Nazi propaganda tended to go the other way, to show what nice, normal guys they really were -- unyieldingly fierce when it came to the fuhrer's enemies of course, but otherwise kind, decent, tenderhearted, proud, dedicated, respectful, and honest: the showpiece of Aryan virtue, the young flower incarnating the eternal nobility and valor of Nordic culture.
One such product of Nazi propaganda was a movie that came out in Germany in 1942, a war melodrama called Stukas. It's about a wholly representative German soldier, the equivalent of one of "our boys": he's handsome, thoughtful, troubled by the morality of war, and given to quoting Hšlderlin. Tragically, he's shell-shocked in battle and given no chance of recovering -- unless, or so his doctors solemnly conclude, he undergoes "a profound emotional experience." He's in luck: he receives an invitation from the fuhrer himself to attend the world-famous Richard Wagner festival, held every summer in the provincial German town of Bayreuth. In the touching final scene he sits hopelessly in the front rows of the opera house, but gradually recovers his will to live and his faith in the German cause during a rousing performance of Siegfried.
Stukas wasn't a hit. But much of what went on in it was true to life. The Wagner festival was (and is) as described. During the war convalescing soldiers were given free tickets as a special treat. A mystique really had been built up around Bayreuth in an attempt to fix it as one of the sacred events of the new Aryan culture. And, hard as it may be to believe, the big climax wasn't just a creation of Nazi kitsch; some of the real soldiers who attended the festival did experience something profound and transformative at performances there.
But then, isn't that more or less what's supposed to happen when people see great art? Recordings and photographs have survived from the wartime festivals, and they show that the productions were indeed spectacular. Bayreuth had the cream of Germany's operatic talent, it had some of the best conductors and musicians in Europe, and it had the money to make all the sets and costumes lavish and dazzling. Who wouldn't have been impressed? Everyone who went to the festivals in those years agreed that they'd never witnessed anything like them in their lives. It's even possible for us now -- from studies of Germany during the war such as Richard Grunberger's The Twelve-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany and more specialized works such as Frederic Spotts's excellent Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival -- to work out just what a singular experience it must have been.
First off the festivalgoers were greeted with a scene from a sinister fairy tale. The peaked medieval rooftops of Bayreuth, glinting romantically in the depths of the summer countryside, swarmed with thousands of Nazi flags. Bunting in Nazi colors -- red, white, and black -- was heaped in furious abundance down every narrow cobblestone street. Everywhere you looked were pictures of Hitler -- on lampposts, on walls, behind gold-leafed storefront windows: Hitler in uniform regarding the viewer with stern exasperation, Hitler addressing wildly cheering crowds, Hitler inspecting mountain ranges, and, most striking of all, Hitler (distinctly ill at ease) in a suit of armor, preparing to joust with the evil hordes threatening the Reich. Big banners hung across all the streets proclaiming Wagner's City Welcomes the Fuhrer's Guests.
But the fuhrer wasn't there to greet his guests. At one time he would have been: Wagner's operas were among his deepest enthusiasms; only Mozart moved him more. He'd been a faithful attendee at Bayreuth since the 20s, and the Wagner family, who still ran the festival, had been among his earliest and most devoted backers. It had been one of his first acts after assuming absolute power to make sure the festival received a generous state subsidy. But, to his lasting regret, he'd had to stop coming after the war began. He had no choice; he was away full-time in the east, at his military command posts in Central Europe, where he was directing the invasion of the Soviet Union. His entourage too regretted his absence; his visits to Bayreuth, Albert Speer observed in his memoirs, were the only times anybody ever saw him relax.
The other prominent leaders of the new Reich were also no-shows. But they had a different reason: they loathed Wagner. They paid lip service to him as the patron saint of Aryan culture, but the truth was that they hated all culture, Aryan or otherwise. Their aesthetic was set out by the hero of a celebrated Nazi play: "Whenever I hear the word culture, I unlatch the safety on my automatic." They particularly detested Wagner's operas for being so long, so boring, so arty, and so downbeat; party theorists thought these qualities were unpatriotic. They looked upon the Wagner festival itself with deep suspicion -- if for no other reason than that it had always attracted so many foreign tourists and, worse, foreign performers, which made it a hotbed of "internationalist" (i.e., Jewish) influence. They would gladly have shut the festival down; in fact, they wanted to burn the opera house to the ground and ban performances of Wagner's works everywhere in Germany. And they would have done it too if the fuhrer hadn't been such a fan.
Hitler professed to being appalled at the philistinism of the party faithful; he'd always hoped they'd be as transported as he was by the fire and the majesty of the Wagnerian myth. But he excused them from Bayreuth, and instead made sure that the festival was attended by people who would know what was required of them. That was why admission during the war years was by invitation only. The "fuhrer's guests" -- soldiers, nurses, workers who'd won productivity drives at war factories -- arrived by chartered train and were issued coupons entitling them to meals, a beer ration, and one opera performance. They were marched to and from the opera house in formation. The SS were present in force in the aisles to ensure that audience members were displaying the proper degree of enthusiasm.
Can there have been a worse way to see an opera? It sounds like a school field trip where the teachers are armed. But audience accounts of the performances -- even some official reports filed by the SS -- show that there was at least one production where the fuhrer's guests responded exactly the way Hitler wanted them to. They were enthralled, they wept openly at the climax, they greeted the final curtain with salvo after salvo of deafening applause. It was the July 1943 production of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg -- which means the audience was profoundly, heart-shudderingly moved by a four-hour light opera about a medieval singing contest.
Maybe this is a cultural divide we can't hope to cross, but the truth is that even under less freakish circumstances Die Meistersinger can have an unpredictable effect on audiences. It's a mystifying work -- odd among Wagner's operas, odd among operas generally. It's billed as a comedy, and by comparison with Wagner's normal mode of cosmic tragedy, it can fairly be called lighthearted. But it doesn't have much in the way of laughs; the funny scenes are so enormous and diffuse they're like slapstick performed by cumulus clouds. It's also sometimes called Wagner's one realistic opera, and in fact it isn't set in that strange mythological twilight realm of Der Ring des Nibelungen or Tristan or Parsifal: nothing magical or supernatural happens, and the setting is as close to documentary as Wagner ever got (there really were guilds of mastersingers in late medieval Nuremberg, and the hero, the cobbler-poet Hans Sachs, is based on a real person). But the realism keeps fading away into dreaminess. None of Wagner's other operas seems so much of a fairy tale: the plot about the winner of the contest marrying the mayor's daughter is straight out of the Brothers Grimm. And the tone isn't Wagner's normal metaphysical gloom; it's miraculously sunny and serene, as though there's no darkness in the world deeper than benign melancholy. And yet when it's done right -- as it was at Bayreuth that year -- it leaves an audience in tears.
Die Meistersinger can really only be understood in relation to Wagner's overarching masterpiece, Der Ring des Nibelungen. In fact, Wagner composed Die Meistersinger as a pleasant little interlude in the midst of his 25 years of labor on the larger work. It's deliberately airy and inconsequential where the Ring is inexorable and dark. It's a deliberate turning away from the death of gods and the fate of worlds to more humble and earthly concerns: the happiness of young lovers, the sadness of approaching age, the evanescence of a summer's day and the loveliness of its twilight. Its brightness and gentleness stand out in Wagner's universe like a line of sunny rooftops against a blackening thunderstorm.
The Nazis who hated Wagner had a point: he really was morbid. He intended the Ring to be not just his masterwork, but a summation and final accounting for Western culture -- a vision of its foundational myth and a prophecy of its coming collapse. That was always the mystery about the Ring. He composed it at the height of a civilization greater than any since the fall of Rome: the colonial empires of Europe controlled most of the land surface of the earth, and their ships carried the traffic of every ocean. Yet all Wagner could see ahead of him was its ruin and decline. He found among the ancient legends of the Teutons and the Vikings the epic story of the cursed ring of the Nibelung and the fall of the noble house of the Volsungs, and he saw it as a vast parable of the rot eating away at the foundations of the contemporary world. The ring represents avarice and the lust for power; it will give dominion over the whole earth to anyone who renounces love -- but the gods can see no danger of that, since how could there be a being, mortal or immortal, who would ever renounce the glory of love for the paltriness of mere power? Wagner looked around him and knew there would be no shortage of takers.
In his earliest plan for the Ring, the old world of the gods would be destroyed and a new human utopia free of the ring's curse would arise to replace it -- but he eventually dropped that idea. The more he worked on the Ring the less good he could see ahead, following the wreck of his civilization. So when he came to compose Die Meistersinger he offered a utopia not of the future but of the past. He retreated to a time and place where the doom hanging over Europe wouldn't yet seem inescapable, where people could pass their whole lives in a dream of contented peace, where they really could care who won a singing contest. He created the textures of this paradise with lavish concreteness. No other opera is so casually exact about its location, its sights, its atmosphere; each scene is so deeply realized, you can even tell what the temperature is. The first act is touched by the slightly clammy coolness of a stone cathedral on a sultry morning; the second is filled with a humid, lilac-scented night breeze drifting down a cobblestone alley; and the last act overflows with the hot, lush air of a sunlit meadow in the depths of the untouched German countryside.
The 1943 production brought these qualities to life with extraordinary fidelity. Surviving stills show that the backdrop of cathedral walls was painted with such care you could almost see the beads of dew on the stone. The view down the back alley was a marvelously steep twilight clutter of ancient tiled roofs and sinuously worn pavement. And the meadow was a kind of stage poem to a summer day, dominated by a majestic flowering tree, with the town glittering contentedly in the hazy distance. The Bayreuth opera house, itself so soothingly cool in the heat of those July afternoons, must have seemed to its astonished audience like a window into the mysterious peace at the heart of the fatherland.
How could they not have been moved? The orchestra played as if possessed, the soloists tore into every one of the immense arias as though this was the last time they would ever be allowed to sing music this beautiful, the chorus (filled out, by the fuhrer's special order, with the best amateur singers from a local division of the SS) roared and bellowed their way through the chorales in a kind of primordial joy of discovery. Each scene played out to lingering stillness, savoring the nuances of joy and renunciation in an ecstasy of achingly sweet nostalgia. And the final aria -- in which Hans Sachs sings of his hope that even if Germany itself is destroyed, the greatness of German art will survive -- was like a rapturous prayer of deliverance.
"German art." Of course Wagner thought the greatest art in the world was necessarily German -- that was a commonplace in those days. Germans, Japanese, Americans -- people of every nation profoundly believed in their innate cultural superiority. Wagner was wholly typical of Germans, for instance, in his loathing of the French: he was enraged during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 that the German army didn't burn Paris to the ground. Then too he was contemptuous, like most German intellectuals, of what he thought of as a Mediterranean contamination of the true, Teutonic soul of Europe -- "Mediterranean" encompassing everything from Italian opera to Christianity. And he was typical of Germans, and of Europeans generally, in his furious detestation of Jews. Back then, cultured men in Europe and America, from Degas to Kipling to Henry Adams, all took particular pleasure in cultivating lurid varieties of anti-Semitism. The curse of the ring, which Wagner himself couldn't see, included hatred and cultural paranoia.
But in the feverish atmosphere of the war years nobody could have remained blind to what was really at stake. The country was swarming with secret police, there were mass arrests and deportations of everybody thought even remotely undesirable, there were daily triumphant announcements of the latest spectacular military victory obliterating all those decades of national humiliation, and there were an awful lot of patriotic parades. The Bayreuth festival was typical of those years in its frenzied glorification of the Nazi state. Every public occasion, no matter how trivial, was turned into a riot of patriotic enthusiasm. Every week brought a new stadium-filling rally, a lurid night of bonfires, a solemn torchlight procession. The Nazis could make the groundbreaking for a new highway an excuse for another spectacular searchlight-swarming, band-thundering all-Hitler gala event. The message was everywhere: the war was about the survival of Germany itself. Either there would be a victory so great that its rule over its enemies would last a thousand years or there would be a defeat so bottomless that nothing, no hope or joy or scrap of song, would survive.
This was the message that was seeping through Wagner's dream of happiness on those summer afternoons in 1943. It was a stronger dose of the message that has always hurried nations into war. Our land is more precious than that of our enemies, our joys are sweeter than theirs, our losses are more deeply felt. The soldiers in that auditorium apparently believed -- or almost believed -- in the rightness of their cause and the urgency of victory, to the point of anguish. And the performance told them that this was what the music had always been intended to say: if only the ecstasy of song lasts we will be saved; if only we can hold on to this heartbreakingly beautiful vision of our true heritage, then everything we are doing in its name will be redeemed.
***
"You folks at home must be disappointed at what happened to our American troops in Tunisia. So are we over here." That was how wire-service reporter Ernie Pyle began a dispatch in February 1943. A few days before, at Kasserine Pass, in the desolate mountain ranges fringing the Sahara, American troops had had their first major encounter with the Germans. The Americans had been undertrained and overconfident; confronted by the ferocity of an artillery barrage, they'd panicked and run. Pyle sounds like he was breaking the news that the hometown swim team had lost at the state finals.
That was pretty bold by the standards of the time. From the beginning of the war any little setback like Kasserine had been veiled in impenetrable layers of vague regret and consolatory wisdom. "No one here has the slightest doubt that the Germans will be thrown out of Tunisia," Pyle goes on to say almost immediately. "It is simply in the cards." That was a lucky thing, because right then there was no compelling military reason to expect an Allied victory. Pyle then adds this remarkable bit to the mythology of "our boys": "As for the soldiers themselves, you need feel no shame nor concern about their ability. I have seen them in battle and afterwards and there is nothing wrong with the common American soldier. His fighting spirit is good. His morale is okay. The deeper he gets into a fight the more of a fighting man he becomes."
Which is as much as to say that the actual result of the battle shouldn't be allowed to dent the myth. This is where the falsification of the war began -- not in the movies and not in government propaganda, but in the simple refusal of reporters in the field to describe honestly what they were seeing.
American soldiers early on grew accustomed to the idea that the truth of their experience wasn't going to be told to the folks back home. They knew the score: despite the drone of triumph surrounding their every deed, the American entry into the war was a gory fiasco. The military had been caught wholly unprepared and was rushing troops into battle all over the world with a minimum of training and a maximum of chaos. To this day, if you ask any veteran for war stories, what you're likely to hear first is some appalling epic of American military incompetence. Every unit rapidly accumulated its share of grim legends. There was the arrogant lieutenant fresh out of officer school who was assigned to lead troops into battle and turned coward under fire or was fatally befuddled by ambiguous orders. There was the murderous stupidity of a supply clerk up the line who contemptuously mishandled an urgent request for emergency provisions -- on Guadalcanal, for instance, desperately needed drinking water arrived in used oil drums nobody had thought to wash out first. And there was the almost daily occurrence of the routine patrol turned into a nightmare by friendly fire. Friendly fire was a worse problem in World War II than in any other American war before or since. American troops on the ground were so frequently bombed by their own planes that they were known to shoot back with their heaviest guns.
The folks at home learned none of this. The news was being censored of course: American reporters in the field, like those of every combatant nation, had to submit all stories for official clearance, and reporters who tried to describe the war honestly would quickly find their stories going unapproved and their press credentials in doubt. But the First Amendment was still in force back home; unlike the newspapers of the Axis, which were wholly given over to government-enforced fantasies of imminent global triumph, American newspapers were still free, at least in theory, to publish whatever they liked. Some of them did so: the Library of America's Reporting World War II anthology contains reasonably honest and critical pieces from major newspapers and magazines on conditions in the internment camps, on the lack of enthusiasm for the war in African-American ghettos, and on the institutionalized racism of the military. But when it came to what was happening on the battlefields themselves the unbreakable silence closed in.
Part of it was the deep reluctance of the American military to approve stories that suggested -- as A.J. Liebling put it -- that American soldiers might "die in an undignified way." Part of it was simple patriotism: the reporters were under no obligation to be neutral; they wanted America to win and weren't going to risk hurting home-front morale by writing honestly of the terror and desperation of the battlefield.
But there was another reason as well: a kind of psychological block. There was something essential about the battlefield that reporters didn't tell the folks back home. They weren't being censored exactly; they probably could have published it if they'd wanted to. They just didn't know how. In any anthology of wartime journalism (it happens constantly in Reporting World War II), you can find instances of reporters coming up against the fundamental truth of the war and being unable to say what it was. Instead they resorted to a curious verbal tic, almost an involuntary distress signal, to mark the place where their verbal abilities left off and the incommunicable reality of what they were witnessing began.
Here's a typical example, from Ernie Pyle's Tunisian reporting: "One of our half-tracks, full of ammunition, was livid red, with flames leaping and swaying. Every few seconds one of the shells would go off, and the projectile would tear into the sky with a weird whang-zing sort of noise."
That seems unexceptionable enough. Like most of what Pyle sent in over the wire, it has a striking visual vigor and simplicity, down to the comic-book sound effects -- put a grinning American soldier in the foreground, and you've got a perfect Norman Rockwell war poster. But compare it with this, from John Hersey's reporting of the Guadalcanal campaign for Life magazine: "But weirdest of all was the sound of our artillery shells passing overhead. At this angle, probably just about under the zenith of their trajectory, they gave off a soft, fluttery sound, like a man blowing through a keyhole."
This seems to be out of another universe of literary style: compared with Pyle's report, this is a sinuously Jamesian prose poem. But it has an unexpected point of resemblance. Hersey, like Pyle, calls the sound of a shell in flight "weird."
That word and its cognates recur countless times in American war reporting. The war was weird. Or it was haunted, or spectral, or uncanny, or supernatural. Battle zones were eerie; bomb craters were unearthly; even diplomatic conferences were strange and unreal. Here's an elaborate example, from Edward R. Murrow's famous radio broadcasts from London during the German air raids of September 1940. Murrow was standing on a rooftop at night, looking out on a blacked-out roof-scape lit up by flashes of antiaircraft fire and distant swarming searchlights. His eye was caught by an odd detail: "Out of one window there waves something that looks like a white bed sheet, a window curtain swinging free in this night breeze. It looks as though it were being shaken by a ghost. There are a great many ghosts around these buildings in London."
It's worth following the implicit logic here in some detail. There's an obvious meaning you would expect Murrow to find in the sight of a white sheet waving in the middle of an air raid: it's a flag of surrender, a pathetic gesture of submission made to the unseen forces thundering across the night skies overhead. But that's exactly what Murrow doesn't say. There was a straightforward reason: he was passionately pro-British and wasn't about to suggest that anybody in London was about to surrender -- even metaphorically. But then what did the sheet look like? Now we get to that short circuit: another reason it didn't look like a white flag was that a white flag was something you'd see in a battle -- and this wasn't like a battle. It was much too strange for that. It was more like a haunted house: some kind of border zone where the barriers between this world and the next were dissolving, and ghosts came fluttering up out of nothingness. It was certainly not a place where the traditional language of warfare had any meaning. As Murrow himself put it directly: "There are no words to describe the thing that is happening."
So what was this "thing" these reporters were seeing? Is there any way for us now to get a sense of what they were seeing?
There was a battle soon after Pearl Harbor that may, better than any other, define just what was so strange about the war. Unlike most of the war's battles, it was contained within a narrow enough area that it can be visualized clearly, yet its consequences were so large and mysterious that they rippled throughout the entire world for years afterward. It happens that no American reporters were around to witness it directly, but it has been amply documented even so. From survivors' accounts, and from a small library of academic and military histories, ranging in scope and style from Walter Lord's epic Miracle at Midway to John Keegan's brilliant tactical analysis in The Price of Admiralty: The Evolution of Naval Warfare, it's possible to work out with some precision just what happened in the open waters of the Pacific off Midway Island at 10:25 AM local time on June 4, 1942.
In the months after Pearl Harbor the driving aim of Japanese strategy was to capture a string of islands running the length of the western Pacific and fortify them against an American counterattack. This defensive perimeter would set the boundaries of their new empire -- or, as they called it, the "Greater Asia Coprosperity Sphere." Midway Island, the westernmost of the Hawaiian Islands, was one of the last links they needed to complete the chain. They sent an enormous fleet, the heart of the Japanese navy, to do the job: four enormous aircraft carriers, together with a whole galaxy of escort ships. On June 4 the attack force arrived at Midway, where they found a smaller American fleet waiting for them.
Or so the history-book version normally runs. But the sailors on board the Japanese fleet saw things differently. They didn't meet any American ships on June 4. That day, as on all the other days of their voyage, they saw nothing from horizon to horizon but the immensity of the Pacific. Somewhere beyond the horizon line, shortly after dawn, Japanese pilots from the carriers had discovered the presence of the American fleet, but for the Japanese sailors, the only indications of anything unusual that morning were two brief flyovers by American fighter squadrons. Both had made ineffectual attacks and flown off again. Coming on toward 10:30 AM, with no further sign of enemy activity anywhere near, the commanders ordered the crews on the aircraft carriers to prepare for the final assault on the island, which wasn't yet visible on the horizon.
That was when a squadron of American dive-bombers came out of the clouds overhead. They'd got lost earlier that morning and were trying to make their way back to base. In the empty ocean below they spotted a fading wake -- one of the Japanese escort ships had been diverted from the convoy to drop a depth charge on a suspected American submarine. The squadron followed it just to see where it might lead. A few minutes later they cleared a cloud deck and discovered themselves directly above the single largest "target of opportunity," as the military saying goes, that any American bomber had ever been offered.
When we try to imagine what happened next we're likely to get an image out of Star Wars -- daring attack planes, as graceful as swallows, darting among the ponderously churning cannons of some behemoth of a Death Star. But the sci-fi trappings of Star Wars disguise an archaic and sluggish idea of battle. What happened instead was this: the American squadron commander gave the order to attack, the planes came hurtling down from around 12,000 feet and released their bombs, and then they pulled out of their dives and were gone. That was all. Most of the Japanese sailors didn't even see them.
The aircraft carriers were in a frenzy just then. Dozens of planes were being refueled and rearmed on the hangar decks, and elevators were raising them to the flight decks, where other planes were already revving up for takeoff. The noise was deafening, and the warning sirens were inaudible. Only the sudden, shattering bass thunder of the big guns going off underneath the bedlam alerted the sailors that anything was wrong. That was when they looked up. By then the planes were already soaring out of sight, and the black blobs of the bombs were already descending from the brilliant sky in a languorous glide.
One bomb fell on the flight deck of the Akagi, the flagship of the fleet, and exploded amidships near the elevator. The concussion wave of the blast roared through the open shaft to the hangar deck below, where it detonated a stack of torpedoes. The explosion that followed was so powerful it ruptured the flight deck; a fireball flashed like a volcano through the blast crater and swallowed up the midsection of the ship. Sailors were killed instantly by the fierce heat, by hydrostatic shock from the concussion wave, by flying shards of steel; they were hurled overboard unconscious and drowned. The sailors in the engine room were killed by flames drawn through the ventilating system. Two hundred died in all. Then came more explosions rumbling up from below decks as the fuel reserves ignited. That was when the captain, still frozen in shock and disbelief, collected his wits sufficiently to recognize that the ship had to be abandoned.
Meanwhile another carrier, the Kaga, was hit by a bomb that exploded directly on the hangar deck. The deck was strewn with live artillery shells, and open fuel lines snaked everywhere. Within seconds, explosions were going off in cascading chain reactions, and uncontrollable fuel fires were breaking out all along the length of the ship. Eight hundred sailors died. On the flight deck a fuel truck exploded and began shooting wide fans of ignited fuel in all directions; the captain and the rest of the senior officers, watching in horror from the bridge, were caught in the spray, and they all burned to death.
Less than five minutes had passed since the American planes had first appeared overhead. The Akagi and the Kaga were breaking up. Billowing columns of smoke towered above the horizon line. These attracted another American bomber squadron, which immediately launched an attack on a third aircraft carrier, the Soryu. These bombs were less effective -- they set off fuel fires all over the ship, but the desperate crew managed to get them under control. Still, the Soryu was so badly damaged it was helpless. Shortly afterward it was targeted by an American submarine (the same one the escort ship had earlier tried to drop a depth charge on). American subs in those days were a byword for military ineffectiveness; they were notorious for their faulty and unpredictable torpedoes. But the crew of this particular sub had a large stationary target to fire at point-blank. The Soryu was blasted apart by repeated direct hits. Seven hundred sailors died.
The last of the carriers, the Hiryu, managed to escape untouched, but later that afternoon it was located and attacked by another flight of American bombers. One bomb set off an explosion so strong it blew the elevator assembly into the bridge. More than 400 died, and the crippled ship had to be scuttled a few hours later to keep it from being captured.
Now there was nothing left of the Japanese attack force except a scattering of escort ships and the planes still in the air. The pilots were the final casualties of the battle; with the aircraft carriers gone, and with Midway still in American hands, they had nowhere to land. They were doomed to circle helplessly above the sinking debris, the floating bodies, and the burning oil slicks until their fuel ran out.
This was the Battle of Midway. As John Keegan writes, it was "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare." Its consequences were instant, permanent and devastating. It gutted Japan's navy and broke its strategy for the Pacific war. The Japanese would never complete their perimeter around their new empire; instead they were thrown back on the defensive, against an increasingly large and better-organized American force, which grew surgingly confident after its spectacular victory. After Midway, as the Japanese scrambled to rebuild their shattered fleet, the Americans went on the attack. In August 1942 they began landing a marine force on the small island of Guadalcanal (it's in the Solomons, near New Guinea) and inexorably forced a breach in the perimeter in the southern Pacific. From there American forces began fanning out into the outer reaches of the empire, cutting supply lines and isolating the strongest garrisons. From Midway till the end of the war the Japanese didn't win a single substantial engagement against the Americans. They had "lost the initiative," as the bland military saying goes, and they never got it back.
But it seems somehow paltry and wrong to call what happened at Midway a "battle." It had nothing to do with battles the way they were pictured in the popular imagination. There were no last-gasp gestures of transcendent heroism, no brilliant counterstrategies that saved the day. It was more like an industrial accident. It was a clash not between armies, but between TNT and ignited petroleum and drop-forged steel. The thousands who died there weren't warriors but bystanders -- the workers at the factory who happened to draw the shift when the boiler exploded.
This was exactly what the witnesses to the war were finding so impossible to believe. The cliche in those days was that World War I had destroyed the old romantic notions about battle -- after the slaughter in the trenches of Europe, it was said, nobody would ever again rhapsodize about the chivalry of jousting knights or the grandeur of a sword-waving cavalry charge. The reporters going out to cover World War II had prepared themselves to see battles that were mechanized, anonymous, and horrible. But they weren't prepared, not really. World War I had been a generation earlier, and the military industries of the great powers hadn't stopped their drive for innovation. The combatant nations of World War II were supplying their forces with armaments of such dramatically increased power they made those of World War I obsolete. The reporters got out into the war and discovered a scale of mass destruction so inhuman that cynicism and disillusionment seemed just as irrelevant as the sentimental pieties of the home front.
What were they supposed to say about what they were seeing? At Kasserine American soldiers were blown apart into shreds of flesh scattered among the smoking ruins of exploded tanks. Ernie Pyle called this "disappointing." Well, why not? There were no other words to describe the thing that had happened there. The truth was, the only language that seemed to register the appalling strangeness of the war was supernatural: the ghost story where nightmarish powers erupt out of nothingness, the glimpse into the occult void where human beings would be destroyed by unearthly forces they couldn't hope to comprehend. Even the most routine event of the war, the firing of an artillery shell, seemed somehow uncanny. The launch of a shell and its explosive arrival were so far apart in space and time you could hardly believe they were part of the same event, and for those in the middle there was only the creepy whisper of its passage, from nowhere to nowhere, like a rip in the fabric of causality.
Even the military powers themselves, which had spent so many years planning for the war, which had built up titanic armies and commissioned the factories to churn out wave after wave of advanced weaponry -- even they didn't understand the furies they were unleashing. That's what had caused the disaster at Midway. Aircraft carriers were the most powerful ships ever to set sail; they were so large and strongly built they sometimes seemed to their crews not to be ships at all, but floating cities of metal, floating industrial districts delivering destruction to their enemies on the other side of the world. But nobody had stopped to consider just how vulnerable they'd be in a combat zone. Midway was the first major naval battle involving aircraft carriers, and in those few minutes the sailors on board suddenly realized the fundamental defect in their design. For all its appearance of self-sufficiency and invulnerability, an aircraft carrier really was an immense oilcan stuffed with explosives, floating in the middle of an inhospitable ocean.
In the obsolete days of naval warfare Midway would have been different. An old-fashioned attack fleet would have been carrying less-powerful explosives and far less fuel (and the American planes wouldn't have been equipped with such large bombs); its ships could probably have survived the attack at Midway with only moderate damage. But the Japanese carrier attack force was on the hair trigger of total catastrophe -- ready not only to self-destruct in an instant, but to cause a vast, unpredictable, and wholly uncontrollable wave of |
orderliness and detachment. Therefore practice meditation to make the mind a perfect instrument of the Will: perfect the skills of concentration and nonattachment.
Exercise your body and your mind with diligence but always strive unto higher goals and ideals. Never tire of competition and exceeding your own perceived limits.
“But exceed! exceed! Strive ever to more!” – Liber AL vel Legis, II:71-72
ON DEALING WITH OTHER FELLOW SOLDIERS
Every person must be a pyramid: flawless from base to apex, sufficient unto themselves. Yet each Star is part of the Body of Infinite Space. Therefore make friends and enemies as ye will.
Our attitude to one another must be one of great respect like the chivalry from the West or bushido from the East. Thrill with the joy of vigorous competition and conflict yet always out of overflow of Will, strength, beauty, love, and rapture.
Therefore do not cover yourself to mask your true brilliance. Let the Sun of your Will shine effulgently on all things: care not that it will inevitably nourish some and destroy others.
But also do not fear losing your supposed “freedom” by banding together with other stars. Verily, a galaxy is an inconceivably potent source of gravitational force although it is, in reality, made up of individual stars…
Therefore make camps and lodges and groups and propagate the Spirit of Freedom, enshrined in the Word of the Law: Thelema.
“But the keen and the proud, the royal and the lofty; ye are brothers! As brothers fight ye!” – Liber AL vel Legis, III:58-5910 years ago
McCain lashed out at Bush's record Wednesday.
(CNN) - John McCain lashed out at President Bush's record on a host of issues Wednesday, perhaps the Arizona senator's harshest criticism to date of his party's standard-bearer for the last eight years.
"Spending, the conduct of the war in Iraq for years, growth in the size of government, larger than any time since the Great Society, laying a $10 trillion debt on future generations of America, owing $500 billion to China, obviously, failure to both enforce and modernize the [financial] regulatory agencies that were designed for the 1930s and certainly not for the 21st century, failure to address the issue of climate change seriously," McCain told the Washington Times when asked to name his criticisms of the current president.
"Those are just some of them," McCain said, laughing.
The comments are the latest in the Arizona senator's efforts to distance himself from the unpopular president as Election Day inches closer and opinion surveys repeatedly suggest Bush is a heavy drag on the GOP ticket. A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll showed the president's approval rating mired in the mid-20s while nearly 60 percent of voters felt McCain would continue the president's policies.
In the interview, McCain also took swipes at the president for supporting a massive Medicare program, the administration's repeated invocation of executive privilege to sidestep oversight, and Dick Cheney's powerful role as vice president.
"I don't agree with [Vice President] Dick Cheney's allegation that he's part of both the legislative and the executive branch," McCain said.“We are aware of the involvement of Bangladeshi women in India’s flesh trade. We are working on a strategy to stop this racket,” said a senior diplomat in the Bangladesh High Commission to bdnews24.com.
But he was not willing to be named.
Official records suggest there are around 180 Bangladeshi girls rescued from brothels in Mumbai and 80 from those in Delhi, who are now languishing in different rescue (shelter) homes in these two Indian cities.
“Verifying their nationality and going ahead with their repatriation is something that would take time,” said the diplomat.
During the last three years, more than 150 Bangladeshi women have been repatriated from India after they were rescued from red-light areas in metros.
Elaborating on the issue of the involvement of Bangladeshi women in the flourishing trade, he said, “They are victims of human trafficking.”
Officials say the porous India-Bangladesh border and poverty in Bangladesh are two major push factors for women trafficking from Bangladesh to India and their growing involvement in India's flesh trade.
“On several occasions when we interacted with these hapless women from Bangladesh, we were told that they were victims of human trafficking,” said Subir Roy, a member of a Delhi-based NGO-Shakti Bahini.
“They are easily trapped by the traffickers, who lure them on the pretext of giving jobs in India’s metros,”
What has worried the security establishment here is the fact that some women who come to India on valid passport get involved in flesh trade.
In September last year, a 20-year old Bangladeshi woman, having valid passport, was rescued from a hotel in Haryana.
“When we came to know about the woman we took the help of anti-trafficking unit of the Delhi police and rescued the woman from a posh hotel in Haryana,” said Roy.
The woman was later sent to Dhaka by the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi.
Both the countries share 4,096 km international border. Five states including West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram share their boundary with Bangladesh.
According to a senior official in the home ministry, fencing for over 3,000 km has been sanctioned. While nearly 77 percent of the work is completed, dispute over some 180 sites on the border of both the countries have delayed work.
India’s home ministry has issued an advisory to combat trafficking.
The advisory stated that the missions or the posts in India may be informed of the arrest and detention of the foreign national by the state or other authorities through Consular, Passport and Visa (CPV) Division of the external affairs ministry.
“The victims and the person actually involved in human trafficking should be treated differently by the police. This is in line with the SAARC convention which advocates a victim-centric approach,” the circular said.
In order to ensure better conviction rates of perpetrators of trafficking, prosecution should be based on documentary, forensic and material evidence.
“State governments are advised to encourage law-enforcement agencies to investigate the cases, so that conviction can be guaranteed. Use of fast-track courts needs to be ensured,” the advisory said.It feels as though I’m supposed to be enraged about sex robots, sex-bots, robosexuals, whatever, as viewed on the recent Channel 4 The Sex Robots Are Coming documentary. That I should be unnerved about the likes of new improved prototype Harmony and her promise of brushed-plastic erotica. Not that I judge Harmony – what human woman hasn’t shown off to a man in a bar about her gifts for “internal heating” and “self-lubrication”? Hey ladeez, we all use what we’ve got, right? Nor is it Harmony’s fault that she exists. In fact, perhaps there are other women like me, who (whisper it) almost feel sorry for her.
It's a sex robot, but not as you know it: exploring the frontiers of erotic technology Read more
It makes sense that women especially might be disturbed by sex-bots. There are vastly more of the female variety and it’s all a bit Stepford Men’s Association: femme machines drafted in to replace the “faulty” (assertive, rebellious, breathing) real versions. In a certain vision of male utopia, instead of real women and their buzzkill notions about equality and self-will, men would return home to find chick-bots such as Harmony clattering around the kitchen, in the manner of an eroticised C-3PO.
Perchance Harmony would proffer a chicken ready-meal, purring electronically: “You must maintain energy so that, later, you are able to sexually satisfy me with your unusually large phallus.” And if Harmony accidentally ingested a splash of gravy, her face melted and her breasts started rotating anti-clockwise, then she could always be sent back to the workshop for an upgrade. Or a service man could pop around and fix the boiler at the same time.
However, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves – that’s the glorious AI/porn crossover future. Right now, the sex robots that were born out of pornography seem doomed to reflect their source in all the usual derogatory, dehumanising, misogynistic ways, while adding a few more for good measure.
Maybe they will be programmed to say, 'Take me big boy … and also take the bins out'
It’s telling that these robots only endeavour to be “realistic” when it comes to their techno-squelchy sexual parts, while remaining unrealistic in terms of female beauty and everyday relationship interaction. Or maybe I’m wrong and they’ll be programmed to say: “Take me, big boy… and also take the bins out.” It’s also tragic to think of humans having sex, not with each other, but with something that has more in common with an interactive (albeit very turned-on) Furby. Couldn’t humankind, even at its loneliest, and most damaged, do a bit better than that?
Some might say, what about those women who buy realistic baby dolls – isn’t that also satisfying a basic human need? And what about women who buy vibrators? However, from the looks of it, women who buy baby dolls don’t feel angry or controlling towards real babies, nor rejected by them. Nor is anyone claiming that vibrators replace the whole man.
This may be the core difficulty with sex-bots – not that they replicate sex, but that they represent how some men want to replace and improve upon real women and not just physically. That they appeal to men who are only interested in almost silent, but always compliant, sexually available “women”, for whom self-will is always a microchip away.
Then again (silver lining!), what woman would want to have sex with the kind of men who would buy eroto-bots anyway? This mentality has long existed in some shape or form and, if now these men are going to be busy playing with sex-bots, and no longer bothering, boring, or unnerving real women… well, hallelujah for that!
This is why, far from bridling at being replaced, some women may just feel bizarrely, irrationally sorry for Harmony and her porno-bot sisters. We know what’s coming, so to speak. Indeed, considering the types of men who would buy sex-bots, it doesn’t seem too much of a loss for womankind; if anything, it borders on a boon. A case of: “Great, replace us, go ahead!”The Islamic State is demanding $200 million from Japan for the release of two hostages. Wisely, the government has declined to send the money. But it’s the Japanese people who have done something brilliant—something the U.S. government has tried, and repeatedly failed, to do.
This week Japanese Internet users rallied together to mock the Islamic State (a.k.a. ISIS or IS) with a Photoshop battle that shows the terrorists in a series of absurd and contemptuous images. This effort won’t save the hostages, but it could, in at least a small way, help prevent future terrorism.
As many have noted, IS is extremely good at recruiting (even better than Al Qaeda). There are members of IS from all over the world, including the United States, Chile, Australia, and England. The militant group has a vicious knack for getting their message out online. Take, for example, a video in English that mixes positive proclamations usually reserved for religious conversions and violent, power-driven images that appeal to the power-hungry side of human nature, such as those seen in the Nazi’s infamous Triumph of the Will. They are organized on social media and they are good at, for lack of a better term, branding themselves to disenfranchised young people, those easily baited for radicalization. Their propaganda is clear and strong and has yet to be undermined by any government.
The U.S. government has tried counter-propaganda techniques by engaging with IS online, but has failed thus far. Their methods, which include sending anti-IS quotes to journalists and creating poorly produced videos, are dated and lackluster. In a piece for the Guardian, former State Department advisor Shahed Amanullah says that America’s tactics have only made the group stronger: “They turn right around to their followers and say, ‘See? We’re every bit as powerful as we say we are, the US government is proof.’”
So, why is Japan’s response so valuable? Because it was effective where America’s attempts have failed.
The point of counter-propaganda is to undercut the other side’s efforts. In the case of IS, the militant group wants to look righteous and fierce. By combining IS propaganda with goofy anime characters, Japanese Internet users in turn made IS look silly. Those looking to join the terrorist group know that it is admonished by almost every world leader, which is part of the draw—standing up for what they see is right. But, emasculating these terrorists and depicting them as anything but serious subverts the gravity of their message.
This may sound like a small victory, but considering that a terrorist group is only as powerful as its number of recruits, and it can only draw new fighters through the strength of its messaging, the Japanese may have just provided the world with the perfect weapon against IS.
Every person who can be dissuaded from joining IS is a victory, especially considering that 800 IS fighters defeated 30,000 Iraqi soldiers. The group is able to go from city to city using a scorched earth-like tactic that makes William Tecumseh Sherman’s Civil War march through the South look like the Rose Parade. They have gained thousands of more fighters along the way, and there’s little sign that the recruitment will slow down without successful efforts to stop IS from branding themselves as heroes.
No one is born a terrorist. Radicalization happens through conversation. On a most basic level, this means that de-radicalization is possible with the right words. And, more importantly (and realistically), preventing radicalization from ever occurring is feasible if the formerly successful mobilizing image has now weakened.
This whole notion might sound naïve—or perhaps jargon like “counter-propaganda” makes your eyes glaze over—so let me give an outrageous, totally low-brow example of how this whole thing works.
In 2012, Taylor Swift released a single called “I Knew You Were Trouble” that quickly became a hit. Then a “goat version” of the song popped up on YouTube:
(Sorry, this embed was not found.)
Most people who listened to the goat version could never hear the original the same way again. To extrapolate this lesson to counter-terrorism, if someone were to add fart noises to an IS recruiting video, the original video would be much harder to take seriously. This might sound like a joke, but the not-so-subtle undercutting would likely be permanently engrained in any viewer’s memory and could erode the fervor and seriousness of IS propaganda.
Of course this tactic won’t always work, nor is IS propaganda the only reason disenfranchised people join the militant horde. But considering the U.S. government recently boosted its Overseas Contingency Operations budget by $7.8 billion solely to produce more counter-propaganda and engage in other efforts to dissuade young people from joining IS, it’s clearly an important tool—one that Japan’s Twitter users appear to have a grasp on better than anyone else.
Photo via A National Acrobat/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)An Amazon Fire TV app developer has posted on Amazon’s developer forum seeking answers about a pair of unreleased Fire TV models that appeared in their app’s access logs. The first new device identified itself as an “AFTN” device, which, thanks to a leaked benchmark I discovered earlier this year, we already know is a new mid-tier Fire TV model that Amazon is working on. The second new mystery Fire TV model identified itself as an “AFTA” device. This is the first time this model has ever surfaced and it is very likely the successor to the current 2nd-generation Fire TV.
A Fire TV developer, who posts under the forum name Jacek, first posted about discovering an unrecognized AFTN Fire TV device 4 days ago. Someone, likely an Amazon employee, using the device ran Jacek’s app and the incident was logged by Jacek’s server. While this does further confirm that the AFTN device, which leaked earlier this year, is a new Fire TV model, it does not reveal any new information about the device because the leaked benchmark from March contains far more information than the user agent that Jacek’s server logged. The only thing of note is that the AFTN devices that Amazon is testing are now running a version of Fire OS that is based on Android 7.1.2, whereas these devices were running Android 7.1.1 when they were first discovered.
What is far more interesting is the new comment that Jacek posted earlier today which revealed that a second unrecognized Fire TV model also accessed their servers through their Fire TV app. The second unrecognized Fire TV model identified itself as an AFTA device, which is a new model that has never been discovered before today.
Amazon assigns all of their Fire TV models a unique build value that the device broadcasts to apps and servers. This allows developers to know which device is using their app or accessing their servers, so that they may handle the request differently if necessary. As Amazon’s developer documentation explains, all Fire TV build values start with “AFT” followed by one or two additional letters that identify each unique model.
The first Fire TV, released in 2014, was identified as an AFTB device and its successor, the Fire TV 2, was released in 2015 as an AFTS device. The first Fire TV Stick, released in 2014, was an AFTM device and its successor, the current Fire TV Stick 2, was released last year as an AFTT device. The newest member of the Fire TV family is the Fire TV Edition television, which identifies itself as an AFTRS device.
Since the model identifier of all Fire TV devices is broadcasted to every app that the device runs and every server that the device accesses, it’s almost inevitable for a tester at Amazon to inadvertently reveal the existence of a new device. This is how we learned of the existence of the current Fire TV 2 several months before it was released.
We’ve known for some time now that Amazon is working on a new AFTN Fire TV model. The leaked benchmark from that device indicates it will be the first Fire TV device capable of playing 4K video at 60 fps as well as the first to support HDR video. While those video playback specs surpass that of the current Fire TV 2, which can only play 4K video at 30 fps and does not support HDR, the gaming specs of the AFTN model are inferior to the Fire TV 2.
While it’s still a very capable device, at a month shy of being two years old, the Fire TV 2 is probably due to be replaced. The lack of a powerful GPU leads me to believe that the AFTN Fire TV model is not a successor to the current Fire TV 2, but rather a new mid-tier model that will be positioned for those who want an inexpensive 4K and HDR streaming device without any extra bells and whistles. That leaves the newly discovered AFTA Fire TV model as the most likely successor to the Fire TV 2.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a leaked benchmark full of information for the AFTA Fire TV model, like we have for the AFTN model, so we don’t know much about the device. Jacek, the app developer who discovered it, says it has the same user agent as the AFTN model, so all we really know is that it exists and that it too is currently being tested with a version of Fire OS based on Android 7.1.2.
Jacek also notes that both the AFTN and AFTA devices appear to be connecting from India, while only the AFTN device has also connected from Seattle. Since Amazon’s main headquarters is in Seattle and they do a lot of their quality assurance testing in India, both locations are likely to house new unreleased models. The fact that the AFTN model made an appearance from multiple locations could indicate that it is further along in its development process and is closer to being released.
It now seems very likely that Amazon will be releasing two new Fire TV models in the coming months. They have most commonly released new Fire TV models in October, so it probably won’t be long before we learn more about these new devices.
Follow AFTVnews on Twitter / Facebook and subscribe via email to be the first to learn when new articles go live. Follow me, Elias Saba, on Twitter and Instagram to see what I'm working on before it's posted here.
ShareTweetShare+1In this post I’ll walk through building this Roman numeral to decimal converter using Scala.js and the Udash web application framework
See the project on Github Udashroman
Clojurescript to Scala
Several years ago when I was working through the Clojure exercises on 4clojure.org I implemented conversion from decimal numbers to roman numerals Write Roman Numerals and the same thing in reverse Read Roman Numerals. Next, when learning how to write Clojurescript web frontends, I implemented a simple web app to do the conversion live as you make changes to either the decimal or roman inputs which is modelled on the conversion UI you may see on Google when converting between pounds and kg and so on.
You can try out this clojurescript version of the app here romanclojure and the source code is available at http://github.com/justinhj/cljs-roman. The code consists of a single, quite concise, Clojurescript source file main.cljs
Building an app with Udash
Udash is designed to write rich single page apps and using the provided project generator to create one with some sample pages made it really easy to get started although I’d recommend skimming through most of the Udash guide before you start.
After creating my project I modified the RoutingRegistryDef which defines the routing rules to map the URL to the individual views of your application. In my case there is only one page so this is straightforward.
private val ( url2State, state2Url ) = Bidirectional [ String, RoutingState ] { case "" => RomanConverterState }
It is good practise to separate your application’s business logic from UI code to make it more testable, and by not having any dependencies on other libraries it is easy to move into another project if you need to. For that reason I created a companion object com.justinhj.romanconvert.Convert which contains functions to convert back and forth between Roman and Decimal. If you compare my original Clojurescript with the new Scala code you can see that the functions converted quite cleanly. The only complication I ran into is that the Scala standard library does not have an exact equivalent of Clojure’s partition function which I use as part of the conversion.
As an example if you pass in “IX” then I will map that to the pairs List((1, 10), (10, 0)) and if you pass “XI” I want List((10, 1), (1, 0)). In other words we pair each value with the one before it and use 0 as a pad value when we run out at the end. Scala’s partition function sliding does not allow this default pad value. In order to get around this I instead implemented the function pairUp to do exactly what I needed in this case.
Please be aware that one the goals of 4Clojure puzzles is to solve the problem with as little code as possible as there is a code golf leaderboard for each one. For that reason my original Clojure code has no comments and is not written in what I’d call a maintable style. In porting to Scala I did try to make it more readable and so it is a little more verbose.
With Udash each page of your app requires a number of classes defined to make the view work and since our app is only one page all of the code is in RomanConverterView.scala and I’ll walk through the pieces from top to bottom.
Your application data is represented as a Property. You can aggregate several fields together to make a ModelProperty and that’s what I’ve done in this case. The data for our application consists of the current decimal number and the current roman numeral.
trait ConversionModel { def decimal : String def roman : String }
Next we need a ViewPresenter RomanConverterViewPresenter which is used by Udash to create a presenter and view and in our case is very simple as you can see in the code for RomanConverterViewPresenter. It creates a model and passes that to both the Presenter which will handle business logic and the View which will handle the rendering of our application.
RomanConverterPresenter represents the interactive portion of our app and is responsible for validating the data in the model and converting from decimal to roman when the properties change. The method handleState is an initialization function called when the state becomes active. It adds a Validator to each property. With that in place you can check if an input is valid using the isValid method. Interestingly this returns a Future indicating that you could perhaps perform some web request or other IO operation without blocking Javascript’s single thread.
My validators are fairly simple and only check that your Roman property contains valid Roman numeral characters whilst the decimal one will ensure that you are converting a positive non-zero number less that a certain maximum (since large numbers quickly fill up the screen with M’s!). As a bonus we can use the validators to modify the class of the inputs to.error which will highlight the field in red as shown below:
In the original Clojure app I used the Dommy library to add listeners to each field to make the conversion when the input changes. In Udash the same thing is done using the listen callback on properties. By adding a listener to decimal and roman sub properties of our model, if the user changes them our code will get triggered.
Let’s look at handling a change to the roman property, the decimal one is similar. As you can see we define the listen callback as a function which will call validate on the property and only proceed if the result is Valid. Folowing that we trigger the conversion and if all is well call set on the sub property to update the decimal value.
model. subProp ( _. roman ). listen { r => model. subProp ( _. roman ). isValid. onComplete { case Success ( Valid ) => Convert. safeRomanNumeralsToDecimal ( r ) match { case Right ( converted ) => model. subProp ( _. decimal ). set ( converted ) case Left ( err ) => println ( s "$r roman convert error $err" ) } case Success ( errors ) => println ( s "$r has validation errors $errors" ) case Failure ( err ) => println ( s "validating $r caused exception $err" ) } }
So far so good but we don’t yet have any HTML markup for the user to interact with. The last piece is the view itself which takes the model and presenter as parameters as it needs to work with both of them:
class RomanConverterView ( model : ModelProperty [ ConversionModel ], presenter : RomanConverterPresenter )
In the clojurescript code I needed to write the HTML code fro the page and then have the script itself interact with it. In the Udash version I can write the HTML using ScalaTags directly in the code for the view.
private val content = div ( h2 ( "Roman Numerals Converter" ), div ( cls := "col-md-6", convertForm, div ( DemoStyles. textVOffset ), div ( `class` := "container", "Scala.js source code on ", Image ( "bitbucket.png", "Bitbucket source", DemoStyles. logo ), " ", a ( DemoStyles. underlineLinkGrey, href := ExternalUrls. bitbucketSource, ExternalUrls. bitbucketSource ) ), div ( `class` := "container", "Made with ", Image ( "udash_logo.png", "Udash Framework", DemoStyles. logo ), " ", a ( DemoStyles. underlineLinkGrey, href := ExternalUrls. homepage, "UDash" ), " Scala web framework" ) ) ) override def getTemplate : Modifier = content
getTemplate is a function in the view that the Udash library will call to render our page and my method content contains the markup needed to do so.
As you can see a piece of markup is just a function call and I call convertForm to generate the html for the actual input fields which is as follows:
def convertForm : Modifier = div ( UdashForm ( UdashForm. numberInput ( validation = Some ( UdashForm. validation ( model. subProp ( _. decimal )))) ( "Decimal" ) ( model. subProp ( _. decimal )), div ( DemoStyles. center, div ( `class` := "glyphicon glyphicon-chevron-up" ), br, div ( `class` := "glyphicon glyphicon-chevron-down" )), UdashForm. textInput ( validation = Some ( UdashForm. validation ( model. subProp ( _. roman )))) ( "Roman" ) ( model. subProp ( _. roman )) ). render )
The interesting part here is the validation parameter of the inputs. This is what enables Udash to give the user visual feedback when validation fails.
Summary
My key takeaways from this mini-project are that converting Clojurescript to Scala.js is quite painless, and I will certainly use the Udash web more in future.
Pros
A large and well documented library
Write your entire frontend and backend in the same library in the same language including type checked CSS and HTML
Project generator to get started
ConsLucius Malfoy bowed as he presented his Lord a sphere of glass — the odd container that the Unspeakables had created for Prophecies. Good. Any other news? Potter had escaped? Ah. Unfortunate. But with the Prophecy in his hand, it ought not to be too hard to catch him again. A word of disdainful congratulation, and Malfoy was sent away. Voldemort, almost smiling at the thought of his approaching success, said a word, an ancient word he had weaseled out of Slughorn all those years ago (not with any special purpose — just because it would never hurt to know such obscure lore) to hear a prophecy without destroying it; and the recording of Sybill Trelawney's First Prophecy began to play.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...
Yes, he had heard that part before. That had seemed reassuring: the boy had the power to vanquish him, but nothing said that he inescapably would do so. So far, so good, as they said.
Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...
Yes, yes. Ah, why could these things never be straightforward? It couldn't have hurt to just say it would be the son of the Potters? When he became God-Emperor of the Earth, he would have to look into forcing Seers to be clearer from now on. He'd lost precious time figuring out who had thrice defied him and was going to have a son.
And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...
How was giving the boy a scar marking him as his "equal"? That hadn't even been intentional. As for the power he knew not, that was only expected. A half-blood Hogwarts student couldn't possibly have more raw magical power than the Dark Lord; whatever the difference in their power arsenal was, it had to be knowledge of a specific kind of spell. Even more reassuringly, the present tense Trelawney had used technically only said that he didn't know this power at the time. He still had the opportunity to learn it before his showdown with the boy. Now, to the part he had longed to know all these years…
And either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives...
Oh. Now it was not mere possibility; it was fact that the prophecy was referring to. So… according to this, either he would have to kill the boy, or the boy would kill him. It was no longer a matter of power; this prophecy thought it could play men like puppets — that they would have no choice but obey its whims. Killing the boy had been an important goal of his, but that could not go on for a minute longer, if it had not truly been his will, if his moves had been dictated by whatever alien creature crafted Prophecies to confuse men. Lord Voldemort obeyed no one, Lord Voldemort only ever acted on his own volition. Ah, he could see it, now, what the Prophecy intended to happen… It counted on him doing all he could to kill the boy, sinking all his time and resources in this impossible task, until he would be left so vulnerable that the boy succeeded. A perfect happy ending for Dumbledore, no doubt.
Well, Lord Voldemort wouldn't be the toy of Fate. So he wouldn't kill the boy; did this suffice? No. The boy would still try to kill him, even if he was not directly targeted… for the sake of his friends, of the world, of Dumbledore's ideals of Peace and Good. The Prophecy would aid him in that task, no doubt. But Fate wouldn't, couldn't win. Voldemort's mind raced to find a way to circumvent the Prophecy at every possible turn. Turning the boy to his side? No, that couldn't be done. He was a Gryffindor if there ever was one. A Dementor's Kiss, perhaps? It would leave the boy alive, but with no soul left to think about killing him. No, too dangerous as well. That too, the Prophecy had foreseen. Trying either of those things would inevitably fail and only strengthen the boy in his determination to fight him as hard as he could.
Then he saw it.
There was only one possible option. The boy's plans couldn't be changed… or at least, not by his own actions. But his own plans, he could call off.
No becoming God-Emperor of the World. No more Death Eaters, no more war. No more murders. That was the sacrifice it would take to make the boy's side stop fighting. They wouldn't be happy with the arrangement; no doubt that they'd think justice had to be served, that even if he no longer killed, Tom Riddle should stand trial. But he'd give them an ultimatum, under veritaserum. Either they would also vow not to harm him in any way, and he would disband the Death Eaters and retire in some remote place as a magical researcher; or they would refuse, and the war would start again, more terrible than ever. In this event, of course, the Prophecy would ensure that he wouldn't win, but hundreds would die before Fate got the better of him.
He had torn apart his very soul to live forever. Giving up a planet was no less extreme, and he would make that sacrifice as well.
"Severus! I need you to carry a message to Dumbledore for me."I am not usually one to just post a raw question and answer session by itself. But this interview with Sio Moore is one I think is worthy of being read in its original form. There is nothing in here NOT worth reading. I have been in interviews with Moore since he was drafted by the Raiders and he is always a great personality to speak with, but he never ceases to amaze me with the way he speaks and the things he says.
If you can't draw inspiration from a person like this, check your pulse.
Q: Pads came on first time yesterday and you missed it. How hard to just watch?
Moore: Ah, man, it sucked, because I wanted to get out there with the guys. They told me to take the day off and I came out here today and I just wanted to try to execute and do everything that we're focusing as far as coaching and technique-wise. I've just got to get better.
Q: DA talks about building day by day, bricks in a wall, to miss even one brick, do you feel behind?
Moore: Yeah, you really do. Missing one day of camp is almost like missing three or four days. The pace that camp is going, as much information as we're taking in, as much as you have to know to get out here on the field, it's a boatload, and you've got to really play catch-up, and I don't want to be in that situation. I want to come out here and try and put it all together.
Q: The coaches are careful about building anyone up too much, but it's clear they're expecting things from you, both as pass rusher, as a LB. Are you feel pressure of early expectations?
Moore: I mean, if you're in the NFL and have an opportunity to play, there should be an urgency and an expectation you should have on yourself as well as the guys around you. The biggest thing with me, I don't feel pressure, we got a great group of guys, senior guys, we got C-Wood, Tyvon, Kevin (Burnett, Lamarr, Andre, you go down the list. There's a bunch of veteran guys around and they're on me about just continuing to work and to keep building on each play. As long as I take it upon myself to get better every day, everything is going to work out for itself.
Q: When they held you out of practice, was it precautionary? In a normal week in NFL could you have practiced?
Moore: Probably so, probably so. It's not really something I can talk about it much. But everything is fine, I came out today.
Q: Felt 100 percent today?
Moore: Yeah. It's going to take a lot more than that.
Q: Did you have that pinch-yourself moment, like ‘Man, I'm in camp with the Raiders'?
Moore: No, no, the other day we were in walkthrough and I told them to pass me the ball. I looked at the ball, the NFL shield is on it. I'm like, man, I always looked at this stuff as a little kid, and now I'm like I'm here at practice. It's kind of surreal still, but the biggest thing about it is nobody's got time for the surreal moments and the wide eyes. You can sit there with your jaw dropped and somebody's going to end up running past you.
Q: Saw story in New Haven paper about moment when you were 14, bullet whizzes by your head, is that still a seminal moment for you?
Moore: Yeah, man. 100 percent. My life could have been changed multiple times. That was only once. I had Civil War broken out in 1990, I would have never came to the U.S |
which in canon law they have.
British author and Catholic social activist Paul Vallely wrote that he felt the UN report had been hurt by the Commission having gone well beyond the issue of child abuse to issues such as contraception. However, he also felt the report did bring important pressure on the Vatican on important issues like reporting cases to police.[292]
Media coverage [ edit ]
The media coverage of Catholic sex abuse cases is a major aspect of the academic literature surrounding the pederastic priest scandal.
In 2002, the discovery that the sex abuse by Catholic priests was widespread in the U.S. received significant media coverage. For the first 100 days The New York Times had 225 pieces, including news and commentary, and the story appeared on its front page on 26 occasions.[293]
Commentator Tom Hoopes wrote that:
during the first half of 2002, the 61 largest newspapers in California ran nearly 2,000 stories about sexual abuse in Catholic institutions, mostly concerning past allegations. During the same period, those newspapers ran four stories about the federal government’s discovery of the much larger — and ongoing — abuse scandal in public schools.[294]
Anglican writer Philip Jenkins supported many of these arguments stating that media coverage of the abuse story had become "..a gross efflorescence of anti-catholic rhetoric.".[295]
Walter V. Robinson, an American journalist and journalism professor, led the Boston Globe's coverage of the Roman Catholic sex abuse cases, for which the newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Robinson was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Investigative Reporting in 2007.[296][297]
In Ireland television journalism similarly played a key role in helping public awareness of widespread sexual abuse of children by priests.[298]
A The Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll found that 64 percent of those queried thought Catholic priests "frequently" abused children; however, there is no data that indicates that priests commit abuse more often than the general population of males.[299]
BBC documentary in 2006 [ edit ]
Produced by a victim of clerical sex abuse for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 2006, the documentary Sex Crimes and the Vatican included the claim that all allegations of sex abuse are to be sent to the Vatican rather than the civil authorities, and that "a secret church decree called 'Crimen sollicitationis'... imposes the strictest oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest dealing with the allegation, and any witnesses. Breaking that oath means instant banishment from the Catholic Church – excommunication."[300] The documentary quoted the 2005 Ferns Report: "A culture of secrecy and fear of scandal that led bishops to place the interests of the Catholic Church ahead of the safety of children".
Canon lawyer Thomas Doyle, who was included in the documentary as supporting the picture that it presented, later wrote with regard to the 1962 Crimen sollicitations and the 2001 De delictis gravioribus as well as the Church's formal investigation into charges of aCLEMSON, S.C. — A new robocall going out to South Carolina voters on the eve of the state's Republican primary blasts Donald Trump as a culture war appeaser in the battle between gay rights and religious freedom — and urges listeners to support Ted Cruz "before it's too late."
The recorded message — which was obtained by BuzzFeed News after an earlier report cited a source in Columbia, S.C. who heard it Friday night — begins with a narrator saying, "Check out how Trump answers this."
The message then cuts to a recording of an interview with NECN reporter Sue O'Connell, who asks Trump if he would, as president, advocate for the expansion of gay and lesbian rights.
“I’m a lesbian," O'Connell tells Trump. "We’ve had some great progress for the gay and lesbian community through politics, through all sorts of judicial actions and elected actions over the past 20 years. When President Trump is in office, can we look for more forward motion for equality for gays and lesbians?”
Trump responds, "Well, you can. And look, that’s your thing, and other people have their thing. We have to bring all people together."
At this point, the narrator's voice, now taking on an incredulous tone, interjects: "Stop. What does she mean by 'forward motion'? What's he agreeing to?"
"It's not about tolerance anymore," the narrator continues. "It’s about mandatory celebration. It’s about forcing people to bake cakes and photograph gay weddings. Forcing clergy to officiate. It’s about transgender bathrooms in your child’s school. It’s about tearing down our Judeo-Christian values. It’s about tearing down our America."
The recording ends with an ominous sign-off from the narrator: "Ted Cruz for president — now, before it's too late."
The recording was paid for by the Courageous Conservative Political Action Committee, the same pro-Cruz group that launched another eleventh-hour robocall this week attacking Trump for praising the removal of the Confederate Flag from the South Carolina statehouse.
The Palmetto State's political scene has a sordid history of last-minute mudslinging and whisper campaign — and election-eve robocalls are frequently part of that tradition.
A spokeswoman for Cruz told the Post and Courier newspaper Friday that the campaign did not condone the Confederate flag call. But she did not respond to requests for comment from BuzzFeed News Friday night about the new robocall, except to say that the campaign wasn't associated with it.After a visit to the US this week, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel crossed the border into Mexico to speak in favor of free and fair trade.
"In our view the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is an agreement that doesn't just serve Canada and Mexico, but also the United States," Gabriel said at a news conference with his Mexican counterpart, Luis Videgaray, on Friday.
Sigmar Gabriel with his Mexican counterpart Luis Videgaray Caso
NAFTA was set up in 1994 and encouraged multinationals to set up factories in Mexico, the US and Canada, taking advantage of the opportunity to sell products across the free trade area which links 450 million people.
"So we're trying, also via our visits to the United States, to make clear that a fair agreement isn't just in the interests of German companies, but also the United States of America," the minister commented.
Both Mexico and Germany run trade surpluses with the United States. In 2016 they both reached more than $60 billion (53 billion euros), according to US data.
Trump has threatened aggressive measures to eliminate the deficit.
In an interview with German newspaper Bild, then-President-elect Trump said in January he would aim to realign Germany's "out of balance" car trade with the US.
"If you go down Fifth Avenue, everyone has a Mercedes Benz in front of his house, isn't that the case?" Trump asked in the interview. "How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany? Not very many, maybe none at all … it's a one-way street."
Gabriel was asked at the time what Trump could do to encourage German buyers to favor more American cars. He suggested "build better cars."
Concern for the future
Speaking on Friday, Gabriel told reporters in Mexico City that German firms were concerned about the future of the accord. He urged the US to recognize the benefits NAFTA had brought.
Germany is Mexico's principal trading partner in the European Union and more than 1,900 companies with German interests, mainly in the automotive and automotive suppliers industries, are registered with the Economics Ministry, according to the Federal Foreign Office. Mexico is a priority country for German cultural relations and education policy and all of Germany's major cultural organisations are active there.
Multi-issue Chancellor's visit
Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to visit Mexico within the coming weeks to discuss trade but also the protection of human rights, press freedom and the challenge of organized crime.
This week, Salvador Adame Pardo, founder and director of Canal 6 Media TV, was kidnapped in the state of Michoacan where he had been working for more than 20 years. His family said he had been receiving threats for some time.
This followed the killings of Mexican journalists Javier Valdez y Jonathan Rodríguez just a few days before.
jm/gsw (EFE, Reuters)Bend crash victim's family mourns loss
BEND, Ore, - (Update: Police say driver stopped, cooperated with investigation; comments from sister-in-law)
A 39-year-old Bend woman was struck and fatally injured by an SUV on Northeast Third Street Tuesday night, police said Wednesday.
Officers responded to the crash at Third Street and Burnside Avenue, reported at 9:47 p.m., said Lt. Clint Burleigh.
The woman, identified to NewsChannel 21 by her sister-in-law as Cristalle Hagen, was rushed to St. Charles Bend, where Burleigh said she died of her injuries.
“She will be missed,” said her sister in law, Sarah Hagen.
Hagen. who is married to Cristalle's brother, got a fateful knock on the door early Wednesday morning from a police officer, delivering the heartbreaking news.
Sarah Hagen said she spoke to Cristalle three days ago, and never imagined it would be their last talk.
“The conversation was good,” she recalled. “We always talked about my kids, and just, you know, daily life.”
She said Cristalle grew up in Bend, loved her family and had a positive outlook on life.
“She had so much potential,” Sarah Hagen said. “And she could have done anything. She was a very positive person. She was a very good person.”
The woman was struck by a 2010 Ford Explorer in the southbound lanes of Third Street, Burleigh said. The driver of the SUV was a 60-year-old Bend woman whose name was withheld by police pending further investigation.
Burleigh said the driver stopped at the scene and was cooperating in the investigation, which lasted well into the night and and closed Third Street for several hours, Burleigh said.
"She had a smile that could light up a room," Sarah Hagen wrote of her sister-in-law on her Facebook page. "Free spirited. Always said what was on her mind. She had the Hagen stubbornness. She was a good person, always trying to do what was right for her family. She was outgoing, and so very kind. And she is gone. She will be missed. We love you Cristalle R Hagen. I hope you continue to smile always."
Other details have not yet been released, but Burleigh wrote, “The Bend Police Department wants to remind drivers of vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians to use caution in and around the roadways in Central Oregon.”
The family is planning funeral arrangements for Cristalle, if anyone would like to donate towards her cremation they can call Baird Funeral Home (541) 382-0903In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I when Prince Hal finds the cowardly Falstaff pretending to be dead on the battlefield, the prince assumes he has been killed. After the prince leaves the stage, Falstaff rationalizes “The better part of Valour, is Discretion; in the which better part, I haue saued my life” (spelling and punctuation from the First Folio, Act 5, Scene 3, lines 3085–3086).
Falstaff is saying that the best part of courage is caution, which we are to take as a joke. Truly courageous people may be cautious, but caution is not the most important characteristic of courage.
This passage is loosely alluded to in the saying “discretion is the better part of valor,” which is usually taken to mean that caution is better than rash courage or that discretion is the best kind of courage. Only Shakespeare scholars are likely to be annoyed by this usage.
However, those who take “discretion” in this context to mean the quality of being discreet—cautiously quiet—are more likely to annoy their readers.
Much more of a problem are misspellings like “descretion,” “disgression,” “digression,” and “desecration.” Unless you are deliberately punning, stick with “discretion.”(FEMA) violations of Rs 45 crore +
accused the ED of making wild allegations +
NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted raids on Tuesday at the residence of former finance minister P Chidambaram in connection with criminal misconduct in grant of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval.The agency also raided the home of Chidambaram's son Karti. A total of at least 14 locations in Chidambaram's home city of Chennai were searched by the CBI.Hitting out at the government for the raids, the Congress leader said it was trying to silence his voice by cracking down on his family."The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organizations," Chidambaram said, adding that he'd continue to speak and write.He asserted that he was in the clear with the law as there were no allegations against him or any of the other public officials who granted FIPB approval."Every case was processed according to law and approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP consisting of five Secretaries to the government of India," Chidambaram claimed.Last month, a showcause notice had been issued to Karti Chidambaram and a firm purportedly linked to him for alleged Foreign Exchange Management Act. He is also being investigated on a money laundering charge in the Aircel-Maxis case."A show cause notice has been issued to M/s Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited, its directors and also to Karti P Chidambaram who appears to be the controller and ultimate beneficiary in these transactions," the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had said in a statement.The firm Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited has come under the ED's lens over money laundering charges in the Aircel-Maxis deal.A similar notice had also been issued in the case to Chennai-based M/s Vasan Health Care Private Limited for alleged forex violation of Rs 2,262 crore.In response to the show cause notice, Chidamabaramagainst his son Karti. He added that the two companies have, in the past, explained their transactions and repeatedly clarified through their statements that Karti was "never a shareholder or a director" of either of the companies.The ED had carried out searches in the premises of Advantage Strategic Consultants Private Limited and others and issued summons to their directors under Sec 37 of FEMA in August last year.(With inputs from Agencies)Monday September 28, 2015
Toronto, ON – The Ontario Hockey League today announced that goaltender Zack Bowman of the Flint Firebirds is the first Pioneer Energy OHL Player of the Week for the 2015-16 regular season after posting a 2-0-0-0 record including one shutout with a goals-against-average of 0.96 and a save percentage of.966.
Bowman made 58 saves in two games earning first star honours in both contests for the Firebirds who opened their inaugural season with a pair of victories over Michigan I-75 rivals the Saginaw Spirit. In Thursday night’s season opener, Bowman stopped all 24 shots he faced on the road earning his first career OHL shutout blanking the Spirit 3-0. In Saturday night’s home opener, Bowman turned aside 34 shots then stopped all three Spirit shootout attempts backstopping the Firebirds to a 3-2 victory in the first ever OHL game played at the Dort Federal Event Center.
Bowman, an 18-year-old from St. Catharines, ON, is playing in his third career OHL season after being selected by the Plymouth Whalers in the fourth round of the 2013 OHL Priority Selection. In 34 career games he carries a 7-15-0-0 record with a goals-against-average of 4.30 and save percentage of.883.
Watch video highlights of Bowman and the Firebirds against the Spirit on Thursday and Saturday nights.
Honourable mention for the award this week goes to 2016 NHL Draft prospect Matthew Tkachuk of the London Knights who led the league with six points in his first two career OHL games scoring twice with four assists. Tkachuk’s week also included a three-point performance on Thursday night in Buffalo competing for Team Roenick at the CCM/USA Hockey All-American Prospects Game. Also considered for the award was Stephen Harper of the Hamilton Bulldogs and Calgary Flames prospect Andrew Mangiapane of the Barrie Colts who both scored three goals with two assists for five points in two games.
2015-16 Pioneer Energy OHL Players of the Week:
Sept. 21 – Sept. 27: Zack Bowman (Flint Firebirds)James Dempsey, 89, of Woodstock, Ga., died Feb. 27, 2014, at an Atlanta nursing home whose staff didn't help him when he was gasping for breath, a hidden camera installed by his family revealed. (Photo11: Courtesy of Dempsey family via WXIA-TV, Atlanta)
ATLANTA — A decorated World War II veteran died gasping for breath while staff at his nursing home laughed in front of him, according to hidden camera video revealed in a lawsuit against the facility.
James Dempsey, 89, of Woodstock, Ga., called for help six times Feb. 27, 2014, before becoming unconscious while gasping for air, according to the video, released to WXIA-TV after lawyers representing Northeast Atlanta Health and Rehabilitation were unsuccessful in asking a DeKalb County judge to keep the material sealed.
Dempsey's survivors include two sons and two grandchildren. Family members had installed the camera in Dempsey's room before his death, and because of nursing home officials' actions after his death, it is clear that his family would not have known what happened without their own surveillance.
The nursing home's lawyers attempted, then withdrew, an appeal to the Georgia State Supreme Court to keep the video under wraps.
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Georgia state records show nursing home staff found Dempsey unresponsive at 5:28 a.m. ET. Staff took almost an hour before calling 911 at 6:25 a.m.
In a video deposition included in the lawsuit records, former nursing supervisor Wanda Nuckles told the family’s lawyer, Mike Prieto, how she rushed to Dempsey’s room when a nurse alerted her that Dempsey had stopped breathing. As she was questioned, she did not know about the camera that had recorded her actions.
Prieto: “From the time you came in, you took over doing chest compressions, … correct?”
Nuckles: “Yes.”
Prieto: “Until the time paramedics arrive, you were giving CPR continuously?”
Nuckles: “Yes.”
However, the video shows no one performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation when Nuckles entered the room. She also did not immediately start CPR herself.
When a different nurse responded, that woman, whose name was not released, also failed to check any of Dempsey’s vital signs. When Nuckles saw the video clip, she said she would have reprimanded the nurse for the way she responded to Dempsey.
She called the hidden-camera video “sick.”
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“Sir, that was an honest mistake,” Nuckles said in the recorded deposition when confronted with the video evidence. “I was just basing everything on what I normally do.”
When nurses had difficulty getting Dempsey’s oxygen machine operational, Nuckles and others could be heard laughing.
Prieto: “Ma’am, was there something funny that was happening?”
Nuckles: “I can’t even remember all that, as you can see.”
Dempsey's family recently agreed to a settlement with Northeast Atlanta Health and Rehabilitation and declined to be interviewed because of its terms. Dempsey had been married for more than 50 years, and not only was a WWII veteran but also retired from the Georgia National Guard, according to his obituary.
"When she called it 'an honest mistake,' that's not an honest mistake. That's a deliberate thing to say, you know, covering up a mess," Dempsey's neighbor, Fred Adoud, said when shown the video and Nuckles' deposition.
Elaine Harris, a retired nursing professor and expert in adult critical care, identified several violations of care in the video, including failure to respond, failure to assess and failure to act.
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“In 43 years in nursing, I have never seen such disregard for human life in a health care setting," she said.
In the video, nursing staff repeatedly start and stop CPR on Dempsey.
James Dempsey of Woodstock, Ga., who died Feb. 27, 2014, at age 89, was a World War II Navy veteran who later retired from the Georgia National Guard. (Photo11: Courtesy of Dempsey family via WXIA-TV, Atlanta)
“That is absolutely inappropriate. You never stop compressions” until a doctor makes a decision not to resuscitate, Harris said.
Operators of the nursing home, owned by Sava Senior Care, declined interview requests but prepared a statement that officials were saddened by the events that occurred more than three years ago.
"The (new) leadership team and the staff have worked very diligently to improve quality care and the quality of life for our residents," officials said in the statement. "The facility recently was deficiency free during our recent annual inspection conducted by the Georgia Department of Health on May 25, 2017.”
The nursing home was made aware of the video in November 2015, but officials did not fire the nurses involved Dempsey's care on his final day until 10 months later, according to state inspection reports.
Nuckles and the other nurse seen in the video surrendered their licenses in September, about three years after Dempsey's death, according to the Georgia Board of Nursing. Nursing Board President Janice Izlar said she could not confirm when state officials learned about the video, but the board's action came shortly after WXIA-TV reporters sent her and other board staff a link to view the video.
On average the Georgia Nursing Board takes 427 days, more than a year, to investigate a nursing complaint. That's a decrease from about 2,000 days, more than five years, Izlar said.
“There is a lot of the process that we absolute do not have control over," she said. "If we refer to a different division, a different agency, we have no absolutely no control over the timeline."
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While Northeast Atlanta Health and Rehabilitation recently had a good inspection in May from the Georgia Health Department, problems continued to mount after Dempsey's death.
Medicare records show the nursing home facility was cited at least two dozen times for serious health and safety violations, including “immediate jeopardy” levels, the worst violation. Medicare withdrew one payment and the facility has been fined $813,113 since 2015.
Its Medicare rating is one star, the lowest from the federal agency. Northeast Atlanta Health and Rehabilitation remains open today.
Follow Andy Pierrotti on Twitter: @AndyPierrotti
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2it17Z0After the widespread popularity of my Crowfall overview, I thought the natural thing to do would be to follow-up with something niche and wonkish that only like, three people will care about – so let’s get to it!
As you are all likely already aware, back in 2003, Star Wars Galaxies set the bar for what an MMO crafting system could do, and that bar hasn’t really been raised since then. Today’s topic is just one of the many crafting mechanics that made the game’s system great that I’d like to see reborn in Crowfall – variable stat material use.
Background
To really explain why this system worked so well, I’ll need to provide a little background on a few of the relevant facets of Star Wars Galaxies‘ crafting system. Here’s a quick TL;DR on the the important details:
Basically every item in the game was crafted, would eventually need to be repaired, and, after several repairs, replaced (decay in SWG is a whole beast on its own – here’s a quick run down if you’re curious).
Much like Crowfall‘s one character per campaign rule, you were limited to one character per server – crafters were doing it as their full-time profession, not as a side-profession on an alt.
Crafters could mark crafted items with their name, and would sell items using searchable NPC vendors placed in the game’s extensive open-world player housing.
Crafting materials were found by exploring with a surveying tool looking for procedurally generated resource spawns. The locations and concentrations of those resources changed with time, so you would have to look for new spots once your old one ran dry.
Item crafting included very flexible recipes, as each required only a certain resource type for each required material. Several individual resources would meet this type requirement and each of these would provide different pros and cons for the stats on the final item (variations in damage, range, attack speed, decay rate, etc…).
In addition to the above, Star Wars Galaxies also included the topical system – variable stat materials:
Raw materials had stats – so, for a Crowfall example, iron ore that you mine might have statistical ratings for its toughness, malleability, maybe a magical property or two – I’m not sure (full disclosure – I am not a blacksmith IRL). This is the underlying reason for the varying effect of different materials on the final item’s stats.
Those stats could differ between materials of the same type. In other words, not every iron ore was the same.
All resources harvested from the same spawn would have the same stats (disclaimer – I could actually be wrong on this, but as differing stats prevented stacking, this would have been wildly inconvenient).
Resource stacks of differing stats could be blended at a crafting station to average out the resource’s stats, making it usable for crafting if you didn’t have enough of a matching stack to meet the recipe’s requirements.
For an example, here’s a table showing the stat ranges for siliclastic ores:
Resource Cold Resistance Decay Resistance Heat Resistance Malleability Overall Quality Shock Resistance Unit Toughness Ardanium 300-452 1-152 300-452 300-452 1-1000 1-131 1-152 Cortosis 382-568 83-269 382-568 382-568 1-1000 71-231 83-269 Crism 498-685 199-385 498-685 498-685 1-1000 171-330 199-385 Fermionic 1-1000 1-1000 1-1000 1-1000 1-1000 1-1000 1-1000 Malab 615-802 316-502 615-802 615-802 1-1000 271-430 316-502 Robindun 732-918 432-618 732-918 732-918 1-1000 370-530 432-618 Tertian 848-1000 549-700 848-1000 848-1000 1-1000 470-600 549-700
As you can see, each specific resource type has quite the range of variation. On top of that, the recipes were often not very specific. Some recipes would call for siliclastic ore, but others would only require sedimentary ore, which included siliclastic and carbonate ores. Other, broader recipes might even only require low grade ore, which included sedimentary, carbonate, and igneous ores, all with their own sub-categories of ores. If you haven’t gotten it yet – Star Wars Galaxies had an extremely deep crafting system.
Perfectly rolled resources were incredibly rare and equally valuable, creating a system where it wasn’t just about finding the right type of material, but which specific material of that type was right for the item you wanted. There were a lot of options when you wanted something crafted, and it rarely boiled down to one clear choice.
Why this was awesome
There were a few great benefits to all of this. Primarily, because of the many combinations of materials going into creating a finished piece of gear, the odds of two crafters creating the exact same item was very low, creating a market environment where every item being sold was just a little bit different. In a system where every item is unique, not only is it possible for a crafter to really make a name for themselves, but it’s almost necessary to keep track of them so you can go back when you need another – and with the decay system, you would need another.
On top of this, gathering and supply chain procurement became a game all on its own, as all of the depth added to item creation affected them as well. If they couldn’t gain access to those nodes themselves, crafters looking to create items with specific stats would want to seek out other players with harvesters on the right resource nodes to negotiate an agreement for those materials.
Why we might not get it
I’m no programming expert (or even a programming novice, for that matter), but if I’ve ever heard of anything that I think would create a lot of work in database design and administration, a system wherein every resource and every item is basically unique takes the cake. While this likely wouldn’t be much of a strain on server load (due to it, by my wild guess, not having too much of an effect on the number of database calls that would need to be performed, as it wouldn’t have to be referenced regularly in combat), it does have the potential to be a lot of work to both implement and keep running.
That said, if Star Wars Galaxies could pull it off in 2003, I have a hard time believing that Crowfall can’t pull it off a decade and a half later. Plus, procedural generation of resource spawns is a good and natural fit for Crowfall‘s already procedurally generated campaign worlds. Here’s hoping!
Update:
Reddit user /u/Ceridith made an excellent post on /r/MMORPG detailing one of the potential downsides of a variable stat material based crafting system that I neglected to address. The post is worth reading in its entirety, but here’s a quick excerpt:
Variable stat crafting means that the crafting system is much more complex. Not only in the actual design, but in the amount of effort players need to put into crafting to make worthwhile items. Then of course there’s the balancing aspect of it all. How much effort should be expected of players to invest into making decent items? Once they can make those items, how powerful are they against the rest of the game? If you have a steep enough difficulty curve with a payoff in line with that, you can get into severe power scaling issues. Which, as cool as SWG’s crafting system was, it was incredibly broken in this respect. Composite armor sets with 90%+ damage reduction existed in SWG. Which while yes, the best armor sets were ridiculously expensive and rare, they were also incredibly unbalancing in both PvE and PvP. And then of course let’s not forget doctor buffs, which the top tier buffs could more than quadruple player’s stat pools and regeneration rates.
As gear power rises in an MMORPG, increased potential for extreme customization can greatly exacerbate the balance disparity between varying gear setups. This is something that the balance team would have to spend time working to address, and is another way in which the implementation of such a system would lead to increased development costs. Is it still worth it? In the right game, I believe so.
With regard to Crowfall specifically, the team has marketed the game as having a flatter gear curve than what players are used to in most games. Ideally, this would be a significant mitigating factor that would help to stave off any balance issues that a variable stat material crafting system could introduce. Thanks again to /u/Ceridith for contributing to the discussion.
Check out Crafting with Variable Stat Materials, Part II: Community Roundup Edition for more discussion on how a variable stat crafting material system could be implemented within Crowfall.
#Crowfall #SWG #CraftingOn Sunday morning, company director Anna Demirbek explained via Instagram that due to both death and arson threats, she would be closing for the day. “We are, and have always been, fully conscious that the brand Uncle Ho would be sensitive,” Demirbek wrote, before adding, “It is not, for the record, the first or only business in Australia bearing such a name.”
The move followed a weekend of high emotion as the local Vietnamese community took to social media to criticise the restaurant’s operators, while the ABC reported that almost 100 people protested outside the closed Ann Street restaurant on Sunday. At issue was the name, a common term of endearment in Vietnam referring to communist revolutionary leader, Ho Chi Minh.
Late on Sunday night, Uncle Ho capitulated to public pressure and changed its name. The Fortitude Valley restaurant owned by Anna Demirbek, which opened just two weeks ago, will now be known as Uncle Bia Hoi.
Demirbek, originally from Sweden, has lived in Singapore and knows Vietnam well, having visited numerous times. She modelled her restaurant after the popular bia hoi draft beer bars that populate the country, but she may have not have taken into account the origins of Australia’s Vietnamese community. The Bureau of Statistics estimates that around 200,000 Australian Vietnamese were born in Vietnam. Between 1975 and 1982, the federal government took in almost 60,000 refugees escaping the by then communist nation.
As of writing, almost 200 responses to Demirbek’s post would suggest the majority of Brisbane disagrees with her position. Some were from members of the local Vietnamese community relating their family’s refugee experiences. Some looked to understand Demirbek’s viewpoint while gently imploring her to change the venue’s name. Many simply piled on, likening Uncle Ho to naming a German restaurant “Uncle Adolf” or — in some of the more classless moments — calling Demirbek a “psycho suffering from White Fragility”, and worse.
Her statement addressed a list of accusations apparently made against the operators. “We are not a communist money laundering operation set up by Vietnamese accountants, as one agitator has suggested. We are not communist sympathisers. We have no position on the political or historical landscape of Vietnam” — before Demirbek pointed out the restaurant had hired Vietnamese nationals, both from the south and the north (Uncle Bia Hoi’s former head chef, Tuan Ngo, who resigned on Friday, is from Vietnam), and that many Vietnamese had already dined at the restaurant and said they didn’t find the name offensive.
Broadsheet has reached out to Demirbek via text, phone and email asking for comment. We also spoke to Doctor C. T. Bui, president of the Queensland chapter of the Vietnamese Community of Australia, and Doctor Hong Hai Nguyen, a visiting research fellow at the University of Queensland’s Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, and an expert on Vietnamese politics and history.
“Uncle Ho means Ho Chi Minh,” Bui explains. “The name reminds us of nightmares — the half a million people who died between 1975 and 1995 trying to escape to the free world, and the people who died in concentration camps after the communists took over Vietnam.”
Bui was a doctor with the South Vietnamese army, leaving the country on April 30 in 1975 — the day Saigon [now Ho Chi Minh City] fell to communist forces. He has not been back since. “We’ve already fled our country and now we can’t go back because the communists are still there,” he says. “Why are they coming here to haunt us?”
Shortly after Uncle Ho opened, Bui says he tried to begin a dialogue with the owner but was only partially successful, despite the restaurant receiving abuse from members of the local Vietnamese community. “She said she spent time and money setting up the restaurant and that she was free to call it what she wanted,” Bui tells us. “I said, ‘I agree. If people are harassing you that is not our aim. We want to protect you but we can’t [if your restaurant is named ‘Uncle Ho’]’. I don’t encourage them but I have no right to stop them.”
Bui describes the agitation as an emotional outpouring, coming from people who lost immediate family members in the final days of the Vietnam War, but he is clear in condemning threats of death and arson. “Of course,” he says. “We would never use violence in our protests against a restaurant.”
According to Doctor Hong Hai Nguyen, what Bui and local Vietnamese protestors think of as highly offensive likely wouldn’t cause a stir in modern Vietnam. “In [the north and central parts of] Vietnam, the majority of people love Ho Chi Minh and consider him a national hero,” Nguyen says. “People in the south have connections with the older regime from before 1975. They maybe view him a little bit differently.”
“I think for young people in Vietnam, the memory of the war is fading. They tend to focus more on economic terms rather than the war,” he continues. “The Vietnamese people have suffered too much. They don’t want to forget the war but don’t want to emphasise it either. They talk more about reconciliation, particularly when there are outside threats such as the Chinese claims to the South China Sea.”
Nguyen also rejects the idea that refugees can’t travel back to Vietnam. “A Vietnamese Australian scholar I know who describes himself and his family as refugees … goes back quite often and doesn’t have any issues.” (Although Nguyen refuses to tell us his name because certain members of the local Vietnamese community “don’t like that at all”).
A Vietnamese national born in the northern capital of Hanoi, Nguyen says he doesn’t find Uncle Ho’s name offensive (the term is “very well known in Vietnam”) but defends Bui and his supporters’ right to protest. “I studied international human rights and … I uphold the freedom of choice and respect the human rights of everyone.”
What he does take issue with are the Uncle Bia Hoi propaganda-inspired advertising posters that depict marching soldiers, tanks and warplanes — “Everyone, from north and the south, would not agree with that” — and social media comments making comparisons to a German restaurant called “Uncle Adolf”. As he says, “It’s inappropriate to compare one to another.”
C. T. Bui |
a virgin, she’s saying, you was wrong. And there’s a reason she’s standing above him and a reason he bows to her at that moment. You know, you do what you can. It’s Hero, she doesn’t have many lines. And she’s not Beatrice. But I wanted people to get the feeling that she’s definitely someone Beatrice loves and would hang out with and is her cousin, and not just, you know, twirly-wilty.”
To the same point, another filmgoer wanted to know how it felt that women were completely without power in Shakespeare’s time — something the bard has Beatrice address in one of the play’s most moving monologues. “Such a relief,” Whedon joked. “You know one of the things that I find extraordinary about this is that speech, more so when Amy says it, but just that Shakespeare not only saw it but felt that he needed to spell it out so baldly. It’s part of what makes it beautiful. It doesn’t have to be a world where women are empowered, it has to be a world where they are realized. Where they are human beings, where they have more to do than just stand around going, ‘Don’t fight, Johnny! Win, Johnny!’ And Shakespeare always gives you that, never more so than with Beatrice. So for me it didn’t feel any different than anything else I’ve done –- I felt their presence and their power and how they felt about where they were as much as anything else I ever wrote.”
The film is pretty close to the original text, though as with any modern film adaptation, much has been left out. Whedon did make one specific addition, however: in his film, Hero watches her own funeral, a powerful and delicately handled scene. Whedon explained that taking this liberty “to me just helped get us to the idea that she and Claudio could be together and not make you roll your eyes. You see her seeing him being truly penitent, that she can forgive him, and we can. And then he says the Ethiope thing… You know, there are some things that are funny because they’re so anachronistic and because, it’s like this is just an Office moment. This is pure Michael Scott. The other side of that is that I don’t have Benedick saying, ‘If I do not love her, I am a Jew.’ I thought, ‘Yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna come back from that one. That’s not gonna sell.’ So I changed it to, ‘If I do not love her I am a gay.’ No, that doesn’t scan, let’s go with ‘fool.'”
But what about the ballet he mentioned earlier this week in another Q&A at Lincoln center? “The ballet I’m thinking of wouldn’t actually be a film,” Whedon explained, “although I have many sort of floaty ideas, this would actually be performed by a ballet company on a stage. I’ve had this in my head for a long time. And, well, I’ve never actually told anybody anything about it. I’ll only say this much: it’s about a library.”
Pressed by a ballet-loving filmgoer, Whedon explained his interest in dance further. “Obviously I write a lot of words. And I like men who write a lot of words. But movement is the essence of film, it’s why there’s film. The first things that we filmed, obviously we didn’t have sound, but the first things that we filmed were just things that were moving – Oh my god! A train is coming at me! That man is kissing that woman! And my favorite thing to watch, and I used to film a lot of it in school, in college, is dance. Dance for me is the most sublime thing that there is, and free action kind of replaced dance in American cinema. We used to have Fred Astaire and now we have guys flying through plate glass windows, trying to jump moving cars, and it’s all very good because it’s all movement, it’s all exciting, but for me, that’s my single favorite thing… One of the things that I loved best, obviously, was working with Summer [Glau]. Because she acts with her entire body, her fingernails are emotive. I think some of you may already know how I feel about her feet. If you watch [Firefly series finale] ‘Objects in Space’ it gets a little weird.”
Despite his successes in film — The Avengers is the third highest grossing film of all time, after all — Whedon is probably still best loved for his work in television, for Buffy and Firefly, and even Angel and Dollhouse. This September will see Whedon’s return to television with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., a Marvel show set in the same universe as The Avengers. Whedon described the series as reflecting “the story that I like to tell the most, which is the underdog story. It’s about the people in a super world who are not super. It’s about the people who didn’t win that lottery, who aren’t on the Avengers, and the fallout from the fact that, after the Avengers, everyone in the world knows that there are monsters and aliens. So it’s about being ordinary. Needless to say, all of these ordinary people are geniuses, and awesome, and surprisingly attractive. But to feel a little bit of those ripple effects and disenfranchisement is interesting to me.”In his latest rant, Kanye West has targeted brands. The Louis Vuitton Don’s latest comes from a concert in Amsterdam where West discussed his views on how name brands affect people.
“Do y’all notice anything different to the left and the right, by the bar?” West asked, pacing around the stage and pointing towards Heineken advertising at Heineken Music Hall. He continued by saying, “Name brands always fightin’ for your soul.”
He began half-singing and half-rapping as he paced around.
“I felt like I wanted something better,” he said while bobbing his body back and forth on stage. “A lot of people buy brands because of the pressure, because without the brands it’s like they feel lesser.”
This is not the first time West has done something of this nature this year. West also had rants about other topics and even ended a recent show by screaming into the microphone several times and throwing it down on stage. Video of his recent rant about brands can be found below, courtesy of YVR1S.
RELATED: Kanye West Closes London Show By Screaming & Throwing MicrophoneImage copyright AFP
Elon Musk, boss of electric car firm Tesla, says he can help solve South Australia's power crisis within 100 days - and if not he'll do it for free.
The offer follows a series of blackouts in the state.
On Thursday, Tesla executive Lyndon Rive had said the company could install 100-300 megawatt hours of battery storage in 100 days.
When asked on Twitter how serious he was about the offer, Mr Musk said if Tesla failed, there'd be no bill.
"Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?" he tweeted in response to Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder of Australian software maker Atlassian.
Image copyright Twitter
Having offered to "make the $ happen (& politics)", Mr Cannon-Brookes then told Mr Musk: "You're on mate."
Mr Musk went on to quote a price of $250 per kilowatt hour for 100 megawatt hour systems.
Image copyright Twitter
Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young then joined in on the act, telling Mr Musk: "Let's talk!"
The state of South Australia has suffered from blackouts since September last year, leading to a political spat over energy policy.
Tesla has been expanding its battery business alongside its car production.
This week the US company launched its Powerwall 2 in Australia, the world's top market for rooftop solar.
Battery storage is one of several options the government is looking at to help ensure reliable power supplies as Australia grows more reliant on intermittent wind and solar power.When Emily Apter began writing The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature (2005), the world was still in that supposedly ‘post-ideological’ intermission of history – infamously mistaken by Francis Fukuyama for its end – in which the great ideological struggles of the twentieth century had subsided following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. Two years into writing The Translation Zone, Apter was working at the City University in New York when hijacked aeroplanes flew into the World Trade Centre. History had stubbornly refused to end. Violent conflict had ceased to be something that happens – from the American perspective – far away, seen only on television. Now it could irrupt, had irrupted, in the homeland.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, questions of translation took on an urgency. ‘Jaw-jaw is better than war-war,’ as Winston Churchill put it, and cross-cultural communication depends on translation. Suddenly, disputes in the academy over such abstractions as ‘globalisation’ versus ‘planetarity’ seemed to become charged with life-and-death significance.
Many of the debates are based on deep, perhaps irreconcilable contradictions inherent in studying a field so vast and heterogeneous. The discipline of Comparative Literature has traditionally placed an emphasis on the study of works in the original language: translation is no substitute for close reading of the actual texts. When upstart courses in World Literature began to proliferate in the 1990s, sacrificing depth for breadth with their eclectic surveys of texts chosen to represent as many literatures as possible – and read, moreover, in translation by undergraduates – many comparatists treated them with disdain as a superficial vulgarisation of their area of expertise. This gave ammunition to those colleagues in single-language literature departments, who tended to view the whole notion of Comparative Literature as suspect, the domain of the dilettante and the dabbler.
Meanwhile, theorists of postcolonialism criticised translation’s direction of traffic in World Literature, characterising it as a plundering of cultures that entrenched the global hegemony of the English language. The process both exoticised other cultures and created a false sense of equivalence between them, fetishising the appearance of alterity while erasing difference. Others objected to the commodification of literature for an elite market: the creation of an easily digestible World Literature canon, constructed by the academy, to attract a broader pool of fee-paying students. The phenomenon of World Literature, taught in the lecture hall via translations, seemed to validate Erich Auerbach’s gloomy prediction that ‘in a single literary culture … the notion of Weltliteratur would be at once realized and destroyed.’
But if translation, in the broad sense of cross-cultural understanding, can make the difference between war and peace, quibbling over such niceties as cultural appropriation and the depredations of the market can seem dangerously wrong-headed. Gayatri Spivak’s insistence on the paramount importance of ‘linguistic and cultural particularity’ is thus trenchantly denounced by Djelal Kadir, who makes the hyperbolic claim that her anti-translation rhetoric is tantamount to aiding and abetting terrorism:
Incomparability is the dynamic, not of criticism or of comparatistic counterpoint, but a handmaiden of terror. Terror thrives on unbreachable difference, on exceptionalism, on the cultural and political monads that lie beyond the plausibility of dissensus and outside the possibility of the negotiable consensus.
Strong stuff indeed. The Translation Zone attempts to reconcile the extremes, not by finding a middle ground, but by taking both on board and playing them against each other. The book opens with ‘Twenty Theses on Translation’: a series of axioms beginning with ‘Nothing is translatable’ and ending with ‘Everything is translatable’. Invoking the last words of Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable (1953) – ‘I can’t go on, I’ll go on’ – Apter takes translation failure to be an unavoidable fact, despite which one must nevertheless carry on with the struggle to translate, ‘to balance the singularity of untranslatable alterity against the need to translate quand même.’
Apter’s new book, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability, was written in the shadow of another great event, symbolically marking the unravelling of post-Cold War globalised unipolarity. Not an attack but an implosion: the global financial crisis. In keeping with the times’ diffuse yet pervasive sense of catastrophe, Against World Literature is less agitated, but more deeply pessimistic. It traces a line from the paranoid globalism of Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo, through a discussion of melancholy and nostalgia in Portuguese literature, to end on an apocalyptic note with the ‘the premonition of earthly extinction’ in Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound (2007), which elevates Freud’s theory of the death-drive to planetary scale, and Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011), a film that juxtaposes human depression with the absolute horizon of life and of the world, made imminent by another planet that is about to collide with the earth.
The central concept of Against World Literature is the ‘Untranslatable’: a word or other semantic unit that cannot easily be rendered from one language to another, an ‘intransigent nub of meaning that triggers endless translating in response to its resistant singularity’. The power of the Untranslatable lies in the nature of words as parts of a whole, as identified by the semotician Ferdinand de Saussure – that is, how they derive their meanings from their relationship to each other. Truly understanding all the layers of meaning in a single word or phrase thus requires knowledge of its linguistic context.
Apter uses the concept of Untranslatables to locate significant differences in thought that are conditioned by language and culture. The idea of the Untranslatable – or rather, the notion that the Untranslatable represents not merely a technical problem to overcome, but a rich site for philosophical inquiry – derives from Barbara Cassin’s Vocabulaire europeén des philosophies: Dictionnaire des intraduisibles (2004), which Apter and others are currently translating into English, to be published next year under the title Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon.
To translate a lexicon of untranslatable terms: a quixotic endeavour, to say the least. But perhaps a perfect example of facing the impossible and doing it anyway (‘to translate quand même’). We are probably safe in assuming that Apter, with her appreciation for the irreconcilable, relishes the antinomy.
Cassin’s Vocabulaire is a remarkable book. Structured as an encyclopedia, it consists of around 400 entries, each under its own headword: a word or phrase of both philosophical significance and linguistic specificity. The headwords are drawn from many European languages, and also from Hebrew and Arabic. If the word is foreign, an approximate synonym or two in French is supplied, then equivalent words in other European languages, and a list of related headwords. The main article gives a careful treatment of its meanings, its history and philosophical valence, and finally a bibliography. Probably due to the scope and complexity of the material, the basis on which terms merit inclusion as headwords is not entirely clear: the English people gets one, with a discussion of its unusual pluralisation (person and people—people and peoples) and a second, more in-depth, section on its significance to American history and politics; whereas the German Volk is tucked in as a subsection to the larger entry on the French peuple, race, nation.
The Vocabulaire reveals ambiguities and nuances that differentiate philosophically important words of approximate equivalence in a variety of languages. Its format emphasises its linguistic pluralism: although the text is in French, its multilingual structure demonstrates that there is no definitive version of a given concept, but a ripple of related ideological phenomena, subtly or strikingly distinct as the case may be, that are shaped and coloured by their linguistic and cultural contexts. In her introduction, Cassin takes the difficulty of translating philosophy as the project’s point of departure, and presents us with a choice. We can either opt for a single master-language (probably English) and, by translation, flatten out the world in a way that makes it palatable to the Anglo-American tradition, with its emphasis on common sense and ‘ordinary language’; or we can preserve the specificity of untranslatable words and expressions, and retain the full richness of ideas in the language in which they were originally inscribed.
We might expect Against World Literature to apply these principles to Comparative Literature. And it does, mounting an attack on World Literature’s ‘entrepreneurial, bulimic drive to anthologize and curricularize the world’s cultural resources’. Apter is sensitive to the costs involved in globalisation, the papering-over of difference and the generalisations that – intentionally or not – privilege dominant languages, literatures and cultures. But the book’s scope is much broader, sometimes at the expense of coherence. Apter discusses the politics of borders and checkpoints, with a special focus on Israel-Palestine; performative activism and politically-charged graphic art; concepts of the universal and the particular in various branches of continental philosophy; the practice and theory of ownership, intellectual property and the commons; and the relative ontological status of individual human beings, inanimate objects, ideas, and human and nonhuman collectivities.
For a book that sets out to deflate ‘the expansionism and gargantuan scale of world-literary endeavors’, Against World Literature has some sizeable ambitions of its own. Even when Apter talks about literature, it is usually at one or two removes. Often, the real object of her attention is the theoretical exegesis of a work, rather than the work itself. It is a hectic journey through such a wilfully eclectic range of intellectual terrains that it is sometimes unclear how we came to be discussing the point in hand, and for what purpose. The density of the prose does not make it any easier to follow the thread. It is no small feat to write a gloss that is more opaque than the quotation from Jacques Derrida it is intended to explicate.
What saves the book from entropy is the central concept of the Untranslatable. Apter uses the idea to break down generalisations, and the tendency to submerge inconvenient details in overarching theory. With a forensic attention to detail, she uses mistranslations and misinterpretations to reveal the philosophical specificity of words and phrases in Simone de Beauvoir’s Le deuxième sexe (1949), and compares words that correspond to ‘peace’ in various European languages to critique the ideology of the security state.
Throughout Against World Literature, Apter uses the concept of the Untranslatable to make sure we don’t miss the trees for the wood. That is why she looks askance at Franco Moretti’s maverick reframing of World Literature as a project that requires ‘distant reading’, which assumes too large a field to rely on close readings of texts. Her criticism here is a little uneven. She points out the partial failure of The Novel (2007) – an international, multi-volume history of the genre edited by Moretti – to overcome Eurocentrism, but concedes that such a criticism is ultimately ‘unsatisfying’. She pivots to consider Moretti’s quantitative experiments and statistical surveys, and the sacrifices of the ‘contraction of the economy of expression’ involved in reading literature through such a radical lens of distance. What she ignores is Moretti’s notion of the ‘division of labour’ required between scholars of national literatures – who can afford to do close reading, and should do so – and researchers of World Literature, who, according to Moretti, must rely on the work of their single-literature colleagues to draw their inferences.
It is understandable that Apter finds Moretti hard to pin down, because he works in several very different modes. There is the traditional close reader of The Modern Epic (1996) or The Bourgeois (2013), who theorises via the careful treatment of individual works; the encyclopedic overseer of a broad-ranging project like The Novel, in which individual works are studied at close range; and the distant reader of Graphs, Maps and Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History (2005), who delights in ‘quantitative history, geographic maps, and topological schemata’. Apter is justified in pointing out the limitations of Moretti’s theories of ‘distant reading’, but it seems a little perverse to conflate his theory and practice. Some of his work is guilty of an uncritical enthusiasm for the scientific method (empirical testing of hypotheses, quantified data models) in a field to which it is poorly suited. But that is certainly not true of The Novel. By working with many scholars of individual national literatures, Moretti provides an example of literary collaboration that, while not exhaustive in scope, goes some way towards justifying World Literature as a project that does not have to sacrifice either breadth or depth.
At a mundane linguistic level, untranslatability is a familiar phenomenon. It is the most common reason for one language to borrow a word from another: we didn’t have an Engish word for pizza, so we imported the Italian one. Modern English has absorbed such a large number of words from other languages that those derived from its Anglo-Saxon base are a minority, outnumbered by borrowings from French alone. It is startling to realise that when we talk about God or the gods, we are using a word that was, initially, considered sufficiently untranslatable that the Germanic ancestor of the English language had to borrow it from a non-Indo-European linguistic substratum about which we know little – perhaps the same language from which we derive folk, another word without a convincing Indo-European etymology.
Following the Vocabulaire, the words and terms Apter picks out as Untranslatables are usually charged with philosophical, political or aesthetic meaning. The tensions that animate both Against World Literature and The Translation Zone – between translatability and untranslatability, the universal and the particular, cosmopolitanism and localism, World Literature and discrete national literatures; between Alain Badiou’s assertion of the ‘universality of great poems’ and Gayatri Spivak’s insistence on the ‘specificity of the autochthone’ – are not resolved. To some extent, this is because Apter sees value in insights from widely divergent traditions of thought (’trying to conjugate Cassin with Badiou’). It is tempting to characterise this as simply trying to have her cake and eat it. But much of what is valuable in her work depends on the creative use of these tensions.
The deeper problem with Against World Literature is indicated by its subtitle: ‘the politics of untranslatability.’ Apter is correct to identify the dialectic of translatability and untranslatability as having not just literary and linguistic implications, but political and philosophical ones as well. Yet there is something very odd, and rather troubling, in Apter’s claim that ‘the politics of borders was fully activated in my book The Translation Zone’, and her assertion that John T. Hamilton is ‘marshalling philology’ against the excesses of the security state. It is as if the critique of literature and other cultures from a position of political commitment is political action in and of itself. It may well be, as Apter claims, that ‘in studying the history of translation within the history of philosophy and theory, we are not just performing a philological or intellectual exercise … we are doing philosophy.’ The border between literary theory and philosophy is a porous one, although it probably looks that way more from the literary side than from the philosophical. But the sine qua non of political thought – at least, the kind of emancipatory politics to which Apter shows a clear allegiance – is that it has the potential, as Marx’s aphorism has it, to change the world rather than merely interpret it.
This brings us back to the question of what is at stake, politically, in Comparative Literature. For all the fiery exchanges between comparatists – accusations of providing ideological cover to neoliberal global capitalism (Spivak), or of a ‘default complicity’ with terrorism (Kadir) – it is hard to see what impact literary theory can have outside academia. There is more than a touch of wishful thinking in Apter’s suggestion of ‘harnessing political will through the aggregative force of small numbers and almost imperceptible percentages. Translation as a kind of leveraging of language, causes the university, and the entire world, to pivot, eventually if incrementally, on its axis.’
To be fair, this isn’t a foible unique to Apter. While the political sphere in Western democracies has been narrowing to a technocratic set of choices in submission to the markets, supposedly radical and subversive theories have sprung up everywhere in the humanities, full of grand political ambition, but with no possibility of having a meaningful effect on the material circumstances of the various groups whose interests they are intended to champion. The thinking appears to run something like:
1. Critique hegemonic power
2.????
3. REVOLUTION!
In Francis Mulhern’s acerbic analysis, cultural critique, as ‘a redemptive substitute for blocked or defeated movements’, has ratcheted up the rhetoric of its claims to political agency ‘in inverse proportion to the actual political fortunes of the wider left of which it has been a part’; or as Todd Gitlin sarcastically writes, it is ‘marching on the English Department while the Right takes the White House’.
One of the reasons for the sublimation of frustrated political energy into cultural critique is disillusionment with authoritarianism and failure in twentieth century post-revolutionary societies. At a theoretical level, the ‘linguistic turn’ is highly significant: an umbrella term for related anti-metaphysical shifts in both analytic and continental philosophy, advanced by thinkers as diverse as Wittgenstein (‘whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’), Derrida (’il n’y a pas de hors-texte’) and Lacan (‘the universe is a flower of rhetoric’). The implications of the linguistic turn – if justified – for political activism are profound: if the world is created by language and culture, then judicious interventions that affect how we use language can have real political impact. But this puts the cart of ideology before the horse of material circumstance. Positing the critique of language as a central vehicle for political agency tends to dissipate intellectual energy into semantic quibbling, and makes its unlovely appearance in the public sphere as a heavy-handed attempt to police thought via choice of words, an impotent censoriousness easily derided by opponents as ‘political correctness’.
So Apter is not alone in mistaking politically-minded cultural critique for politics itself. But it is surprising that she does so. She seems sympathetic to the emergent philosophical currents of speculative realism, quoting several of its leading figures (Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux and Ray Brassier). Yet one of the chief rallying points of these related movements is a critique of the anthropocentric view of the world implied by the ‘linguistic turn’. Levi Bryant argues in The Democracy of Objects (2011) that an excessive focus on signs, culture, semantics and the symbolic is a ‘hegemonic fallacy’, a reductionism structurally similar (though opposite in content) to a vulgarised Marxism that admits no causes for any social phenomenon outside economics. He suggests, by contrast, a ‘flat ontology’ that does not ignore discourse or ideology, but does not privilege them either, placing them on an equal footing with the many other factors that shape our world: technological, ecological, social, physical.
The project of speculative realism is a controversial one. Its basic insight, however – the decentering of discourse – is a useful corrective to the hubristic claims made for any project of emancipatory politics based in literary theory. The contradictory traditions that make themselves felt in Against World Literature are divided by a fault line that goes far deeper than any quarrel between comparatists. Various and varied positions with a universalist tendency (Hegel, Marx, Badiou) have, throughout modernity, been in tension with the hermeneutic tradition (Heidegger, Gadamer) and its legacy in poststructuralism (Derrida, Deleuze). It would not be too much of a stretch to see in this conflict an echo of Plato’s hostility to the Sophists. A satisfactory reconciliation of the insights of both traditions is yet to be achieved (Giani Vattimo and Santiago Zabala’s Hermeneutic Communism is a flawed attempt that may nevertheless provide some pointers). It seems a safe bet to assume that no literary theory, however adroit, will be up to the task.
*
Setting aside its claims for politics and philosophy tout court, there is much value in Apter’s insights into the ambiguous nature of translation and language barriers. The idea of untranslatability has a double-edged significance in the Australian context. For Australian literature, the lack of a language barrier is both a blessing and a curse.
In theory, Australian writing has access to the enormous market of the Anglophone world. In practice, with certain celebrated exceptions, traffic tends to flow the other way. Michael Wilding has cited Australia’s small population, coupled with a language shared by the USA and England, as a problem for the local publishing industry: ‘national cultures that have their own distinct language – France, Italy, South Korea – are protected from this imported product; foreign works at least have to be translated.’ Australia’s relatively short history as an English-speaking nation, together with its strong cultural links to Britain and the influence of American film and television, has meant that there has been relatively little linguistic divergence, which Pascale Casanova identifies in The World Republic of Letters (2004) as necessary for a minor national literature to ‘establish [it]self through the assertion of a linguistic difference within a great literary language’; or in Apter’s formulation, ‘untranslatability within a common language.’
Matters have improved since Henry Lawson advised any young talented Australian writer to ‘go steerage, stow away, swim, and seek London, Yankeeland, or Timbuctoo – rather than stay in Australia till his genius turned to gall, or beer.’ But it is still the case that Australian writers feel the need to establish themselves abroad in order to be recognised at home, as Sam Twyford-Moore wryly notes in the Los Angeles Review of Books, although the centre of gravity in English-language literature has shifted from London to New York. In an essay for this publication, Emmett Stinson argues that this new, more insidious form of ‘cultural cringe’ acts with the market in a pincer movement to foster homogeneity, conferring prestige upon works that conform to the unadventurous norms of contemporary Anglophone literature, marginalising the experimental and the formally unorthodox.
Another ambivalent aspect of translation and untranslatability Apter highlights is the relationship between dominant languages and those with a small or shrinking base of speakers. Although ‘essential to the dissemination and preservation of textual inheritance, [translation] is also understood to be an agent of language extinction.’ In Australia, this dilemma has especially sharp horns. Edmund Barton’s project of ‘a nation for a continent, and a continent for a nation’ was achieved via the obliteration or extreme marginalisation of the many nations already on the continent prior to the English invasion. Two centuries of repression, land grabs, ethnic cleansing, genocidal violence and kidnapping have taken a heavy toll on the indigenous peoples of Australia. Enforced monolingualism and social disruption have resulted in the loss of many languages. Writing in Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians (2003), the Murri language activist and educator Jeanie Bell describes the experience: ‘Our parents had been told quite severely that traditional languages were all junk and rubbish – pagan languages even. So it was drummed into our heads that English was the only language we had to learn.’
In other former British colonies, legislation has been introduced to protect and foster the growth of the languages that survived the onslaught of English. No such legal protections exist in Australia. Claire Bowern and Bentley James, writing in Re-awakening Languages (2010) on the Yannhaŋu language of Eastern Arnhem Land, describe the difficult choices involved in attempting to reverse the decline of an endangered language. If the limited funds available are channelled into documenting the language, there is a danger that this effort ‘is in essence a type of media migration; transferring knowledge from a speaker’s head to an archive which fossilises the language … and renders speakers almost unnecessary.’
In the face of this history, the notion of Australian literature becomes problematic. The idea of a national literature effectively drafts literature to fulfill a patriotic duty, to confer cultural prestige on its country of origin. The recent upsurge in the publication of ‘Australian classics’ collections acts not only as a celebration of individual Australian works but as an assertion of canonicity, establishing heft, breadth and a je ne sais quoi that relates the individual works to each other, despite their variety. The texts become not merely parts of a whole, but instantiations of an essence, a hypothesised ideal of which each work is but an imperfect avatar.
But what kind of Australia is represented by an almost purely English-language literary culture? The inclusion of a few works written in English by Aboriginal writers, though welcome, does not ameliorate the monolingual basis of the national literature, or the fact that a literature has been established atop linguistic erasure in a nation founded on the fiction of terra nullius.
An important source for Apter’s notion of the Untranslatable is the Arab writer Abdelfattah Kilito’s injunction ‘Thou Shalt Not Translate Me’: a defence of the ineffable specificity of the writer’s own language, a secular version of interdictions against the translation of holy books. The most important challenge Apter’s theories present for Australian literature is not how to negotiate the international market and assert its cultural identity. Viewed in this way, World Literature becomes a national competition: the literary equivalent of the World Cup. The challenge is, on the contrary, to pluralise itself, to recognise and foster Australian literatures of many languages, the literatures of its indigenous as well as its settler population; it is to create the conditions in which ‘Australian English Literature’ is not a tautologous phrase of hand-wringing political correctness, but a meaningful descriptor for one literature among many.
This cannot be achieved at the level of literary studies. The linguistic conditions in which indigenous national literatures are able to thrive – both in translation and, more crucially, untranslated – are a long way off, and can only be achieved with the goodwill of a society that has not only come to terms with its past, but is willing to act to redeem its future. Words of respect and regret come cheap. Can we imagine a national curriculum that recognises the plurality of nations and reverses their suppression? One which would include the teaching of the local languages of each area as subjects taught to all schoolchildren? One in which the ‘Australian Literature’ section of a bookshop is no longer composed of books all written in the English language? It seems fanciful, given our current political climate and the attitudes of much of the public. But such a future would allow Australian Literatures to represent not just a historically shallow tributary of global Anglophone culture, but a unique network of traditions that combine the internationalism of a continent mostly populated by immigrants with deep roots to land and peoples. Perhaps then we could truly consign the ‘cultural cringe’ to the past.
ReferencesAn 88-year-old woman is revealing how she talked an intruder out of raping her.
According to ABC13, an intruder broke into Helen Reynolds home Parkesburg, Pennsylvania apartment last week. The man made his way into the home by posing as an apartment complex worker and upon entry, he used duct tape to tie Reynolds up.
“He wrapped it all around my face and my nose and my eye glasses. He had a piece in my mouth,” said Reynolds. After rifling through her bag and taking out $40, the man prepared to sexually assault her.
Reynolds tried to fight him off and kicked him in his privates, but when that didn’t work she resorted to something else. I said to him, ‘Well it’s like this. You might as well know the truth.’ I said, ‘I have HIV and my husband died from it,’ which is a lie.
Credit: ABC 13
When I said that he just walked out of the bedroom. That’s the comment that saved my life.
When ABC 13 asked Reynolds if she had anything to say about her attacker, she replied, “I have nothing good to say about him. Nothing at all. Put him in jail, and leave the sucker there. ”
So far, no one has been arrested in connection with the attack on Reynolds. However, authorities have made an arrest in another home invasion that took place under similar circumstances in nearby East Brandywine Township.
Listen to Reynolds describe the incident below:
EMBED </>More News Videos <iframe width="476" height="267" src="http://abc13.com/video/embed/?pid=1782432" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> "I said, 'I have HIV and my husband died from it,' which is a lie. When I said that he just walked out of the bedroom," (WPVI)
Can you believe how fearless this almost 90-year-old woman is? Do you have any stories to share on warding off an intruder?
Let us know in the comments and please SHARE this story with your friends and family on Facebook!
[Featured Image Credit: ABC 13]Is hockey really Canada's game? A look at the numbers shows that more Canadian adults play golf than ice hockey, while for kids under 14 almost twice as many kids play soccer than hockey. There are also more ice hockey participants in the U.S. today than there are in Canada. And the game is growing much faster south of the border than it is here. To top it off, a poll last November found less than half of Canadians saying hockey is a source of personal or collective pride in Canada.
With the NHL season getting underway Tuesday, we're marking the event by compiling this page of numbers about non-professional hockey in Canada, from how many play the game to how much it costs.
We have some comparisons to other sports, too. See how much it costs to outfit a kid for hockey compared to other popular sports, and check out the participation rates in the ten most popular sports that adults play.An RT broadcast van sits outside a stadium in Moscow on Nov. 11. The network, formerly known as Russia Today, acknowledged in a Justice Department filing Monday that its U.S. operation has accepted money from Russian state media. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
A production company affiliated with the Kremlin-backed media network RT registered with the Justice Department on Monday as a foreign agent in the U.S.
RT |
oh, you have really reached a new high, pat yourself on the back,” Christie said sarcastically. “That was really interesting tonight, guys.”
Mulshine, in response to an IBTimes inquiry about the song and Christie's remarks, said he understood the event to be off the record. "This is a satirical show and politicians are fair game," Mulshine said in an email. "It was Booker himself who brought up the issue of his sexual identity and in a most unusual context." And he denied being an "angry drunk," insisting he writes his columns on caffeine and turns to beer only when he gets his state tax bill.
The governor also mocked NJTV reporter Michael Aron, considered the dean of the Trenton press corps, for trying to ask him a question while he was working the rope line after an event in New Hampshire.
“He said, 'Governor, it’s my birthday, please as a birthday present would you answer a question for me,' ” Christie said. “Just to show that I’m not the heartless bastard I was portrayed as tonight, I said sure Michael, I’ll take your question.”
“He looks at me and goes, 'So how is New Hampshire?' Are you f------ kidding me? The rest of these jokers are in the back cracking up. … Seriously, that is what he came up with. I was absolutely stunned.”
Asked about Christie's speech, his spokesman, Kevin Roberts, issued a statement. “All of the songs and acts of the night, including the Governor’s obvious parody of himself, were in jest and along with the spirit of the evening," he said.The dog’s owner asked if he could watch his dog, but once he saw the videos, Lashbrook had other ideas about what he should do
Steven Lashbrook used to be neighbours with the two people accused of beating a dog in videos circulating on Facebook. (Facebook/Steven Lashbrook)
1 / 1 Steven Lashbrook used to be neighbours with the two people accused of beating a dog in videos circulating on Facebook. (Facebook/Steven Lashbrook)
Steven Lashbrook was a bit confused on Wednesday morning when he received a message from a former neighbour, asking if he could stop by with this dog.
“He wouldn’t say why” he wanted to bring the dog by, Lashbrook said. “I found that a little suspicious … we don’t hang around.”
Still, he didn’t mind watching the dog because “Chico is the biggest sweetheart you’ll ever meet.”
As it turned out, Chico, a muscular white bull terrier, is the dog whose vicious treatment in two videos circulating online has captured the attention of the entire city.
The videos take place in a cluttered apartment. The first shows a young woman forcing feces into the animal’s mouth after it apparently defecated on the living room floor. The second shows the woman screaming at the dog about eating “the cats’ food” as she repeatedly punches the dog in the head and face while it whines in pain and cowers on the floor.
It is not known exactly when the videos were recorded, nor by whom.
Lashbrook didn’t know any of this when he received the morning message. He said he’s not really friends with Chico’s owners. They used to be neighbours, he said, and would often have playdates with their dogs.
Before the owner arrived at Lashbrook’s home with the dog, the 25-year-old Laurentian University business administration student went onto Facebook. That’s where he came across the two videos, which had begun to be shared widely.
And that’s when he made a decision. Once that dog was in his custody, Lashbrook decided, it wasn’t going anywhere else, unless it was with police. He certainly wasn’t going to give it back to the owners.
“Honestly, I was disgusted” by the videos, Lashbrook said. “I can’t comprehend how someone could do that.”
The next thing he did was phone Greater Sudbury Police. When the owner arrived and handed the dog over, that’s when Lashbrook laid it out for him what was going to happen.
“I told him I’d contacted the police and I wasn’t going to be giving him his dog back,” Lashbrook said.
He said the owner didn’t believe him at first, and kind of laughed, but Lashbrook made it clear: The dog wasn’t going to be returned to his care.
Besides just being a decent human being who hated seeing an animal abused, there was another reason Lashbrook reacted as he did. He said he felt somewhat responsible for Chico, explaining that when a friend of his was looking at selling her dog, which it turns out was Chico, Lashbrook put her in touch with his then neighbour, who was looking for a dog.
He said what he saw in the video seemed out of character for the person he knew.
“Never in a million years would I have thought they would be beating the dog,” Lashbrook said.
He said he’s happy to have been able to help rescue the dog from a bad situation and he “hopes the charges stick.”
Greater Sudbury Police and the OSPCA are working jointly to investigate the case, according to a post on the Sudbury OSPCA Facebook page.
The alleged abusers, a man, 20, and a woman, 18, were arrested Wednesday and charged with one count each of animal cruelty. Police are refusing to release their names, though their names are circulating freely on Facebook, including in posts on the GSPS’ own Facebook page.
They were not held in custody, but released on a promise to appear, partially, GSPS said today, because the cells at police HQ were full after a massive drug sweep yesterday. That sweep was part of Project Kronic, a joint operation of Toronto Police Service, York Regional Police, the OPP and GSPS.
And finally, after seeing videos of the animal being abused, here’s a happier image of Chico. Lashbrook provided this short clip of his girlfriend, Venessa Armstrong, giving Chico a well-deserved belly rub.The Obama administration is beginning to transition control of the Internet away from the United States—and that has us worried. Former President Bill Clinton and The Washington Post’s editorial board aren’t so thrilled, either.
Last week, Heritage experts warned that the Department of Commerce giving up oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) could open the door to nations that don’t value an open and free Internet.
>>> Giving the Internet Over to the U.N.—or Worse
Clinton agreed.
“A lot of people … have been trying to take this authority from the U.S. for the sole purpose of cracking down on Internet freedom and limiting it and having governments protect their backsides instead of empowering their people,” Clinton said at a panel over the weekend.
The Post’s editorial chimed in: “The reality is that there are dangers to the transition, and U.S. officials must be clear that they won’t relinquish their authorities until and unless it’s clear that a free, functional Internet will be the result.”
That’s basically what Heritage experts said—that the U.S. should make it clear “that it will maintain its governance role over ICANN if the successor proposal endangers the openness and freedom of the Internet.”
Pressure from international organizations is focused on ensuring that countries—many opposed to a free and open Internet—have an outsized influence in whatever “multi-stakeholder” model assumes governance of the Internet. Clinton summed it up: “I just know that a lot of these so-called multi-stakeholders are really governments that want to gag people and restrict access to the Internet.”Share
A team of six women were responsible for programming ENIAC, but their contribution to its success was largely glossed over in the years that followed. Their story raises an uncomfortable question — how can we encourage more women to enter fields such as programming if some of the most groundbreaking work carried out by women in the industry is to be forgotten?
The Birth of Programming
The Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, or ENIAC, was the world’s first electronic digital computer, a landmark accomplishment on our journey towards the technological era we’re living in at present. Financed by the United States Army, it would prove to be an invaluable tool in calculating artillery firing tables and early research into the hydrogen bomb.
Setting up a single calculation could take days, and a program could take weeks.
The creation of ENIAC is a remarkable story in its own right, but there’s an extra facet hidden just beneath its surface. While the design of the computer is credited to John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of the University of Pennsylvania, the programming of the system fell to a remarkable group of women; Fran Bilas, Betty Jennings, Ruth Lichterman, Kay McNulty, Betty Snyder and Marlyn Wescoff.
Despite the trailblazing work those six women did, they’re likely not names that you’re familiar with. Back then, computers were programmed through a physical system of adjusting switches and cables manually — ‘debugging’ a program meant climbing inside the ENIAC in search of faulty connections. A new program had to first be sketched out on paper, then implemented with extreme precision. Setting up a single calculation could take days, and a full program could take weeks.
The programmers were picked for the task because of their acumen calculating ballistics tables with a desk calculator and a differential analyzer before the ENIAC could be implemented. However, the technical mastery required to operate such a system wasn’t thought of as a major contribution to the overall process. The women who programmed ENIAC were considered to be mere operators, rather than given their due as a key component of the group of people that made the project a success.
Looking Back at ENIAC
In 1996 — the 50th anniversary of the ENIAC project — a woman named Kathryn Kleiman sought to do her part to preserve the legacy of a group of women that had made an impact on her life. Inspired by the work of the ENIAC programmers during her studies at Harvard in the 1980s, Kleiman contacted the organizers of the Women in Technology International annual conference to see how they were planning to mark the fifty-year milestone.
The next year, Kleiman would recount in an interview with Wired just how surprised she was to find that the organization had no knowledge of the women she was referring to. Their work had been so thoroughly swept under the rug that even a group dedicated to furthering the status of women in the tech industry had no knowledge of the work ENIAC programmers had accomplished five decades earlier.
To this day, Kleiman continues her work to circulate the story of the ENIAC programmers. For the past few years, she’s been working on a documentary called The Computers, which saw its first theatrical tour earlier in 2015. Hopefully, the film will be able to share the work of the ENIAC programmers with an even broader audience.
There are two elements to the importance of the ENIAC programmers receiving this recognition. Of course, it’s only right that they should be acknowledged for their work, even though the six women at the core of the group have now passed away. However, the impact that their story could have on the next generation of women embarking on careers in the tech industry can’t be understated.
Looking for some insight on the prominence of the ENIAC programmers today, I spoke to the CEO of Women Who Code, Alaina Percival.”These people were pioneers of the tech industry — and they were predominantly women,” she said. “It’s not something that’s commonly known, and it’s not something that’s being emphasized to people.”
Women Who Code is an organization that’s committed to helping women move into technology-focused careers, as well as championing success stories large and small. That could be the completion of the ENIAC system, or it could be a teenager running her first ‘Hello World’ program.
In the past 30 years, the number of women in technology has dropped from 40 percent to 25 percent.
Like many people working in the tech sector at present, Alaina came to the industry having begun her working career elsewhere. According to her, there are more ways into such fields than ever before, many of which don’t require formal training at a technical college as a pre-requisite. However, that isn’t having the expected effect on the proportion of women taking on these careers. “Just in the past 30 years, we’ve seen the number of women in technology drop from around 40 percent to closer to the 25 percent mark,” she tells me.
There are countless factors that shape those statistics, and the lack of well-known female accomplishments plays a big role. Perhaps if we heard more about the ENIAC programmers, and similar stories of women making significant contributions to the world of tech, there would be more young women eager to make their own mark on the industry.
The Next Generation
Sarah Allen began programming at the age of twelve, started a company fresh from completing her Computer Science degree, and was in the second class of Presidential Innovation Fellows in 2013. You might recognize her name thanks to her work on Flash video and Adobe After Effects.
“I had been a programmer for quite a while before I heard about the ENIAC women,” she told me when I asked of her familiarity with the group. Sarah came across their story as part of research into the history of computing, which would eventually lead her to Kathryn Kleiman.
“When I was leaving college, I was under the misconception that women had started programming in the ’60s and ’70s,” Sarah continued. “People told me that I was a pioneer, because I was a woman in the field.”
The uncovering of a secret history of women programmers should have offered up a message of empowerment. However, the very fact that the accomplishments of the ENIAC programmers had been folded into those of the men that designed the system puts quite a different spin on the story. A trailblazer’s lead can’t be followed if her work is immediately obscured.
Thankfully, efforts are being made to ensure that doesn’t happen. Kathryn Kleiman has put together her film on ENIAC and is screening it around the country. Alaina Percival continues to lead Women Who Code in carrying out projects to establish an international community of women in the industry. And Sarah Allen continues to share her ideology that programming is a life skill — a stance that will surely become increasingly common over the next decade. In 2009 she co-founded RailsBridge, an organization that promotes diversity in tech through easily accessible teaching workshops that are open to all.
Bringing women into the world of technology is just the first step. Sarah has a laundry list of organizations looking to make the industry more diverse — the Level Playing Field Institute, Black Girls Code and #YesWeCode to name just a few. However, she also has some straightforward advice for any woman taking their first steps into a career in technology.
“There is a normal where men and boys actually just respect you, as a peer. Those are the organizations, and those are the groups that you should be looking towards.”Gregg Popovich-Steve Kerr 2020 presidential ticket gains steam with online campaign
The people behind the Popovich-Kerr 2020 campaign said all proceeds from the sale of merch go to six charities fighting over proposed changes to immigration, human rights causes, and social issues. The people behind the Popovich-Kerr 2020 campaign said all proceeds from the sale of merch go to six charities fighting over proposed changes to immigration, human rights causes, and social issues. Photo: Handout Photo Photo: Handout Photo Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Gregg Popovich-Steve Kerr 2020 presidential ticket gains steam with online campaign 1 / 8 Back to Gallery
Shirts and mugs touting the mythical presidential ticket of Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and Warriors coach Steve Kerr are meant to be a tongue-in-cheek homage to the two men and the league in which they work.
"This is really, definitely been tongue-in-cheek," said one of the people behind Popovich-Kerr 2020. "The three of us are definitely fans of this 'celebrity of the week for president' culture. We feel a little bit silly doing it ourselves."
That said, there's a message there, too.
RELATED: Gregg Popovich uncensored: Full transcript of thoughts on Donald Trump
"There are a lot of people out here who respect those guys," he said. "We wanted to show our appreciation for them and for the NBA, in general, for being more progressive and open and forward on a lot of those issues."
Coach Walton already angling for a spot in the cabinet. #PopovichKerr2020 pic.twitter.com/N5JnCyGm7N — Popovich Kerr 2020 (@PopovichKerr) June 4, 2017
The shirt's creator and marketer, who describes himself and his two cohorts as "30-something NBA fans living in Texas, has sold hundreds of shirts and mugs with the Popovich-Kerr insignia from the website PopovichKerr2020.com.
Click through the slideshow above to see what kind of products are available through the Popovich-Kerr 2020 campaign.
"We're constantly amazed at how much appreciation and love there is for this," he said.
There's also an accompanying petition to draft the pair at Change.org.
The petition, signed so far by fewer than 100 people, explains the campaign's tongue-in-cheek nature, but asks for more mature and thoughtful leadership in Washington, D.C.
All profits from the venture go to six charities fighting over proposed changes to immigration, human rights causes, and social issues: the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the International Rescue Committee.Share:
BEIJING : Six Uighur women were among 16 people killed in a clash in China’s restive Xinjiang region last week, campaign groups said, contradicting Beijing’s version of events.
The Munich-based World Uyghur Congress and Radio Free Asia, which is funded by the US government, said that police raided a house where an extended family was gathering.
Xinjiang, in China’s far west, is home to the mainly Muslim Uighur minority and Chinese authorities say that “terrorists” were responsible for the incident.
But World Uighur Congress spokesman Alim Seytoff, citing information from two residents of Saybagh village, where the clash took place, said: “It was a massacre of a family who had gathered to prepare for the upcoming wedding of one of their children.”
According to Radio Free Asia, one resident said that the local police chief “triggered the incident by lifting the veil of a woman during the raid on the house”.
The dead included two police officers, with the other 14 all Uighurs.
Xinjiang has for years seen spasms of violence that Beijing attributes to terrorism and separatism but rights groups say is triggered by cultural oppression, intrusive security measures and a wave of immigration by China’s Han majority.
The violence peaked in 2009, when around 200 people died and more than 1,600 were injured in riots in the regional capital Urumqi.
China’s state-run Xinhua news service said that an initial probe of the Saybagh incident revealed that the 14 “terrorists” who were shot dead were from a group promoting extremist religious ideas and making explosives for terrorist attacks.Ryon Horne/AJC
Dozens of women carried the secret, some whispering it only to sisters or female friends. Never to their husbands. Certainly not to police.
It wasn’t until Astrid Chavez shared the secret with a popular Atlanta internet radio host that word got out.
The show today, Brenda Bueno told her listeners last fall, is about what can happen when professionals take advantage of the people they see every day. Professionals such as doctors.
She didn’t name names. She didn’t have to. That morning, when she was broadcasting live, she immediately began getting text message after text message.
“Are you talking about Dr. Rios?” listeners texted.
Like Chavez, other women told Bueno that Chamblee pediatrician José Rios had subjected them or their friends to groping or other sexual advances when they took their children to medical appointments.
Miguel Martinez/Mundo Hispanico After hearing a radio show broadcast by Atlanta host Brenda Bueno, Astrid de Chavez shared her accusation of sexual misconduct against Chamblee pediatrician José Rios.
But as in other cases involving allegations of doctor sexual misconduct across the country, the women had calculated that the risks of reporting their doctor to authorities were too great, or that no one would take their word over that of a physician. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation of doctor sexual misconduct found a nationwide pattern of physicians targeting the vulnerable: immigrants, the poor, children and the elderly, people who had been sexually abused as children, drug addicts, the mentally impaired and mentally ill, those struggling with marital problems, and patients who were sedated or unconscious.
“Doctors target patients who they view as not being confident or credible, or who they think are timid and less likely to report them to authorities,” said Adam Horowitz, a Florida attorney who has represented about 20 patients accusing doctors of abuse.
The women who contacted Bueno were Spanish-speakers, mostly undocumented immigrants who feared deportation. Some remained silent out of shame, not wanting to discuss details of what had happened. “Some of them were more afraid of their husbands … than of law enforcement authorities,” Bueno said.
After Bueno persuaded Chavez to go to Chamblee police, Rios was arrested in November at Primary Care Center in the Plaza Fiesta shopping center on a single misdemeanor count of sexual battery.
Miguel Martinez/Mundo Hispanico Chamblee pediatrician José Rios sits handcuffed after being arrested November 2015 at Primary Care Center in the Plaza Fiesta shopping center.
Bueno and the Spanish-language newspaper MundoHispánico then brought together other women who said they were victimized, and had a psychologist explain to their husbands that the women were not to blame. As a result, by late November dozens more women stepped forward.
MundoHispánico also went with the women to police, where in a daylong session with Capt. Ernesto Ford and other officers, the women said that Rios had groped their breasts or buttocks, offered to pay them for sex, or made other sexual advances when they took their children to appointments.
One mother said that Rios had groped her legs. “After he did that, I never went back to his clinic. I asked the receptionist to give me an appointment with another doctor.”
Another recalled what happened at two appointments. “One time he told me to sit my child on my lap so he could examine him, and he brushed against my breasts,” she told MundoHispánico, which like the AJC is part of Cox Media Group. “I thought it was an accident, but he did it again another time that I went back, and he even gave me his private phone number so I could call him whenever I wanted.”
In December, Rios, a Colombian native, was charged with two additional counts of sexual battery and one count of pandering — soliciting sex for money. Police couldn’t bring charges in many other cases, which dated back for more than a decade, because of the statute of limitations on sexual battery, said Chamblee Detective LaShonda Williams, the lead investigator in the case. The law limits charges to incidents in the previous two years for first-offense sexual battery, Williams said.
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, which operates the Chamblee clinic, suspended Rios as soon as police made it aware of the allegations, a spokeswoman said. “The allegations filed in November 2015 were the first complaints we had ever received regarding misconduct by Dr. Rios, who was a full-time physician with an 18-year history of serving patients in our community,” Children’s Healthcare said in an emailed statement.
In January, Rios signed an agreement with the Georgia Composite Medical Board not to practice medicine until the criminal case is resolved. Such an agreement is typical when a doctor is facing criminal charges, board officials said.
The charges are still pending. Rios did not respond to interview requests and his attorney declined to comment.
In June, a group of women filed civil lawsuits against Rios and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, accusing the doctor of improper touching and seeking damages.
Miguel Martinez/Mundo Hispanico After going public with her accusations against Dr. José Rios, Astrid de Chavez has received backlash in her community. But many others have supported her.
Chavez — who never went back to the clinic after she said Rios made sexual comments at one appointment for her newborn, then grabbed her breast at another appointment — said she knows of some 50 women who said they were victimized. But the backlash from other Hispanics, indignant about the accusations, may have deterred some from going to police, she and Bueno said.
For every woman who said she was victimized, there were 20 who came to the doctor’s defense, Bueno said. On social media, some accused the pediatrician’s accusers of trying to get some sort of benefit. They probably didn’t want to pay for their children’s appointments, the skeptics said, or they wanted to get money from Rios.
“A lot of people were saying, these are women who are country folk, who are uneducated,” Bueno said. “Because they aren’t necessarily so attractive, there’s no way a doctor with his status and money and reputation would ever … turn to look at a woman who’s overweight, or just had a baby, or is uneducated.”
Chavez, who agreed to be publicly identified, has heard it, too. “But I talked to the right people and they gave me the courage to do it, to go to the police and report him.”
Williams said she still periodically gets women who want to report that they, too, were victims. “Some women called back just to thank us for the work we did,” Williams said. “They just felt like, ‘Nobody was going to listen to me.’”
— AJC staff writer Ariel Hart and senior investigations editor Lois Norder contributed to this article.
Other states, other incidents of Hispanic women assaultedFirst of all. If you want to know what I’m up to next, follow me on twitter: @eirikso
So, I posted this video on YouTube two days ago:
And it have gone completely viral. It was made in a hurry and leaves a lot of things that might need an explanation.
The place and the moose
The video was shot just outside of Oslo. We have a lot of moose roaming around the woods here in Norway. And some of them very close to the city. They’re shy of people, dogs and other living creatures, but are pretty used to the sound of cars, trains, helicopters, planes etc. To see a moose is not very uncommon in Norway.
This moose is probably a 1,5 year old female. She seems more curious than afraid. And we spotted her again from far up in the sky later. Still calmly walking around eating in the same wood.
The technology in general
One of my hobbies for the last year have been to build and fly multirotor helicopters. When I fly them I do it either by flying Line-Of-Sight (LOS) or First Person View (FPV). When flying LOS you simply take off and fly the thing around while watching it from the ground. For quadcopters this limit the range because the copter is symmetric and you loose the orientation pretty fast. However, as I’ve gained experience you start to feel the direction based on speed and the way you control the copter, making it possible to fly further away. I fly LOS when I want to do acrobatics and train accuracy and pilot skills. Here is an example of some acro flying with a very small quadcopter:
KK2 Acro FLights from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.
But for the video with the moose I fly FPV. Meaning that I have a dedicated camera connected to a video transmitter on board the copter. I feed the video signal into a pair of video goggles and navigate the copter like I was sitting inside it. Based on the video signal. When flying this way I always have spotters beside me that keep an eye on the copter and what is happening on the ground.
In addition to the goggles I have a screen and a digital recorder on the ground station. That recorder also has a mic and records the audio from the spot where we are standing. Ensuring that we got the recording of the quite enthusiastic spotters and my rather nervous comments about battery status and the fact that it is darn difficult to navigate this thing between and under the trees.
The camera
On the copter there is also a GoPro Hero3 to record HD video on board. The video downlink is only SD-quality. In the video I cut to the footage from the DVR at some points to show how it looks from my goggles. Here’s a screen shot from that feed:
You can see the battery status in the top left corner. We spotted the moose at the end of my flight. At 13,2 volts the batteries will be harmed and the copter will descend automatically or simply crash.
Because the HD footage is done in the GoPro on board the copter it was pretty important for us to get it back in one piece. On this copter the GoPro is mounted “naked” without the water proof box. To save weight and make the mounting easier. So I don’t want to crash it in the snow.
The recording in the GoPro is 2,7 K @ 25 FPS. It is slightly stabilised in FCPX and rendered at 1920×1080.
The camera is mounted on a vibration dampened platform under the copter.
The details
The copter I use here is this one.
It is a quad rotor helicopter. Based on a X468 frame that makes it possible to wrap it together for easy travelling. It is controlled by a DJI Naza flight controller that has gyros, accelerometer, barometer and GPS to assist the stabilisation of the copter.
I am using an old Futaba 9C remote with FrSky Tx and Rx modules.
After my previous post about the copter I have changed to three blade, nine inch props (9x5x3). They give me less jello and vibrations in my recordings. In general I find it easier to get rid of vibrations with smaller props running at higher speed. So I run the copter on 4S batteries. Usually two 2200 mAh in parallel. That gives me up to 12 minutes flight time with GoPro and FPV equipment. But 12 minutes is with completely new batteries and when I am pushing the limit. Usually I fly around 8 minutes and land when my batteries are close to 14V. In this video I push it all the way down to 13,2 V when I land.
I have also changed the ESCs on the copter. From Turnigy Plush that I mention in the article about the copter to HobbyKing F30A with SimonK-firmware. That change made the copter way more stable.
Sony RX100
I am also flying this copter with a Sony RX100. It is heavier than the GoPro, giving slightly lower flight time. But the RX100 has excellent image stabilisation built in and you get rid of the GoPro fisheye-look. Here is a RX100-video from the same copter and same area.
The dangers
Multirotors can be dangerous. The props are spinning fast. And they might cut your skin if you get too close when they are running. On my copter I have pretty soft and cheap GWS props. They’re not as dangerous as the carbon reinforced props that many people use. But if you are flying high the pure weight of the copter is dangerous if it falls down. And they do. That is why we are flying outside of the city over fields with no people. And always have spotters on the ground when we fly FPV.
The lipo batteries are very powerful. And can explode or catch fire if they are damaged.
In addition to this there are rules regarding remote controlled devices. They are different in different countries. In Norway you can fly up to 400 feet. And you need a special license to be allowed to put a camera on anything that flies.
If you want to to professional AP work you need an extra license from the civil aviation authority.
The fun and the problem
Lots of people immediately say “I want one” when they see how fun this is. And I can really recommend this hobby. But you need to be patient. First of all it is very difficult to fly these things. It has taken hours and hours of training to be able to fly the way I do in this video.
And even more hours fixing the broken copter after crashing. That is why I build them myself from the ground up. For the first couple of months I never returned with empty batteries. I always returned with a broken copter.
RCgroups is one of the best recourses if you want to start. If you are Norwegian I can recommend our build log over at NRKbeta.no
To start training I can really recommend this small and harmless copter: WLtoys V929. It is a toy, but it is four channel and is controlles just like the bigger copters. If you learn to fly this thing it will be easier to fly bigger and more dangerous copters.Jamie Peck, a writer for the culture and politics blog Death And Taxes has been caught trying to instigate a media blackout against Lucian Wintrich’s upcoming pro-Trump art show in New York City.
More than two hundred other journalists from a range of publications including the New York Times, the L.A. Times and The Guardian were contacted by Peck, in an email chain reminiscent of GameJournoPros and JournoList.
Peck, who has previously labelled Wintrich’s pro-Trump photography as “neofascist,” urged her peers to ignore the Trump-supporting artist’s upcoming event, which will feature art submissions from Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, and Martin Shkreli.
In an email to the chain, Peck suggested that journalists should ignore the “alt-right clowns” and their art show.
From: Jamie Peck <jamie.e.peck@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Subject: i know you’re smart Hi everyone- Sorry to revive this CC nightmare (minus anyone claiming to be Martin Shkreli) but the topic is relevant and I don’t want to add fuel to the fire by writing about it publicly. Some alt-right clowns (Shkreli included) are having an art show in New York this weekend in the hopes of causing a media circus.
http://www.papermag.com/pro-trump-art-show-williamsburg-brooklyn-2029015793.html
How about we make like we did with this email chain and ignore it until it goes away?
Have a sparklingTuesday. :)
The email went out to more than three hundred journalists from a range of British and American publications, including TIME, Vice, The New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Magazine, The New York Post, The L.A. Times, L.A Mag, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror The Huffington Post, Mic.com, BuzzFeed, Deadspin, Business Insider, The Verge, TechCrunch, The Daily Dot, Gadgette, and Tech Insider.
Broadcast journalists were also present on the list, which included reporters, directors, and managers from MSNBC, CNBC, BBC, CNN, and ESPN.
One employee of the Associated Press, a strategy manager, was also present on the list.
Breitbart contacted all journalists on the email chain, including Peck, to confirm the authenticity of the email and to gauge their opinion on the ethics of attempts to coordinate coverage across multiple journalistic outlets.
Most journalists on the email chain did not reply to our request for comment, but there were a few exceptions. When asked to confirm the authenticity of the email, Colin Pinkham, a contributor to Jezebel, Wonkette, Uproxx and Fusion told us this:
I can confirm that id rather shove a red hot cactus up my ass than ever say anything that might in any way benefit the douchehats at Breitbart.
Dell Cameron, a reporter for the Daily Dot, got back to us with a similar, though less graphic reply.
I can confirm that 1.609 is a good number to multiply mileage by if you’re trying to figure out approximately how many kilometers you’ve driven.
Miles Klee, an editor at the Daily Dot, was more detailed in his flippancy.
That email did indeed come from Jamie Peck, and everyone on the resulting thread—several hundred editors and writers in all—agreed not to cover the art show in question. Furthermore, some of us have decided to go to the art show anyway (in secret, of course) and fart on the art. I am one of these volunteers, but my conscience is beginning to gnaw at me. Is this ethical? Will it even accomplish anything? I am adrift and looking for any answers. Thank you for exposing this nefarious plot, and godspeed.
Eventually, serious replies began to trickle in. One journalist, who wanted his name and publication kept off the record, confirmed that the he “did get the email” and that “it comes from an email address I believe to be Peck.”
Another journalist, from a mainstream web publication, confirmed that they also received the email, although they were slightly baffled as to why. “Yeah it’s real. We all received it. I don’t know why the fuck I’m on that thread and I don’t why the fuck people keep emailing it. But I did. It’s real.”
Ted Scheinman, an editor for the Pacific Standard, also confirmed that he believed the email to be from Peck, although he argued that because the email chain emerged out of happenstance, there was nothing nefarious about it or Peck’s use of it.
Oh yes, I assumed the email was legitimate, though I myself don’t know Jamie Peck – – one of the many odd things about this list is that it includes a seemingly random group of web and magazine writers, many (or most?) of whom didn’t know each other before the original email, and who also (I think) work on vastly different beats from one another. Some aren’t journalists at all.” I didn’t in the least read Peck’s email as pressuring collusion, still less as the start of some dark coordinated effort. Remember that this isn’t a curated list of likeminded journalists; it’s an assortment of people brought together purely because one of these guys (Shkreli) spammed us a handful of times in a bid for press and general attention. (I suspect he would say it was merely to ruin our day, or something.) So the list began as this weird random web thing and continued in that vein – – hardly a secret group of journalist co-conspirators. Christ, there’s at least one sex worker on the email |
in Turkey’s pro-government media that it said aimed to try Topuz in the media instead of a court of law.
Other Americans held in Turkey include Pastor Andrew Brunson who was detained last year and is accused of terror-related charges for alleged ties to Gulen’s movement. Erdogan has linked the pastor’s possible release or deportation to Washington agreeing to extradite Gulen to Turkey.
The Turkish lira recorded a sharp drop against the dollar on Monday, following the mutual suspension of visa services.
More: Turkey: 40 people sentenced to life in prison for attempting to kill President Erdogan
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2kAGFJeCLOSE Paul Manafort -- Donald Trump’s former 2016 campaign chairman turns himself in. Buzz60
File photo taken in 2016 shows Paul Manafort, former director Donald Trump's victorious 2016 presidential campaign. (Photo11: JUSTIN LANE, EPA-EFE)
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation produced on Monday its first criminal charges, its first guilty plea and first public confirmation that an aide to President Trump’s campaign sought an allegiance with Russians to gather “dirt” on his political rival.
The series of charges unsealed early Monday morning is a significant step in the federal investigation of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election, which Trump has dismissed as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.” While Mueller did not allege that Trump or his campaign colluded with Moscow, the charges offer the first public view into a far-flung criminal investigation that has cast a shadow on the president's first year in office.
In one case, ex-Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to a charge that he lied to FBI agents about his contacts with a professor he believed "had substantial connections to Russian government officials" during the campaign. The professor offered him "dirt" — in the form of thousands of emails — on Trump’s election opponent, Hillary Clinton.
A grand jury also indicted former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates on charges that they secretly worked on behalf of pro-Russian factions in Ukraine, then laundered millions of dollars in profits through foreign bank accounts. Prosecutors charged that the men sought to cover up their work even while they held senior roles in Trump’s campaign. Both pleaded not guilty to the charges. A judge on Monday placed them under house arrest, setting bond at $10 million for Manafort and $5 million for Gates.
More: Charges against Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos: What we know now
More: White House: Confident, but concerned about the unknown after legal action
At the White House, Trump and his aides sought to downplay the significance of the charges, suggesting that the work Manafort and Gates did in Ukraine was unconnected to the campaign and that Papadopoulos was a low-level official with little access or influence.
"Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign," the president tweeted. "But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????"
Trump insisted that his campaign had no cooperation with Russia, which the U.S. intelligence community has accused of using cyberattacks and fake news to influence the election in favor of Trump. "Also, there is NO COLLUSION!" he tweeted.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Mueller's charges have "nothing to do with the president... nothing to do with the president’s campaign."
But Mueller did draw links between the charges and Trump's campaign. In a court filing signed by both prosecutors and Papadopoulos, Trump's former campaign aide acknowledged meeting with people he believed were connected to the Russian government while he was serving as an adviser to Trump. And the grand jury's indictment of Manafort and Gates alleged that they sought to cover up their Ukraine connections while they worked for Trump.
Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat and on Senate committee conducting its own investigation of Russian meddling, called Manafort’s indictment “a significant and sobering step in what will be a complex and likely lengthy investigation.”
More: Ex-Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to FBI about Russian contacts
First guilty plea
Papadopoulos was arrested in July, after he returned to the United States from a trip to Germany. But a judge agreed to keep the case secret until Monday after Mueller's office said that he had agreed to cooperate with investigators. Revealing his arrest "could alert other subjects to the direction and status of the investigation," Mueller's team said in court documents.
The former aide acknowledged in a court filing that he misled FBI agents about his conversations with a professor who told him the Russian government had obtained "thousands of emails" with dirt on Clinton. The exchange came amid widespread publicity about Clinton's use of a private email server, and months before the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks released internal Democratic National Committee emails that cast an embarrassing light on her campaign. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the DNC's emails were hacked at the behest of the Russian government.
While collecting information on political opponents is routine in presidential campaigns, the involvement of a foreign government is remarkable. Papadopoulos' acknowledgement is the first link Mueller has publicly drawn between Trump's campaign and Russia.
More: After Paul Manafort indictment, Trump points finger at Hillary Clinton
More: Trump campaign sends out fundraising email after Paul Manafort indictment
CLOSE Details about potential charges in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russia's interference in the presidential election and possible collusion with President Trump's associates could come this week.
Papadopoulos admitted he met with a professor and a Russian woman in London in March 2016, after he joined the campaign. At the time, he mistakenly believed the woman was Russian President Vladimir Putin's niece.
After the London-based professor and a contact in the Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs expressed interest in a meeting with Trump, Papadopoulos in May 2016 sent an email to a high-ranking Trump campaign official with the subject line “Request from Russia to meet Mr. Trump,” according to the statement.
That email was forwarded to another campaign official with the message “Let[‘]s discuss. We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.” DT appears to be a reference to Trump.
More: George Papadopoulos, John Kelly commiserate over sharing names with Trump counterparts
More: Who is former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos?
Papadopoulos was charged with misleading FBI agents about this and other exchanges when he met with them on Jan. 27. In court filings, he admitted that he made false statements, including by telling agents that he was told about "dirt" on Clinton before he began working for Trump. In fact, he acknowledged, it only occurred later, and that the professor who offered him the information seemed "uninterested" until he told him that he had joined the campaign.
In a written plea agreement, Mueller's office said it would agree to recommend that Papadopoulos face between zero and six months in prison. Papadopoulos' lawyers declined to comment on the case.
Former campaign chief indicted
Mueller's prosecutors also unsealed an array of charges against Manafort and Gates related to their work for the government of Ukraine, which began long before both men joined Trump's campaign. The charges include 12 counts of conspiracy, money laundering, failing to register as foreign agents and making false statements to investigators.
Manafort has long been a central figure in Mueller's investigation. FBI agents raided his apartment over the summer. He has come under scrutiny both for his work in Ukraine and his participation in a meeting in 2016 between Donald Trump, Jr. and a Russian lawyer promising damaging information about Clinton.
Gates had worked with Manafort in the private sector and followed him to Trump's campaign in 2016. Gates wound up moving to the Republican National Committee when Manafort was ousted from the campaign, and he helped set up a pro-Trump super PAC after the election.
After surrendering to FBI agents, Manafort and Gates appeared briefly in federal court in the afternoon. Both men surrendered their passports and are now required to remain confined in their homes, except for approved trips to consult with attorneys or receive medical treatment.
More: Who is Paul Manafort? More about Trump's indicted former campaign chairman
More: Who is Rick Gates, the man indicted with Paul Manafort?
More: Paul Manafort has deep ties with Russia. A timeline of who, what, when
More: Paul Manafort indictment: Read the full document
Their indictment makes no reference to Manafort's work on Trump's campaign. But it alleges that Manafort's efforts to conceal his work on behalf of Ukraine continued while he was running the campaign. As late as Aug. 19, 2016, three days before Trump fired him, the indictment alleges that Manafort and Gates sent "false talking points" to one of the political consulting firms they had hired to lobby on behalf of pro-Russian factions in Ukraine.
Prosecutors allege that for more than a decade, Manafort and Gates worked secretly to influence the U.S. government on behalf of pro-Russian factions in Ukraine, then laundered their profits through a series of overseas businesses and bank accounts. In all, prosecutors alleged that $75 million passed through offshore bank accounts that the men controlled.
More: The Paul Manafort indictment: His personal expenses, by the numbers
More: Follow the money: Here's how money laundering works
Manafort "used his hidden overseas wealth to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States," prosecutors wrote. Investigators traced wire transfers from bank accounts in Cyprus that Manafort allegedly used to pay his landscapers and to buy a Mercedes and three Range Rovers. Prosecutors also said that he used the accounts to pay more than $1.3 million to clothing stores in New York and Beverly Hills.
When U.S. authorities made inquiries about the payments last year, Manafort and Gates responded "with a series of false and misleading statements," prosecutors alleged.
Manafort's lawyer, Kevin Downing, called the charges "ridiculous" and said his work for Ukraine ended two years before he joined Trump's campaign. "President Donald Trump was correct," Downing said in a statement. "There is no evidence the Trump campaign colluded with the Russia government."
Gates spokesman Glenn Selig said he "welcomes the opportunity to confront these charges in court."
More: From President Trump to Democrats, read the reactions to the Paul Manafort indictment
More: Robert Mueller's indictments are unlikely to shift congressional probes of Russian meddling
More: Who's who: Key players in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election
Contributing: John Bacon and Steve Reilly in McLean, Va.
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2ho6SGSDavid Taylor reported this story on Friday, June 17, 2016 12:20:00
KIM LANDERS: Jobs and the economy have dominated this election, and both sides are campaigning on the issue again today.
In Hobart, Labor leader Bill Shorten has outlined his plan to tackle youth unemployment.
BILL SHORTEN: We are proposing that 20,000 young people between 15 and 24 get the opportunity to do six weeks of pre-work preparation, just getting some of those essential skills together, the discipline to be able to hold down a job.
Then we're proposing that they would get six months of paid work with an employer at award wages.
And what we're also offering these young people is the opportunity to get a Certificate III qualification in the particular discipline in which they are engaged.
KIM LANDERS: Meantime, Malcolm Turnbull has been in northern New South Wales where he's announced a $25 million jobs and investment package for the North Coast.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: We're talking about business innovation, we're talking about infrastructure, we're talking about training.
They're the three areas of focus.
The $25 million will attract matched funding. The aim is to partner with businesses, with local government and with state government to leverage that investment to create more opportunities and greater investment because we know investment drives employment.
More investment, more economic activity, more jobs.
KIM LANDERS: Well, when the latest unemployment figures were released yesterday, we saw that the 18,000 new jobs created last month were all part-time.
Workers in Australia's tourism hubs where much of the economic activity is concentrated are in hot demand, but there's little full-time employment.
Job placement companies are saying businesses are reluctant to give people full-time work because they're worried about the economic outlook.
David Taylor reports.
DAVID TAYLOR: Elizabeth Ross runs a recruitment business in Far North Queensland.
The business is strategically placed near some of Australia's biggest tourism hubs.
She sends graduates into tourism and hospitality-related roles including as deck hands and diving instructors.
But she says the businesses she talks to aren't willing to provide many, if any, permanent or long term employment opportunities right now.
ELIZABETH ROSS: One of the biggest things is, "What happens when we have a downturn, what do we do then?"
DAVID TAYLOR: The explosion in demand for part-time and casual roles means Elizabeth Ross seeks out backpackers to fill the positions.
That presents its own challenges with many freshly trained-up back-packers unable to give tourists hot tips about local spots to visit.
ELIZABETH ROSS: In fact, we're trying to... I'm working on a program with one of the places in Port Douglas which we're calling it'restaurant ready'; trying to make people ready for working locally because the tourists that come in don't realise that most of the other people that they're being served by are not local either.
So when they say well, "What is the best tour to do" they can't answer it because they've only just arrived in town themselves.
DAVID TAYLOR: Ms Ross says the current jobs market place isn't sustainable and won't help the economy in the long-run.
ELIZABETH ROSS: If people want to live here, they've got to have something more than, you know, the odd two or three nights work.
SHANE OLIVER: There are some worrying signs here.
DAVID TAYLOR: Shane Oliver is the chief economist at AMP.
SHANE OLIVER: Quite a bit chunk of the work force is still under utilised if you like and that, of course, is all a drag for consumer spending. It's a drag for, it's negative for job satisfaction so there are some worrying signs there.
DAVID TAYLOR: The AMP crunches the numbers. You talk to businesses and companies out there as part of your research. Why? Why aren't employers willing to take on employees Monday to Friday?
SHANE OLIVER: There's a whole bunch of factors here. Some of them are very long-term. There's a casualisation of the workforce, more flexible workplaces, more flexible working arrangements.
DAVID TAYLOR: Because employees aren't confident that they'll be able to keep someone on for, you know, August, September, October?
SHANE OLIVER: I think there is, yes, there is a degree of a lack of confidence there as well.
So on the one hand people working shorter hours, you know, when people do that voluntarily, that's probably good for them, gives them more flexibility but a lot of what we're seeing here is not, is not voluntary on the part of the workers.
They're just accepting what's available to them and I think we are in an environment where the corporate sector remains very cautious.
We seem to be going from one global crisis to another lately.
It's Brexit, that creates unease in the minds of employers and of course, they therefore go for part-time work as opposed to full-time workers and I guess we've also gone through this environment where there is intense competition out there.
You know, why is inflation so low? It's because this massive competitive in the retail market for example. How do retailers respond to that, they respond in a way that tries to keep their costs down and so they're again going for part-time workers.
So a whole bunch of factors going on here but I think at the end of the day it is a reflection of the sign of the times.
DAVID TAYLOR: And in what could be another reflection of the "sign of the times", recruiters say job seekers are needing just a little help in dressing appropriately for interviews.
ELIZABETH ROSS: And encouraging people to, you know, actually put on a pair of shoes and not wear your shortest shorts and your mid-riff top when you go off to drop your resume. We're trying to encourage people to think of it like anywhere else. It's all about presentation.
DAVID TAYLOR: And a willingness to accept less work than they want.
KIM LANDERS: David Taylor reporting.The state we're in
Oklahoma's fractured narrative
By Barry Friedman
In "The White Album," Joan Didion’s seminal work about how America defines itself, she writes, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live…We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely…by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ‘ideas’ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”
We tell ourselves stories in Oklahoma, often award-winning ones (“Oklahoma!” the musical ranking somewhere between college football and hydrocarbons as our greatest export), but the stories of late are bolder—dangerous, manipulative—equal parts hubris and pixie dust, laced with xenophobia and Jesus. This isn’t just about the budget or even the 55th legislative session—though its members set new standards for obtuseness, procrastination, scapegoating, and tripping over themselves—but also about an Oklahoma narrative that changed (mutated, really) in the early 1990s, when the state revealed its hatred of a functioning government, and then hit its stride on January 20, 2009, when the state revealed its hatred of a president.
It’s impossible to talk about Oklahoma politics over the past eight years without addressing the election of Barack Obama. To many in the state, he was (and is) Legion, filled with multiple demons, both a boogeyman and piñata. The criticism was couched in opposition to his Affordable Care Act, Iraqi troop withdrawals, environmental objectives, presidential style, ad infinitum, but policy differences can’t explain this kind of venom.
Republican Representative Lewis Moore removed Obama’s presidential portrait in 2010 from the House chamber and hid it; Republican Senator Mike Ritze said, “I have never seen a birth certificate that would pass the test of what I call a legal document” when he joined lunatic of lunatics Orly Taitz in questioning the president’s legitimacy; Republican Senator Rick Brinkley authored a “birther bill” attempting to force the president off the 2012 state ballot; Republican Attorney General Scott Pruitt has sued the Obama Administration over a dozen times; former Republican Senator Tom Coburn said his good friend the president owes his success to affirmative action; and present Republican First District Congressman Jim Bridenstine, a former military man, laughed while a constituent talked of hanging the commander in chief.
It was fatuous and mendacious, all of it, including this session’s incomprehensible vote to impeach him after he insisted all Americans, regardless of genitalia (even in our state), be allowed equal access to public restrooms.
The story began earlier, though, in 1992, with State Question 640, which required that tax increases receive three-fourths support in both the Oklahoma House and Senate or else go to a vote of the people before being enacted, thus ensuring we could no longer fund state government at mature and sustainable levels without engaging in Herculean somersaults. Two years earlier, State Question 632, approved overwhelmingly by voters, imposed term limits for elected representatives, which fueled the cockamamie notion that Oklahoma would be better served if new legislators, without institutional memory or skill, were given the levers of government every 12 years. Instead of fresh ideas from these new representatives, we largely got pablum: Sharia Law bans, Ten Commandments statutes, incoherent rants about gays and lesbians, Obama, EPA, Planned Parenthood bashing, legislation so badly written it was laughed out of court, and, worse, an overriding narrative that government was an evil pustule that needed to be lanced.
And, of course, we got tax cuts—from Democrats and Republicans.
We starved the beast and then blamed the beast for being lethargic and unresponsive. We blamed liberals and feminists for hip-checking Oklahoma’s greatness into the boards of mediocrity and political correctness. We accused Obama of having the audacity to act presidential.
We had our story.
So who are we now? Descendants of settlers who developed this great state where there’s plen’y of heart and plen’y of hope or one of those 18,000 Oklahomans who signed a petition in 2012 supporting secession?
We are one part of what former Mayor of New York David Dinkins called America’s “gorgeous mosaic,” so our handwringing, paranoia, and chest thumping is but one sound in a cacophonous 50-state heartbeat. Every one of those states has grievances, pulls together, and overcomes adversity; every state searches for its lost children and runs extension cords from their homes so people in these emergencies can charge their iPhones; every state honors its veterans and puts American flags on the front porch; every state crows about the brilliance of its institutions and boasts about the strength of its college football programs and engineering and geology schools; every state highlights the resourcefulness and inner strength of its people; every state resigns itself to the unpredictability of its weather; and, yes, every state has a beef with the federal government and is subject to its laws—hence, states can’t pick and choose the laws by which they live, how much religious elbow room it deems necessary, or whether it will allow its bakers—say in Del City—to refuse to make wedding cakes to same-sex couples.
When the Murrah Building was bombed, America was with us; when tornadoes devastated Moore (twice), America, including the president we hate so much, was with us.
“Everywhere, fellow Americans are praying with you,” Obama said after the EF-5 hit, “they’re thinking about you and they want to help. And I’m just a messenger here letting you know that you are not alone.”
Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, in pushing for that assistance, made sure the country knew not all tragedy deserves compassion.
Speaking on MSNBC, the lawmaker said that in the case of Hurricane Sandy, “everybody was getting in and exploiting the tragedy that took place.” However, he said, “that won’t happen in Oklahoma.”
In 1987, when Jessica McClure, a girl of one, fell down a 22-foot well in her aunt’s backyard in Midland Texas, and the people of that community held flashlights and vigils and shovels and retrieved her 55 hours later, President George Bush, the first one, said their efforts were “typically American.”
(“Yeah,” joked Jay Leno, “like the Swiss would let her die.”)
We all would have saved that little girl. That doesn’t make us Texans, Oklahomans, or even Americans—it makes us human. It’s our story. God, if there is one, doesn’t smile on (or save or condemn or test) us in any greater percentages than he does Nebraskans, nor does he talk to our legislators with any more clarity or frequency; our bluster no more factually based than the bluster found in Illinois; and our sins, our men in hooded white sheets or suits (whose names often appear on streets or law schools), no less evil than those who prowled Philadelphia, Mississippi or Selma, Alabama.
They, too, the bigots, tell themselves stories in order to live. So do our heroes. At some point, every story breaks down.
At the beginning of Grapes of Wrath, it is raining. It stopped and the Joads left Oklahoma.
They didn’t come back. There was no longing to; the place let them down.
During the Republican National Convention in 2012, Republican Governor Fallin said it wasn’t the federal government but “thousands of families” who “rushed to put a stake down on empty plots of land” that made this land of ours. “They built tent cities overnight, they farmed the land and they worked hard.” Every word of it a clichéd sop to the state’s new robust ego and selective amnesia. She was telling the country—telling President Obama— that we in Oklahoma were not buying his notion of an interconnected commonwealth from which we all rose and a nation prospered.
Mr. President, we know better … as we say in Oklahoma, that dog won’t hunt.
She gave credit to Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm, whom she called a “visionary,” the same Harold Hamm who also tried to get scientists at OU fired for studying links between oil and gas activity and earthquakes and then called Donald Trump the “best choice” for America.
Fallin extolled these “early day pioneers” who did it on their own.
It was a lie, for if we did it on our own, we did it without the U.S. Army and the Railroad, Homestead and Morrill Land-Grant Acts (the last of which was signed by Abraham Lincoln, a Republican). And if you go to Stillwater today and visit the state’s premier land grant university, you’ll see Morrill Hall, named after Justin Smith Morrill, a man who thought federal funding for public colleges and universities was a good idea.
Harold Hamm didn’t do that; a senator from Vermont did.
America did.
Last March, two reporters from The Tulsa Voice shadowed two Planned Parenthood lobbyists, Kate and Joe (whose names have been changed), as they met with District 68 State Rep. Glen Mulready, a Republican who sits on the public health committee, to implore him to vote against several anti-choice bills.
Excerpts from the reporter’s take are in italics.
Kate asks Mulready about HB 3128, which prohibits abortions based on the detection of Down syndrome or any other genetic abnormalities.
These abnormalities—and there are many—include a fetus that is unviable outside of the womb and/or developed without a brain or digestive system.
“I believe all life has the right to be protected,” Mulready says. He asks why, if his own mother got sick, could he not kill her.
“This is my body,” Kate responds. “It’s different. I have rights over it.”
Mulready pauses. “I have the right to throw a punch—” he says, as he leans towards Kate and, in slow motion, mimes throwing a punch at her face. His fist stops just short of making contact with her left cheek. “—but my rights end when my fist hits you.” Mulready then reaches out and holds Kate’s arm. He pats her. “That’s not a threat.”
“So, you’re saying,” Kate continues, “once I’m pregnant, my rights over my body end, and I’m just a walking womb?”
“No, I’m not saying that.”
Mulready then repeats himself and, again, incredibly, throws the same fake-punch.
“I’m assuming,” Kate continues, “if you force a woman to have a baby with a genetic abnormality or other disability, you are also supporting the expansion of Medicaid in order to make sure she and her child have the financial support needed to get by in life.”
“No. I do not support entitlement programs.”
Joe then says to Mulready, “Sir, I do not believe that we, as men, have the right to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body.”
“I disagree,” Mulready retorts, and then he walks away.
These are the stories we tell ourselves. Heartless, angry, vindictive, incomprehensible ones that shape policy, ones that contend women are chattel, ones that equate gratuitous violence against women with complicated choices made by women.
I choose not to punch you in face. Why can’t you gals choose to carry an Encephalitic baby to term? Let’s de-certify doctors who cross us.
Overwhelming majorities of the state GOP, the party of limited government and personal freedom, tried to push through a bill that would have revoked the licenses of doctors in the state who performed abortions, a constitutionally-protected procedure. And if not for the sanity—this time, anyway—of Governor Fallin, who vetoed it, it would have become law.
This is not a policy difference. This is monstrous.
It was the worst day, May 19th, in the history of the Oklahoma state government, a legislative conflagration of unparalleled cruelty and ineptitude, a day, years in the making, when all the berserk misdirection and incomprehension that has been percolating over the last two decades was served hot. It was a day of deliberate sleight of hand, a smoke screen, and it descended on the halls of state government—and thus on the rest of us—like a piece of plaster from the crumbling rotunda. And then those who orchestrated and choreographed the mutation blamed those who noticed.
“That’s the media’s doing,” said Republican Brian Bingman, the Senate President Pro Tempore. “They can pick and choose and they can elevate the issue and people call and say, ‘Is that really what you all are doing?’ My focus has been on the budget this year.”
Here were the headlines that day.
“Governor’s attorney wanted wrong drug used in execution, knew it had been used before.”
“Oklahoma lawmakers call ‘state of emergency’ to stop trans kids from using the restroom”
“Oklahoma lawmakers OK bill criminalizing performing abortion”
“Oklahoma lawmakers call for president’s impeachment, file religious-accommodation bill over transgender bathroom directive”
“Oklahoma Republicans urge Democrats to vote for tax increase”
One day in Oklahoma.
And somewhere in this hideous session, when attention was elsewhere, legislators voted to increase their own operating budget by $4-million but couldn’t muster the courage to stop future tax cut triggers in a budget bleeding deficits and broken promises.
And even at the end of the day, it wasn’t the end of the day.
Suspending its own rules on adjournment, the House and Senate stayed open late to cut the earned-income tax credit for 355,000 low-income Oklahomans. This is the same House and Senate that last year passed legislation that refused to allow cities across Oklahoma to establish mandatory minimum wage and employee benefits.
This wasn’t a war on poverty, it was a war on the poor.
OK Policy’s David Blatt, whom I call on often, is as close to gob smacked as I’ve ever seen him.
“So what are these families supposed to do?” he asks about this EITC cut. “What,” he asks again slowly, this time not so rhetorically, “are they suppose to do?”
Troy Stevenson, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, an LGBT advocacy organization, called the legislative session “pure insanity” and said it was orchestrated by the “crazy caucus,” a caucus sane state Republicans refuse to spit out, a caucus Brian Bingman, while focusing on the budget all year, didn’t spit out. It is a caucus that needs (and had needed) to be called out, publicly, by the people who give them cover and succor and allowed them to co-opt the R after their names.
This was our state on that day, a day that Oklahoma—the state, the name, the reputation itself—had become a clown to the nation’s bottle of seltzer. Worse, the majority of our legislators, those responsible, didn’t mind being a punchline and wore that derision like ribbons won at the state fair. Who cares what those godless liberals at The New York Times think? We welcome their scorn.
There was good news, eventually. The truly horrendous gun, abortion, and transgender bills were defeated thanks to a vigilant consortium of religious leaders, businesses, and even chambers of commerce. But, as Blatt put it, “I’m tired of victories that simply prevented worse shit from happening. I’m tired of victories that don’t actually improve the lives of a single Oklahoman. It’s time to start making some real progress on a positive agenda.”
Progress.
In Oklahoma, we make sure there is no talk of sex in sex education classes. We drug test the poor for the crime of being poor, throw cash to the luxury boxes and piety to the cheap seats, privatize prisons and schools, and continue to botch executions.
There was no coup. This is the government we want.
As for those bathroom bills, the funding cuts to mental health, the belittling treatment of women, and the religious symbols in the public square upon which we insist—we’re not better than that.
We are that.
The devil is not in the details; he’s in the heart.
There are no more easy solutions, if there ever were. I asked Stevenson about the teacher caucus and its promise for a change if they’re elected in the fall.
“Sure, yeah, maybe,” he says, “but Sally Kern is a teacher.”
(Stevenson, on the eve of Kern’s last session in OKC, posted on Facebook that despite their differences, he always appreciated Kern’s openness and commitment to her cause. She responded by reiterating her position that homosexuals are worse than terrorists.)
Blatt, too, is hopeful but sober about the future.
“After this,” he says, “if the party that’s been in power for ten years doesn’t pay some kind of price...” His voice trails off, he shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders, and smiles, “then I just don’t know.”
Our narrative is frayed—tethered to a ship that has been hijacked. It’s a dangerous thing, for this tale, our Oklahoma story, is now being written by people who, as Wayne Greene of The Tulsa World noted, are pissants.
We tell ourselves stories filled with heroes and grit and our better angels; we tell ourselves stories about the inexorable and proud march of Oklahoma; we tell ourselves stories about fairness and love and acceptance for all our people; we tell ourselves stories about being forever blessed because God’s on our side; we tell ourselves big, beautiful stories about how good we are and have always been. We lie.
For more from Barry, read his article on Mayor Dewey Bartlett.American youngster Josh Sargent's recent run of form has gotten him noticed by the likes of Werder Bremen in Germany. (Photo: Getty Images)
HANOVER, N.J. — Muhamed Keita has several MLS suitors, the Norwegian U-21 international by way of Gambia perhaps lining up a summer move to the league.
League sources tell Metro that Keita could be headed to the league in the next few weeks with at least one Eastern Conference club emerging as a favorite to land the player.
A 26-year old, Keita can play wide midfield or up top and is known for his pace.
One league source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Keita “is absolute MLS quality…very good technical abilities.”
He’s represented Norway at the youth national team levels but has never been called up to the senior side. Keita is currently the property of Lech Poznan, a Polish club, but has spent the last three seasons on loan with different clubs in Norway.
The wide player can also suit-up for a role up top as a second striker.
MLS NOTES
New York Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch said on Tuesday that defender Aurelien Collin is “doubtful” for Wednesday’s match at Red Bull Arena against the San Jose Earthquakes. The influential Collin has missed the last several games with a hamstring injury and could make his return this weekend at Minnesota United.
-Kwesi Appiah and Joe Addo have been making stops at several MLS cities including the Red Bulls, D.C. United and most recently the Columbus Crew. Appiah, the national team coach for Ghana, was joined by Addo, a former MLS star who once played for the MetroStars. The duo made several MLS stops to check-in on Ghanaian players throughout MLS.
-Red Bulls forward Anatole Abang, who has spent much of the last year with two loan stints in Europe, still remains a bit in limbo. A source tells Metro that the team is looking to sell Abang or find a permanent home for the Cameroonian international.
- Jan Vargas continues to remain a name linked with MLS. The Venezuelan center back is being looked at by a couple of teams, a source said and the player could be making a move this transfer window to an MLS side. The central defender has been impressive for Panama during the Gold Cup.
-The recently concluded U-20 World Cup saw teenager Josh Sargent emerge on the international stage for the United States, the young striker turning heads en route to a quarterfinal showing for the Americans. Sources say that Sargent will sign in Germany and that Bundesliga side Werder Bremen are the favorites in the chase. Metro, citing sources close to the player, reported that Bremen was the likely landing spot last month.The Angels have expressed interest in Jose Mijares of the Royals and Marc Rzepczynski of the Cardinals in their search for a left-handed reliever, Mike DiGiovanna of the LA Times reports (Twitter links). The Angels could also have some interest in Joe Thatcher of the Padres, DiGiovanna suggests.
Mijares, 27, has a 1.72 ERA with 8.6 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 in 36 2/3 innings with the Royals so far in 2012. The midseason trade candidate earns $925K this year and will be arbitration eligible following the season.
Rzepczynski was traded to the Cardinals last summer in the deal that sent Edwin Jackson to St. Louis. The 26-year-old has a 5.06 ERA with 6.2 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 in 32 innings this year. He'll be arbitration eligible for the first time following the 2012 season.
The Angels, who currently have left-handers Scott Downs and Hisanori Takahashi pitching out of the bullpen, are willing to offer Peter Bourjos in a trade for the right reliever. Here's MLBTR's preview of the trade market for left-handed relief.Giovanni Interdonato checks out the scope on a hunting rifle at his gun shop in Toronto on December 5, 2002. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Kevin Frayer
When I read that Saskatoon resident Hugh Lindholm had fired his rifle in the air to warn off a late-night intruder, my first reaction was not "good on ya!"
I have no objection to a 72-year-old man, who lives with his wife on an acreage in my favourite Saskatchewan city, showing a potential home invader what he's in for if he goes any further.
No, I expected the cops would be showing up to put old Mr. Lindholm in cuffs, followed by charges of unlawfully discharging a firearm.
But I need |
backing of a majority of lawmakers.Panic and gunfire as vehicle hits pedestrians in New York
Panic and gunfire as vehicle hits pedestrians in New York
At least eight people have been killed in a vehicle attack and shooting near the 9/11 memorial site in New York.
Witnesses told local media a vehicle drove down a popular bike path and struck pedestrians and cyclists before a lone-male jumped out and started shooting.
Cyclists and pedestrians hit by vehicle in New York
At least 15 people were hit by the van, before it collided with a school-bus injuring two adults and two children.
:: LIVE: Terror attack in New York leaves eight dead
Six men were declared dead at the scene, with two people pronounced dead at hospital. One of the victims is confirmed to be a Belgian national.
Image: A truck ploughed into cyclists on a cycle path
At least two of the bikes hit by the van has the Blazing Saddles hire company logo on the front, making it likely that some victims could be tourists.
The bike hire company has not yet made a statement.
:: Witness thought attack was 'Halloween prank'
Eleven people have been left with serious injuries, but New York police commissioner James O'Neill said there may be more walking-wounded.
Image: Suspect Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old from Florida
Law enforcement sources told Sky News that the van was driven more than 10 blocks from Houston Street down to Chambers Street along the west side highway on a busy bike path.
The area - which is a a few blocks north of the 9/11 memorial site where the World Trade Center once stood - is close to both a community college and a high school.
Children were evacuated from schools shortly after the attack.
Image: Woman being treated by first responders
When the vehicle struck a pole near Chambers Street, officers and witnesses said the man got out and started screaming and shooting.
Confirming that the incident was an act of terrorism, New York mayor Bill de Blasio called the attack "a cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians".
Sky News US Correspondent Hannah Thomas-Peter who is in Washington said police sources are saying some of those injured may have been unable to get out of the way because they were wearing headphones while cycling.
New York mayor: 'This was an act of terror'
She said: "It's a very common thing to do in New York City, and it tells me that some of those victims are potentially very young indeed. School finishes at 2.30pm, and the attack happened at 3.05pm."
The man has been identified as Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old from Tampa, Florida.
Police confirmed that he made a statement as he got out of the vehicle, but would not confirm what that was.
Image: The badly damaged Home Depot truck
Fox News has reported unverified claims that he may have shouted "Allahu Akbar."
Photos from the scene showed a badly damaged Home Depot rental pickup truck in the middle of the road.
A 14-year-old student from the nearby Stuyvesant High School told the New York Post: "What happened was there was a car crash… he came out of one of the cars. He had two guns.
"He was running around Chambers and somebody started to chase him.
"I heard four to six gunshots - everybody starts running."
Police chief reveals timings of Manhattan attack
An Uber passenger who was riding along the West Side Highway near the World Trade Center says he saw several bleeding people following the incident.
Police have now confirmed that Saipov was armed with a paintball gun and a pellet gun.
He was shot by police in the abdomen, and is now under arrest in hospital. He is expected to live.
NYPD confirmed that they were not looking for anyone else.
Image: Roads have been closed off following the incident
The President tweeted: "In NYC, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person. Law enforcement is following this closely. NOT IN THE U.S.A.!"
In a later statement, Donald Trump said his "thoughts and prayers" were with the victims and their families, thanking the first responders who stopped the suspect and gave immediate aid to victims.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called the incident a "lone wolf" attack, and said there was "no evidence of a wider plot".
Image: The attack took place around half an hour after school finished
He urged New Yorkers to "go about their business" and said the increase of police in tunnels and airports was "due to extra vigilance not because there is an ongoing threat".
The incident appeared to have echoes of the London Bridge terror attack in June - when Islamic State terrorists used a Hertz rental van hired from a B&Q hardware store to mow down pedestrians before stabbing a number of victims nearby.
The Foreign Office is standing by to assist any Britons affected by the atrocity.The pending Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will likely spark a "race to the bottom" for national policies that regulate everything from the air we breath to the food we eat and, according to a new report, the controversial pact is already pushing European governments to loosen key food safety standards.
Put forth by the UK-based social justice organization Global Justice now, the report (pdf), published Sunday, highlights a component of the pact known as "regulatory cooperation" or "regulatory coherence," which seeks to establish common standards between the United States and the European Union.
Under the provision, notes the group, multinational corporations are granted the opportunity to influence any new regulation—amounting to a "blueprint for corporate domination."
"To most people regulations such as air pollution limits and food safety standards are common sense protections against dangerous threats," said report author Alex Scrivener, who works as a campaigns officer at Global Justice Now. "But to big business, these are little more than tiresome barriers to increasing profits."
Scrivener added that "Corporate lobbyists are pushing so hard for TTIP because this is one of the biggest chances they’ve ever had to systematically strip these protections away from citizens and consumers. TTIP isn’t really about trade, it’s about corporations rewriting the rule book as to how they’re allowed to operate."
The study, which comes a day before international delegates will meet in Miami, Florida for the next round of negotiations, finds that even though it has not been signed, the trade agreement is already driving EU regulators to loosen or abandon certain food standards.
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According to report:
US officials successfully used the prospect of TTIP to bully the EU into abandoning plans to ban 31 dangerous pesticides with ingredients that have been shown to cause cancer and infertility. A similar fate befell regulations around the treatment of beef with lactic acid. This was banned in Europe because of fears that the procedure was being used to conceal unhygienic practices. The ban was repealed by MEPs in the European Parliamentary Environment Public Health and Food Safety Committee after EU Commission officials openly suggested TTIP negotiations would be threatened if the ban wasn’t lifted. On climate change, the European Fuel Quality Directive which would effectively ban Canadian tar sands oil has foundered in the face of strong US-Canadian lobbying around both TTIP and the EU-Canada CETA deal. More generally, the EU’s Better Regulation programme has also been linked to TTIP. Better Regulation explicitly seeks to reduce the regulatory ‘burden’, delaying the implementation of new rules on things like safe levels of chemicals. Trade unions say that Better Regulation has already been responsible for 100,000 deaths from cancer.
These new insights on the corporate-friendly agreement comes as European leaders faces growing public opposition to the deal.
Last week, an estimated 250,000 protested in Berlin and more than three million have signed a petition calling on the European Commission to abandon negotiations over the TTIP and drop the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada.Neil Gaiman, like Alan Moore, is someone working in comics who seems to need no introduction. Their influence and impact is so pervasive that they’ve practically become a household name. But there’s a danger to the hype that results in a kind of stereotyping of their work and career that leaves little room for the changes they’ve made along the way to their styles and subject matter. When an author becomes known most widely for a single work, the rest are interpreted in the light of that work, a perspective that may skew both where they have come from, and to some extent, where they are going. That’s not to say that works like Watchmen and Sandman should be left out of the account of their prolific writing careers; that would be a disservice, but any Gaiman fan who reads only Sandman is missing out on a universe of interesting comics and prose that they would, most likely, find equally appealing. Each work should be taken on its own terms, and examined in the context that produced it. Black Orchid is one of those works. Of Gaiman’s earlier works, it is comparatively well known since it was published by a major comics company, DC, and has never been out of print since its original printing in 1988 and 1989. Black Orchid’s position in Gaiman’s career is seminal from a historian’s perspective, and from a literary standpoint, it’s a gold mine of material that shaped the future of Vertigo and reveals a great deal of Gaiman’s developing concerns in his work. It also stands as a major collaboration with the comics art giant Dave McKean, whose recurring work on many Gaiman books set the tone for reader expectations for years to come.
Gaiman’s career in comics, preceded by an early stint in journalism, can be traced back to 1986 in Future Shocks, and with the publication of the Gaiman/McKean work Violent Cases, the pace picks up in his production. His work for DC comprised several single Batman related stories in 1989, but Black Orchid was his first serialized project for DC, later absorbed into the foundation of DC’s Vertigo line. Black Orchid springs from Gaiman’s demonstrable interest in the universe suggested by Alan Moore’s retooling of Swamp Thing, and in particular, the pattern of reviving relatively minor characters in the DC Universe to great effect. The slant of Moore’s work on Swamp Thing may have helped evoke and construct a mythology for the DC Universe that brought the forces of nature into alignment with supernatural concerns, but this underlying intention is much more pronounced in Gaiman’s Black Orchid. Gaiman establishes a pattern in Black Orchid of harmonizing, explaining, and constructing a holistic DC Universe along mythological lines, and the impact of that approach can still be seen in the DCU today. If the DCU had incorporated these suggestions more fully, however, readers would find it a richer place to explore. Pondering what might have been is one of the fascinating aspects of a close reading of Black Orchid.
Any fan of Gaiman’s work, whether they find Black Orchid appealing or not, would benefit from reading Gaiman’s previously unpublished essay, “Notes Toward a Vegetable Theology”, submitted to Karen Berger and Rick Veitch in 1989 (now available in Prince of Stories). It’s a rare glimpse of total world-building underway, and a remarkably coherent and evocative interpretation of the underpinnings of the DCU. Here you can see a dozen alluring blind alleys and unexplored avenues that could easily have been taken up by later comics writers and artists given the chance, but rather than musing on what might have been, you can also read it as a guiding coda for Black Orchid. It’s like being given the key to the universe a particular comic inhabits. It’s meta-data on a high level and transforms the reading experience into something perhaps analogous to a video gaming experience. It reminds you that there’s a great deal going on in Black Orchid off panel and allows you to construct those realities imaginatively.
Black Orchid’s original incarnation for DC, first appearing in 1973 and following in Adventure Comics #429-430, displayed many of the key features necessary for a successful resurrection, but it took a particularly curious and committed mind to make that happen. She’s a character who’s more about suggestion than definitive identity, with no origin story presented in her run as a semi-major, and later as a minor, character. She’s a chameleon-like undercover figure, possessing flight and some super powers, but her visual aesthetic, combined with her mysterious aspects create just as much of the appeal. In a DCU, where female heroes are few and far between (especially then), she does stand out as a worthy cause to revisit, but could just as easily have remained in greater and greater obscurity. Gaiman and McKean, already having produced Violent Cases together, were operating as a pitching team when they met with some DC talent scouts in the UK, handing over an “outline” for Black Orchid, as well as “a number of paintings,” but with no clear idea if it would catch anyone’s interest at DC (Gaiman qtd. in Prince of Stories, 173). Once accepted, it gave both Gaiman and McKean a chance to show their particular vision for the potential of comics. McKean, particularly, had a specific vision for the ways in which comics could expand artistically, and through his incredibly detail-oriented combination of painting, photography, and sculpture in Black Orchid and later works, he has challenged and changed the visual landscape of comics.
Black Orchid is a densely-composed work, all the more remarkable for the fact that the reader isn’t fully aware of the density as it appears on the page. In fact, much of the density results from reader interaction on the imaginative level. The work appears graceful and isn’t overloaded with text and explanation, but it suggests far more than it states openly. McKean moves from a middle ground of 6 panel grids per page, elongated, creating its own sense of vertical horizons, to more atmospheric full-page spreads with floating frames, and occasionally into rapidly-paced pages consisting of as many as 12 panels. Interestingly, these more panel-packed pages are reserved for flashbacks into the human life of the titular character, while the more open spreads are typical of plant-based perception. The elongated frames and the movement in and out of organized grids are a features readers might recognize from Violent Cases, suggesting lessons learned by McKean in visual storytelling from this groundbreaking work.
This careful balance between showing and telling the story to the reader is also a feature of Gaiman’s work, and it sets up a trend still visible in more recent projects, a minimalism in storytelling that nevertheless creates the density mentioned above. The power of suggestion, already a feature of strong comics storytelling, is maximized in Black Orchid, just as it was in the character’s earliest appearances. While there are myriad topics worthy of discussion when considering Black Orchid, three that really set the stage for Gaiman’s work as a whole are holistic universe-building, the tension between passivity and violence, and lastly, the relationship between spectacle and the observing perspective. These features all have a role to play in Black Orchid and form a connective tissue with Gaiman’s earlier and later works. It’s even likely that tracing the development and expansion of these themes is essential to fully understanding an expansive work like Sandman. Gaiman’s works are always carefully constructed so that they can function individually without prior reader knowledge or experience, perhaps even sympathetically geared to the new arrival, but that doesn’t mean that discovering the relationships between his works isn’t an added bonus, and one which can transform one’s reading experience.
The universe-building apparent in “Notes Towards a Vegetable Theology”, for instance, creates a broader understanding of character in Black Orchid. While the character of Black Orchid possesses three incarnations in the comic, Susan Linden, Susan the second, and Suzy, what is the significance of multiple versions of the character and how can they, in a sense, possess unity? Gaiman explains in “Notes” that the “May Queens” of this universe are a “third arm” of “three ancient earth powers”, standing alongside “Erl-Kings”, like Swamp Thing, but not possessing their power of immortality (Gaiman qtd. in Prince of Stories, 191). Rather than regenerate like an Erl-King, a May Queen needs a “dead human consciousness to start from” and then can proceed in new iterations of that personality. Calling them clones may be too restrictive, since they partake of an expanded consciousness as well as deriving from the template of a human consciousness. They can be many while being similar, but not the same, as their other iterations. Their function is explained as “a symbol of growth in the dark times”, and they are “Always flowers, always beautiful” (Gaiman qtd. in Prince of Stories, 191). What does it mean that these Black Orchids have mainly a “symbolic” role?
To take that cue as a diminution of their role is probably a mistake. In world-building, symbols are very powerful things, and convey some of the deepest truths of a universe’s configuration. Rather, their symbolic value means that they directly represent, in carnal (here carnal-vegetable) form the earth-mother, Gaea, also described in “Notes”. While Gaea fashions guardians and protectors of various varieties, these Black Orchid May Queens are not part of that particular role. Instead, they are a more direct reflex of her nature in physical form. This means they are, fundamentally, non violent, and their particular role is more of a demonstration of relationship. They are a gift to humanity, in a sense, a gift of presence and a demonstration of universal principles.
This non-violent capacity forms an interesting counter-balance to the fact that Susan Linden, faces a violent death before her personality is taken over by the May Queen principle. Growing up in an abusive home, and eventually killed by her gangster ex-husband, Susan’s experience with violence makes her a prime candidate for an anti-violent role. It’s significant to point out that Susan’s DNA is used for the development of a May Queen through the role of science, however, not some purely natural generation at the hands of the universe. Rather than taking away from the mother-earth role, these circumstances suggest something even more astonishing: that Gaea can operate through science and technology, and make her presence on earth felt via any method she desires. But the violent associations of Black Orchid continue to stand at odds with a non-violent nature, as Susan’s Black Orchid incarnation, too, is both shot and set on fire, meeting a violent end. Why is it that a non-violent being is so routinely placed at the center of violence? It’s a paradox that seems like an operative factor in the story. It’s obvious that Black Orchid’s role is not simply to avoid violence, but rather to address it, directly. It’s not a question of passivity, letting violence run amok and steering clear, but rather a question of impassivity, refusing to back down in the face of violence. Because the Orchids can have several iterations, this challenges the idea of death without reducing the impact of suffering. Violence still has real consequences for the various versions of Susan, but it does not triumph over the resistance the Orchids pose.
This leaves the role of spectacle, and the perception of the observer in Black Orchid, a feature that ties the work to Gaiman’s other projects. In Violent Cases, Gaiman and McKean set up the identifying perspective of a narrator, both in childhood and adulthood, for a reader to “follow” through his memories. What he perceives is spectacular, and full of mystery, sometimes terrifying, but uniquely enlightening. In Black Orchid, two types of spectacle seem to operate, the spectacle of violence, and the spectacle of the semi-human Orchids. The reader is introduced to these spectacles through the narrator, Susan’s childhood friend Dr. Phillip Sylvian. He is the human observer of remarkable things, and an insider in Susan’s conception as an Orchid. He has also observed Susan’s human life, and is familiar with the violence she has encountered, as well as a figure who reacts and sympathizes with her suffering and versions of her death. An observed subject, like the Orchids, could react with resistance to observation, and this is partly the case in their protective flight instincts, particularly in protecting the youngest Orchid, Suzy. But for non-hostile observer, the spectacle of these creatures is a compelling feature, and McKean has a great deal to do with that appeal. He suggests difference in their perception of time, their fluidity of movement, and in their thought processes through the painted, atmospheric panels he creates.
From their floating hair to their facial expressions they suggest a tranquillity and harmony with the forces of creation that trump human perception and create fascination for other characters as well as the reader. They are resistant spectacles, with their own developed psychology and agency, when placed in danger, but for the narrator, who is an insider, they are less resistant and more engaging, opening a doorway on insider status for the reader. To make sure that the reader is included in the spectacle, however briefly, seems to be one of the goals of many of Gaiman’s works. It’s a golden ticket for the reader, a generous inclusion that often brings with it a sense of sublime experience. When readers encounter something beyond normal human experience, particularly when so masterfully evoked by Dave McKean’s artwork, their response is bound to be wonder, and hopefully, a sense of picking up on some underlying, but often overlooked, truths about human experience.
The world of Black Orchid is both intricate and vast, a rare accomplishment, particularly in such a short series. It conveys a wealth of possibilities about its own internal universe and also about human perceptions of more than human subject matter. Such a basic discussion can’t explain the appeal of the total package of the comic, but hopefully it provides hints that the implications behind the comic are expansive and compelling. Black Orchid’s place in Neil Gaiman’s, as well as Dave McKean’s, career made it a natural turning point for them toward even greater things, but if they hadn’t been willing to take such significant risks in terms of subject matter and visual form, who knows if they would have continued to go from strength to strength? Black Orchid has the feel of a comic in which the creators gave their all, determined to present a story that demonstrated just how remarkable an experience comics could convey to readers, and that makes it a classic rather than a stepping-stone. We may well find, in examining Gaiman’s early works, that this commitment to the individual project at hand produces a similar effect on the reader. New readers will encounter these early works with surprise at their virtuosity and appeal, and returning readers may find that their original enthusiasm for the works only proves more justified in hindsight.
Also, be sure to check out Seth Kushner‘s website!
*Coming Up Next Time: Neil Gaiman: The Early Years, Black Orchid’s: Gangsters and Scientists (Part 2)
Works Cited
Gaiman, Neil (w.), and Dave McKean (ill.). Black Orchid: The Deluxe Edition. DC Comics: New York, NY, 2012.
Gaiman, Neil (w.), and Dave McKean (ill.). Violent Cases. Dark Horse Books: Milwaukie, Oregon, 2003.
Wagner, Hank, Christopher Golden, and Stephen R. Bissette, eds. Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman. St. Martin’s Griffin: New York, NY, 2009.Social crisis in Detroit: An investigative report
Part 1: The spiraling cost of food
By Lawrence Porter and Naomi Spencer
20 June 2008
The following is the first of a three-part series. Part two, "The impact of gas prices," followed on June 21; and part three, "Collapse of an American city," concluded the series on June 23.
Over the past month, the World Socialist Web Site has conducted an investigation into the impact of rising food and gasoline prices on working class families in the Detroit metropolitan area.
Detroit, historically known as the auto capital of the world, has been transformed into the biggest poor city in America, according to the US Census Bureau, with an official poverty rate of 31.4 percent. Detroit has earned this designation several times over the past 30 years as the auto industry destroyed tens of thousands of decent paying jobs.
This once booming city of 2 million has lost more than half of its population, now standing at 900,000, with the exodus accelerating yearly. In some areas only the poorest people remain and the tax and employment bases have collapsed. As a result of the decline, Detroit has the highest high school dropout rate of any big city in the country—over 50 percent. It also has one of the highest unemployment rates in the US and is listed among the top 10 cities in home foreclosures. The city also has recently been determined to have the highest rate of families needing food assistance.
Historical comparisons, while never adequate, can often help to provide a point of reference for the transformation that has taken place over years or decades. During the postwar period of the late 1940s and early 1950s, Detroit was the auto capital of the world. At that time, 80 percent of the world’s cars were built in the US, with a large percentage of them produced in Detroit.
During the 1950s, due to the relatively higher living standard of autoworkers, Detroit and the state of Michigan boasted one of the highest single-home ownership rates in the US. Today, 5 percent of all homes in Detroit are in some form of foreclosure, a rate five times the national average. According to some estimates, in the last year foreclosure auctions accounted for some 30 percent of home sales in counties surrounding Detroit.
It was also during the postwar period that the United Auto Workers (UAW) set the trend for wage gains and benefits for US workers through bitterly fought strikes against the Big Three auto companies. In contrast, in 2007, the UAW negotiated contracts with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler that cut the wages of new hires to half of previous levels, down to $14 an hour with limited benefits. While the workers lost wages, the union won control over the multibillion-dollar retirement health care program known as VEBA (Voluntary Employees’ Beneficiary Association).
The recently concluded strike of auto workers against American Axle Manufacturing has resulted in cutting wages for existing workers from $28 an hour to as low as $10 an hour, a rate below the official poverty level for a family of four and amounting to insufficient income to support a mortgage.
Just as in the immediate post-WWII period the relatively high living standards of auto workers set the standard for American society at large, so today every concession and claw-back granted to the auto bosses by the UAW sets the stage for lowered wages and layoffs throughout the US economy.
The situation confronting Detroit is a particularly sharp expression of a growing trend in Michigan, the Midwest, and across the country. Detroit, like many industrial cities, has been severely hit by the loss of manufacturing jobs—in this case in auto and supporting industries—that has left whole communities devastated. The Detroit metropolitan area alone has lost 150,000 jobs since 2000, affecting both the inner city and the surrounding suburban area.
The protracted deterioration of living standards for the majority of the city’s working class population has accelerated sharply as a result of the spiraling of food and energy prices, a worldwide phenomenon that has provoked mass demonstrations, rioting and the fall of governments in other countries.
During the weeks in which we gathered the information and interviews for this report, the cost of gasoline shot up from $3.65 to $4.09 a gallon.
Food price increases have been almost as dramatic. In the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of bread increased by 16.3 percent, eggs by 34.8 percent, milk by 23.1 percent and flour by 37 percent.
Signs of distress are readily apparent. On May 11, the Detroit Free Press published an article noting the increase in food aid throughout the state. The article featured an unemployed auto parts designer who lived in one of the more affluent Detroit suburbs, Grosse Pointe Woods. The article reports that according to the Michigan Department of Human Services a record number of Michigan residents—1.26 million adults and children in 590,600 households—are using government-issued food stamps. Three out of ten recipients in the state live in Wayne County, where Detroit is located, and the overwhelming majority are residents of the city itself.
According to the Free Press, Michigan has seen a 53 percent increase in food stamp need since 2003, with one in five children living in a household qualifying for food stamps.
Underscoring the fact that the development is far from a localized problem, however, Michigan was third in the line of increased need, with Massachusetts experiencing a 77 percent increase and Iowa a 63 percent increase. Nationwide, a staggering 27.7 million people received food stamps in the month of January 2008, with food and fuel prices jumping substantially since the beginning of the year.
The impact of food inflation in Detroit
Over the past month, the WSWS has conducted interviews with local residents, food bank suppliers and charity workers on the impact of recent food and fuel price increases on working class families in Detroit.
Jada Browning, 29, recently lost her job as a waitress after the restaurant where she worked closed down. She spoke to the WSWS of the difficulties she faced in providing for her three children, aged two, four and twelve. “Some weeks we have less meals, no one can have seconds if they are still hungry,” she said. “You have to ration portions out better. It’s ridiculous.”
Asked if her family’s situation had worsened in relation to the inflation of the last year, Jada said, “Yes, the last year or year and a half.” Even at the discount grocery store where she did her shopping, she told us, “You used to be able to get things for a dollar or a dollar-fifty. Now it is two-fifty. A gallon of milk is almost four dollars. It’s insane.”
Ola Horne, a retiree living on a fixed income, noted the growing hardships in Detroit. “Times are bad. People are losing their homes. You can’t keep up with this economy. Utilities are up. People’s salaries are being decreased—the cost of living is increasing.
“I’m a 67-year-old senior, and it’s impossible,” she said. “There are no dreams. Your dream is you wake up tomorrow and your house is still on the block, or your utilities haven’t been shut off, or you can buy $5 worth of gas, which used to get you five gallons. Now you can’t get one gallon.”
“If I was employable, that would be one thing,” Ola said, “but who’s going to hire?”
Dwayne Wells, president of Gleaners Food Bank, the largest food bank distributor in the Detroit metropolitan area, told the WSWS that in the last year alone the agency distributed over 25 million pounds of food to 420 partner agencies, such as the Salvation Army, the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, and others.
Wells said the 40 tons of food distributed daily last year was still not sufficient to meet the growing need for food. In particular, he said, agencies were straining to meet the needs of “first time people coming to them looking for assistance. More working poor, more seniors who are having trouble making ends meet—and therefore are not able to meet the food needs for themselves or their families.”
Low-income working families and those living on fixed incomes are especially vulnerable to inflation, Wells noted. “If you factor in increases in utility costs, transportation costs and medical costs, there is typically for those folks not enough money by the end of the month to help them purchase food and other things that they need. And that’s where Gleaners and their partners come in.”
Gleaners recently issued an urgent appeal for funds after seeing their donations go down as the food need rises. Wells said the individual donations and the corporate donations have dropped because of the “tough times” presently being experienced in Detroit and Michigan. “Overall you could say the entire economy in the US is suffering, but Michigan is one of the places where the need is heightened.”
Wells felt strongly that the economic problems witnessed in Detroit were not race-based. “They cross all the demographics of age, race and culture... inner-city, suburban, rural. It is widespread.”
Wells also noted that the problems confronting the working poor were not short-term or simply a matter of individual hardships, personal “hard times.” “In the past,” he said, “people with families would come for the first two or three months [after losing a job], they would find employment and get through the temporary crisis they might have been having, then they would stop coming.”
“Now those people are not cutting off after three months,” he said. “They are continuing to have to rely, so they are coming every 30 days now or taking a longer period of time to right themselves. It is becoming less of an emergency food system and becoming more of a regular ‘gap’ filler.”
To be continuedGregory J. Haanstad, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, announced that on March 6, 2017, Thomas C. Balsiger (age: 63) of El Paso, Texas, was sentenced in Federal Court in Milwaukee to 10 years in prison to be followed by 3 years’ supervised release. Mr. Balsiger also was ordered to pay over $65 million in restitution.
In December 2016, following a month-long trial, Mr. Balsiger, the former CEO of the nation’s largest coupon clearinghouse (International Outsourcing Services), was found guilty of 10 counts of wire fraud, one count of wire fraud conspiracy, and one count of conspiring to obstruct justice.
During the sentencing hearing, Senior United States District Court Judge Charles N. Clevert remarked that in his 20 years as a judge he had never seen a more sophisticated fraud scheme as the one designed and executed by Mr. Balsiger. Judge Clevert referred to Mr. Balsiger as a “chameleon” and a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” who could be positively involved in his community while orchestrating a wide-ranging fraud scheme and directing a relentless effort to obstruct justice. During the sentencing hearing, Judge Clevert noted and adopted factual findings in the pre-sentence report establishing that Mr. Balsiger: (1) provided and directed others to provide false information to law enforcement and grand jury subpoena recipients, (2) coached witnesses to lie, (3) sought to intimidate and prevent witnesses from communicating with law enforcement – including dispatching a private investigator to “menace” a witness, (4) falsely blamed cooperating witnesses for his own criminal conduct, and (5) perjured himself at trial. Judge Clevert also found that Mr. Balsiger’s “unwarranted attacks” and attempts to intimidate and threaten the prosecution team were “beyond the pale” and the “worst abuse” of the judicial process that he had seen during his tenure as a judge.
In rejecting Mr. Balsiger’s request for a probationary sentence, which Judge Clevert found to be “totally inappropriate,” he further noted that Mr. Balsiger’s leadership role in the fraud and obstruction “scream for a period of incarceration.” The Court added that Mr. Balsiger’s “conduct ill-affected the consuming public.” The Court previously noted in a codefendant’s sentencing that this scheme “shook the coupon industry.”
United States Attorney Haanstad noted, “The investigation that ultimately led to the prosecution and conviction of Mr. Balsiger and his codefendants stemmed from a single Milwaukee store owner contacting law enforcement to report that someone had offered her money to use her store’s name to submit fraudulent coupons. Because this store owner did the right thing and contacted law enforcement, investigators ultimately were able to identify multiple coupon fraud rings and expose the wide-ranging fraud scheme designed by Mr. Balsiger.”
FBI Special Agent in Charge Justin Tomoleo said of the sentence: “Through the dedicated work of our Special Agents and staff, the Milwaukee FBI remains committed to protecting Americans from fraudulent schemes that affect everyday life. The widespread grocery coupon fraud, perpetrated by Mr. Balsiger and others, cost our community millions of dollars. We expect this sentencing to serve as a warning to any future offenders looking to defraud the American people.”
This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Richard G. Frohling, Kelly B. Watzka, Stephen A. Ingraham, and Zachary J. Corey. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
# # # #
For additional information contact:
Public Information Officer Dean Puschnig (414) 297-1700$5 at the licensing office in Dover, Owens Station Shooting Sports and Hunter Education Center in Greenwood, Ommelanden Hunter Education Training Center and Public Shooting Range in New Castle. $6 by mail.
The state Division of Fish & Wildlife’s 2016 calendar is available.
This year’s calendar features photos by DNREC staff members Jesse Baird, Chris Bennett, Anthony Gonzon, Larry Horan, Bill McAvoy, Scott Newlin, Craig Rhoads and Joanna Wilson.
Calendars are $5 at DNREC’s licensing desk, 89 Kings Highway, Dover; Owens Station Shooting Sports and Hunter Education Center, 12613 Hunters Cove Road, Greenwood; Ommelanden Hunter Education Training Center and Public Shooting Range in New Castle.
Calendars may be ordered for $6 including postage and handling by calling the Division of Fish & Wildlife at 302-739-9910, Monday through Friday between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., or by sending a check made out to “Delaware Division of Fish & Wildlife” to Jennifer Childears, Delaware Division of Fish & Wildlife, 89 Kings Highway, Dover, DE 19901.
For more information, call 739-9910.The San Antonio Independent School District on Monday terminated a district police officer who became the subject of national scrutiny after a video surfaced on YouTube that appeared to show him body-slamming a 12-year-old girl.
While investigations into Officer Joshua Kehm’s actions during the March 29 encounter at Rhodes Middle School continue, district officials announced his termination on Monday, effective immediately.
“We understand that situations can sometimes escalate to the point of requiring a physical response; however, in this situation we believe that the extent of the response was absolutely unwarranted,” SAISD Superintendent Pedro Martinez said in a statement.
In a subsequent phone interview, Martinez said the decision to terminate Kehm was the result of what the district considered an unwarranted use of force and the officer’s failure to report the incident as required by district protocol.
Martinez said officers are required to report any use-of-force incident against a student immediately.
“That did not happen,” he said. “When |
parts of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil.
Meanwhile, drought will continue to affect eastern Brazil. Rounds of rain have reached some of the hardest-hit regions, but the fall weather pattern could lead to worsening conditions for most areas.
A hot, dry summer has left many across central Chile wondering when cooler, wetter weather will return to the region, but the overall weather pattern may not provide the relief many are seeking.
Drought to Persist or Worsen in Eastern Brazil
Portions of South America are in the grips of a severe drought, which has been impacting much of eastern Brazil, including Brasilia to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
While these highly-populated areas have been the focus of global news headlines, drought is impacting areas farther northeast from the states of Bahia and Piaui northeastward to the Atlantic and Caribbean coastlines.
Rainfall will be well below normal across the northeast of Brazil during the fall season as fronts stall well to the south early in the season. A dry weather pattern will persist for much of the fall from Bahia north and east.
“Drought will likely worsen across this region as a whole,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls said.
Some beneficial rain will fall across the drought-stricken states of Goias, Mineas Gerais, Espirito Santo, Rio de Janerio and Sao Paulo during the early fall, as fronts push farther north. However, as the season progresses, a return to drier weather is expected, while storms focus across southeastern Brazil into Argentina and Uruguay.
Overall, no widespread drought-busting rain is expected from March through May for those areas that are currently suffering the worst of the drought.
Hot, Dry Weather to Linger in Santiago, Central Chile
The hot weather that persisted throughout much of the summer in Santiago and the central valley of Chile will continue with unseasonable warmth expected to prevail through May. While the overall trend in temperatures will be downward through fall, several days of 32 C or higher are expected in March. Temperatures will occasionally top 27 C through the end of April.
Another factor of this warmer-than-usual weather pattern is that it will be dominated by areas of high pressure. These areas of high pressure will prevent storm systems and cold fronts from reaching central Chile.
While the first significant rain usually arrives late in April or early May, a widespread soaking rain is not expected until June.
Storms to Target Northern Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Southeastern Brazil
While a large portion of eastern Brazil continues to deal with drought, frequent storm systems will bring rain and thunderstorms to areas father south from northern Argentina through Paraguay, Uruguay and southeastern Brazil.
Cities that are expected to experience rounds of stormy weather during the fall include Buenos Aires, Argentina; Montevideo, Uruguay; Asuncion, Paraguay; and Porto Alegre, Brazil.
“The frequent rounds of rainfall will also delay harvesting of crops from Uruguay and northeastern Argentina into southeastern Brazil,” Nicholls added.
Flooding will be the main concern due to the repeated rounds of rain; however, severe thunderstorms will be capable of producing damaging winds, hail and isolated tornadoes.
Wet Season to Falter From Peru to Venezuela; Wet Weather to Target Southern Chile and Argentina
Fall typically brings the return of wet weather across northern South America, with increased rainfall from Peru northward into Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.
This year, rain will remain sparse across these regions through at least April. While occasional rain and thunderstorms may visit the area, seasonal totals for precipitation will fall well below normal levels.
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Detailed Forecast for São Paulo, Brazil
Interactive South America Weather Satellite
“Warming of ocean waters around Colombia late in the season will bring increased rainfall to Colombia, northern Ecuador and northern and western parts of Venezuela,” Nicholls said. These areas will likely experience above-normal rainfall during May; however, rainfall for the fall season will likely be near to below normal overall.
Meanwhile, frequent storm systems will lead to above-normal precipitation and below-normal temperatures in southern Chile and Argentina.
Shots of cooler air from these storms will penetrate as far north as central Chile, but the most noticeable chill will stay well to the south of Buenos Aires.
Report a TypoThe recession of 2007–2009 knocked the wind out of state government budgets, but revenues and spending have grown steadily in recent years. As revenues have risen, some governors have pursued reforms to reduce tax burdens on families and make their states more competitive. Other governors have used rising revenues to expand programs.
That is the backdrop to this year’s 12th biennial fiscal report card on the governors, which examines state budget actions since 2012. It uses statistical data to grade the governors on their taxing and spending records—governors who have cut taxes and spending the most receive the highest grades, while those who have increased taxes and spending the most receive the lowest grades.
Four governors were awarded an “A” on this report card: Pat McCrory of North Carolina, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Paul LePage of Maine, and Mike Pence of Indiana. Eight governors were awarded an “F”: Mark Dayton of Minnesota, John Kitzhaber of Oregon, Jack Markell of Delaware, Jay Inslee of Washington, Pat Quinn of Illinois, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, and Jerry Brown of California.
With the economy currently growing, governors and legislatures are having few problems balancing their budgets in the short run, but the states face major budget challenges down the road. Many retirement plans for state workers have high levels of unfunded liabilities, and the Medicaid expansion under the 2010 Affordable Care Act will increase stress on state budgets. At the same time, global economic competition is making it imperative that states improve their investment climates, particularly by cutting tax rates on businesses and entrepreneurs.
This report discusses those trends and examines the fiscal policy actions of each governor. More state policymakers should be encouraged to follow the reform approaches of the top-scoring governors.Please complete the required items in red.
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Are you sure? You will receive a confirmation e-mail for this request, but you will not receive additional Accu-Chek product updates or special offers by e-mail.Bernie Sanders isn’t surprised that members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign trash-talked him and his supporters in private, hacked emails which were published by WikiLeaks.
“Trust me, if they went into our emails—I suppose which may happen, who knows—I’m sure there would be statements that would be less than flattering about, you know, the Clinton staff,” Sanders told the Washington Post on Monday. “That’s what happens in campaigns.”
Despite stolen emails showing top Clinton staff calling Sanders a “doofus” and calling supporters of a $15 minimum wage—which Sanders has advocated for vocally—“the Red Army,” the Vermont senator has continued to campaign heavily for Clinton nationwide, calling Trump the most dangerous major-party candidate in modern American history and promising that his more liberal supporters will hold Clinton accountable.
His job, he told the Post in an article published separately, would be “to demand that the Democratic Party implement” its platform.
Still, Sanders was quick to point out the differences between his presidential campaign, which advertised its boot-strap, grassroots appeal throughout his candidacy, and Clinton’s, whose staff numbers in the hundreds.
“We did not have a committee deciding what kind of jokes I would be telling. In fact, we usually had me scrambling to write my speech on a yellow piece of paper, which I finished three minutes before I would go up there,” Sanders told the Post. “So, you know, they were much more prepared and much better organized and careful about what they were saying or not saying.”
Sanders also noted that the emails published by WikiLeaks have confirmed his suspicions of the Democratic National Committee’s favoritism towards Clinton.
“It’s amusing,” he said. “We said that the Clinton campaign was heavily influencing what the DNC was doing regarding debates, and that’s exactly what had been happening. None of that is a shock to me. Was I shocked to find out that the DNC was partial toward Clinton? Not exactly. That’s something we knew from day one.”Republican leaders are refusing to commit to their ObamaCare replacement plan covering as many people as President Obama's health law.
Congressional Republicans are quickly moving forward to pass a repeal of ObamaCare and say a replacement plan will come later this year.
But it's unclear whether that eventual replacement will provide insurance options for at least 20 million people, the number who gained coverage under ObamaCare, amid worries that many could lose their health insurance.
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Speaker Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Five takeaways from McCabe’s allegations against Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Sanders set to shake up 2020 race MORE (R-Wis.) on Thursday declined to commit when asked at a press conference if the Republican plan would allow everyone covered through ObamaCare to remain insured.
“Look, I’m not going to get ahead of our committee process,” Ryan said. “We’re just beginning to put this together.”
He instead called for a system “that gives us access to affordable healthcare in this country without a costly government takeover.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellHouse to push back at Trump on border Democrats block abortion bill in Senate Overnight Energy: Climate protesters storm McConnell’s office | Center-right group says Green New Deal could cost trillion | Dire warnings from new climate studies MORE (R-Ky.) also declined to make a commitment when asked on Wednesday.
McConnell sidestepped a question about whether his priority was making sure no one with coverage now was left behind.
“Let me just say, we have on the floor of the Senate now the ObamaCare repeal resolution,” McConnell said. “The priorities between now and January 20th are hearings on Cabinet members.”
It is impossible to know how many people a GOP plan would cover, because Republicans are moving forward to repeal ObamaCare without an immediate replacement.
That means that any measure to repeal the current law will be done without knowing the alternative.
Republicans have also discussed passing a series of replacement bills step-by-step, avoiding one massive bill like the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But that approach could increase uncertainty about how the pieces will end up fitting together in terms of coverage.
Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to 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, took a different approach this week and pledged that a replacement plan would cover the same number of people.
“If Americans have healthcare today under the Affordable Care Act, will they have healthcare — it sounds like Donald Trump is saying they will have healthcare — under whatever replaces it?” host Joe Scarborough asked Conway on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday.
“That is correct,” Conway replied. “We don’t want anyone who currently has insurance to not have insurance.”
Democrats seized on the comments, vowing to hold Republicans to that pledge.
Andy Slavitt, who oversees ObamaCare as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, tweeted that Conway’s remarks are “a promise that Americans expect to be kept.”
But that will be a tall task for Republicans, and congressional leaders are being careful not to make the same commitment.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also declined this week to make a guarantee that a replacement would cover the same number of people as ObamaCare. He noted that there are other issues to consider besides coverage.
“There's a lot of areas that you want to look at,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday. “You want to look at a system that works, you want to look at a system for cost purposes, you want to look at a system to have greater choices, but you want to be able to care for those at the same time who can't have healthcare so all those will go into the mix to make the very best healthcare [plan].”
Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said that Republicans are likely to put more of a priority on reducing federal spending and regulations than covering as many people as the ACA.
“It will be very hard for any replacement plan that spends less than the ACA to cover as many people, and scaling back rules for required benefits will lead to skimpier coverage,” Levitt wrote in an email.
Republican plans generally offer a tax credit to help people afford coverage, but they offer a flat amount based on age. Under ObamaCare, those credits are based on income to give low-income people more assistance.
Republicans are also taking aim at ObamaCare’s “essential health benefits,” which mandate which services a plan must cover. They argue that Washington should not be mandating which insurance plans people can buy, and loosening those regulations would provide the option of cheaper plans that cover less.
That means a large number of people could be covered under a Republican replacement, but with less generous coverage including, for example, high deductibles or plans that don't cover certain areas, like prescription drugs.
“Flat dollar tax credits combined with minimal regulation of benefits could lead to a significant number of people covered but with very skimpy benefits as insurers market plans that people can buy with their tax credits,” Levitt wrote.
Republicans also need to figure out how to pay for their replacement plan.
Repealing ObamaCare’s taxes would mean that there is far less money available to pay for a plan. Republicans are considering keeping some taxes in place, though that idea is drawing blowback from conservatives who want to repeal the whole law.
Those complications could lead to a tricky situation for Republicans.
Joe Antos, a healthcare expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, likewise said that Republicans dialing back ObamaCare’s increased federal spending on Medicaid and moving to less generous financial assistance would likely mean a GOP plan would cover fewer people.
“Some people will definitely drop off of coverage if these are the kind of policies that go forward,” he said.How to Get Your Concealed Carry License Concealed carry license requirements vary throughout the 50 states and U.S. Territories. While the Second Amendment grants all citizens the right to bear arms, some states require more training, background checks, and safeguards to ensure that guns remain in the hands of law-abiding, dutiful citizens. Obtaining a concealed carry license can be a little trickier than merely getting a permit to carry, depending on the state. However, the payoff is worth the time spent and being able to carry concealed is an excellent way to ensure you can protect yourself and your family should you need to. Shall Issue States The first step to getting your concealed carry license is to determine what kind of state you live in: a shall issue, may issue, or constitutional carry state. Shall issue states are states that will issue concealed carry permits to applicants that meet all of that state’s qualifications. Some shall issue states only issue to residents, so it’s important to look into your state’s laws. This can become complicated for people who travel on long-term assignments for work or for business owners who work in one state but reside in another. May Issue States States that are may issue look to see if the applicant meets all the qualifications for a concealed carry license and may ultimately make a judgment on allowing for that permit. Typically, these decisions are first made at the local level, such as the police chief of a town, and then sent up to the state police division for approval. Some may issue states also exclude non-residents, so it is essential to check your state’s requirements. Constitutional Carry States Constitutional carry states allow eligible citizens to carry a concealed firearm without the need for a license. These states can then be further sub-categorized into those which allow only residents to carry versus those that will issue to both residents and non-residents. Right Denied States There are currently two U.S. Territories which do not allow concealed carry licenses: The Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa, which fall into the category of rights denied states. Know Your Laws While many may issue states require applicants to take a course first, it is still a good idea to brush up on the laws in states which are shall issue or constitutional carry, but which do not require prior educational courses. These laws vary widely in regard to concealed carry licenses and the use of deadly force in a public place. For instance, having alcohol in your system can invalidate the justified use of a concealed carry weapon in some states. In other states, there are strictly prohibited areas for carrying any concealed weapon. Even if your state does not require a course, find one anyway. These courses cover some of the more complicated aspects of legal statutes. Ignorance of the law does not make you innocent; educate yourself as much as possible before purchasing any weapon. Training Most may issue states require a class and live-fire training to grant applicants their license to carry. One of the most beneficial training seminars you can take to acquire a concealed carry permit is the Utah Multi-State Concealed Carry license, also known as the Utah Permit. There are currently 33 states that accept the Utah non-resident permit for a concealed carry license. The requirements for getting the Utah non-resident permit include completing a firearms familiarity course certified by the Utah BCI and taught by certified instructors. While some states have reciprocity with one another, it is worth researching the reciprocities of different permits and their requirements, especially if you plan to travel with your concealed weapon. Most weapons training courses include a few hours of class time, which cover topics such as types of guns and ammunition, state laws, gun safety, and choosing the best-concealed carry holsters. There are also in-class demonstrations for loading and unloading a weapon, which ultimately leads to live-fire range time with your instructor. The certificate you receive at the end of the course is required for submission with your application. Background Checks and Letters of Reference Some may issue states require a rigorous background check and up to three letters of reference before they will decide to issue a concealed carry license. The background checks typically consist of a questionnaire about your criminal history and a comprehensive fingerprinting, which is run against the state and national criminal databases. The letters of reference cannot be obtained from family members. Writers should be members of the community with upstanding reputations who know you well and can attest to your character, such as a teacher, a police officer, or a city councilman. It is important to note that some states, even if you pass the background check for your license, still conduct a new background check whenever you purchase a firearm. The Fee Most states that require an application for a concealed carry license also require a fee at the time of application submission. These fees can range from anywhere between $50-$100, so check with your local jurisdiction’s application fee policies. The Equipment Once you have received your concealed carry license, it is important to make safety and comfort the top priorities for your chosen concealed carry pistol. The most important piece of equipment, other than your gun and ammo, is your choice of concealed carry holster. There is a variety of ways to carry concealed, and it will vary according to the pistol you choose, where you want to carry it on your body, and how you want to carry it. Not all holsters are alike. When choosing a concealed carry holster, it should not catch on the gun, it should offer quick draw-speed, and it needs to fit your chosen firearm well. Inside-the-waistband holsters, or IWB holsters, are some of the most popular choices for concealed carry pistols. IWB holsters are easy to access quickly, sit snugly against the abdomen, and are simple to conceal for both men and women. Many IWB holsters have accessories for carrying additional ammunition, as well. Spend Time at the Range Muscle memory is a huge advantage for learning how to carry and protect yourself with a firearm. In high-stress situations, your body will remember what to do even if your mind is focusing on what is happening around you. To achieve this, spend time at the range firing your chosen concealed carry weapon. Don’t just target practice; get a sense of how long it takes for you to unholster your weapon and get into a firing stance. Many gun ranges have different holsters you can try out with your pistol to see which is the best IWB holster for you. Final Thoughts While the requirements for getting your concealed carry license vary from state-to-state, having your license means you can confidently protect yourself and your loved ones. Become informed about your weapon and the laws pertaining to it and practice often. You never know when you will need to take action and save a life.
Ultimate Guideline – How to Use a Red Dot Sight Introduction:
Shooting accuracy is vital when you want to hit the target every time you aim. At times, as you train, it is not possible to do that without some guidance – the red dot sight. We have seen them in movies and in practice too helping the users aim better at moderate ranges.
It is a simple optic instrument that uses an LED light to point where you are aiming. In simple terms, it uses the red dot as the reticle.
The dot can be green or red depending on the model you are using. They are however all referred to as red dots to avoid complication. Once you learn how to use the red dot properly, it becomes of the best companions as you train to shoot on the target.
Red Dot Sights General Instructions
As long as you have a gun with a mounting rail, check what works with your weapon and then follow the mounting considerations below. For example, if you compare vortex venom and viper red dot sights, the venom series is bigger which makes it mountable on rifles and pistols. The Viper model is suitable for pistols and smaller guns due to its small size.
If you need magnification, then you will need a scope that will help you do that since red dot sights do not magnify. They were invented in the 70s to help people aim while they use the gun. Since then, the modification has seen them achieve more regarding the quality and longevity of use before changing the batteries. That is why you are now seeing smaller ones, mountable on handguns.
How you mount the aiming instrument is upon you. The pistols will keep it straight while larger guns may require some inclination depending on how you hold while using it. What will work for you will not work for your partner.
Guns were there since before this generation, but technology has made most people to consider the flat-top Picatinny railing. Models from the Vortex brand, for example, will use that properly.
However, you are at times given the gun available to work with. At that point, the only thing to do if you need proper mounting is getting a cheek weld to hold the red dot sight as you shoot. There will be some limitations though.
How to Mount a Red Dot Scope?
It is not always an easy decision when figuring out the best position for your dot sight or scope. If that does not seem evident to you depending on what you are using, look at the where you don’t need it first.
The first thing you need to avoid is mounting on the handguard. Some guns have been modified to make that possible and unless that is possible on your weapon, don’t do it.
The typical types have the handguard surrounding the chamber and barrel, and these are the areas that get heated up as you shoot. That means the metal on guard will expand due to heat subjection, and that will affect your zero if the scope is attached to it. The degree of zero shifting will, however, depend on how much the handguard will be affected by the heat.
The rule to follow is mounting on top of the receiver. Are you including a magnifier, then choose a mounting style that will match that if you don’t have space or get a smaller sighting scope. The only exception to consider mounting on the handguard is if the gun incorporates a monolithic upper where the receiver and handguard are one piece.
Considerations When Mounting A Red Dot Sight
If you need to include a magnifier, then make sure your mounting procedure does not limit you on space. Otherwise, you need to mount it further forward.
Regardless of where you mount, the red dot’s size will not be affected by that. Moving it forward or back does not make it larger either.
When mounting, consider the optic being closer to you instead of further. At times, as you shoot, you get the ‘searching’ mode where you need to locate the dot before shooting. It happens mostly if you had a cheek weld. When it’s further, the ‘window’ appears smaller, and it will take time before you get used to it. Handguns mounting brings it close to you as possible. For larger guns, choose a position closer to your eye.
Some of us like it when the optic is further from the eye. At that point, you can shoot well than when it is closer to your face. The reason behind this (though it differs with the different models) is that your eye views things correctly positioned at a further distance since the interpretation is in your eye and not the spot guiding instrument.
Mounting closer to the eye gives you a wide field of view, but you will see less when looking around. When the sighting optics is further from your eye, the FOV is smaller, and you have more viewing on the outer parts of the red sight optic. If you are shooting at longer ranges, then a wide FOV is necessary. When shooting at short ranges, then you need a view that sees through the sighting scope and over the top edges. Such a view is suitable if you are searching a building, for example.
As you mount, consider the balancing your rifle. Handguns will work well if the sighting optic’s weight is subjected at the rear and not further forward. On larger guns, weight at the front can help you deal with muzzle flip. The main point here is to check your weapon and how it works when the masses are in different positions Adjusting and Sighting a Red Dot Scope
Since we are using the long guns and short ones too, we are going to see how you can do it on AR and smaller guns option. The instructions will vary depending on your gun but here is the generalization on what you need to consider.
AR Rifles
They come with a Picatinny rail, so mounting is easy. Once everything is in position, you need to check the zeroing distance. Some of us will use 50 yards zero point since it is also applicable at 200 yards.
If you think about the bullet’s arc, it will go up at 50 yards before going back to your zero at 200 yards. Others will go with 25 yards, but whatever choice you make, the method does not change.
Now, if your rifle has that iron sighting fixture, then you are better than the rest of your peers in the group.
Just adjust the elevation and windage on the sighting optics until you get the dot sitting straight at the top of the iron sight’s front post. After you center the dot, it’s now time to shoot a few rounds with both eyes opened.
If you are not yet on target, then adjust the optics properly and do it one more time until you are happy with the results.
Now, if you don’t have the iron sight advantage, there is still the old-fashioned way of going the boresight method.
Place the upper on a steady platform after removing it from the lower, and dispatching the charging handle and bolt too. Once you have done that, it is now possible to look down the barrel as you aim at the target.
After achieving the distance needed, move the upper until you get the dot centered on where you are aiming. Look again down the barrel to see if the upper moved as you were working on the sighting. If they are not in line, you need to readjust the barrel and target then go back to the sighting.
When everything is assembled, and you have already taken a deep breath, send a few rounds down and then adjust accordingly depending on the point of impact. Handguns Sighting
Mounting on handguns is easy since most of them come with the necessary mechanism to make that possible. Once the mounting is successful, all you need to do is adjust the dot until it seems to sit on top of the iron sight’s front. With your paper target in position, move back at 5 yards and shoot three or four rounds. Are you on target? Go back to your adjustment knobs and sight again. Now, fire again until you hit the impact point.
Once you get it right at 5 yards, now move to a further distance, say 15 yards. The zeroing at such a point will differ from five yards. After you have the proper sighting, shoot again and confirm your target. Repeat the adjustments you made at five yards and shoot again until you have the desired results after shooting.
Footnote
A red dot sight will help you more in shooting on target, and the modern ones will typically fit on any new gun in use. Whether you have a handgun or rifle, the mounting mechanisms are there to aid you in better sighting and to shoot at the aimed point. Most of them do not have magnifiers since they are made to help you get your target and not magnifying your view.
For those of us with advanced ones that have a magnifying glass, such versatility helps those who are shooting at longer ranges – 50 or 75 yards. On the other hand, if you are not doing the long distance shooting, then having a red dot will help you hit your targets more and waste less ammunition.
10 Must-haves for Hunting Adventures Guest Post by Brian Morgan Rifle hunting or bow hunting for sports or as a profession requires a lot of preparation. Therefore knowing the top 10 must-haves for hunting adventures can help ensure a successful hunting session.Continue reading
5 Considerations For Carrying and Using A Firearm During An SHTF Disaster There are an abundance of articles that cover the best types of guns to have and use during an SHTF disaster such as a power grid down scenario where chaos results and angry mobs and looters take to the streets. Is this an important subject? Absolutely. Nonetheless, equally as important as your weapons choices during a major disaster will be knowing how to carry and use those guns. Many people have this idea that a major disaster or catastrophe is going to result in a ‘Wild West’ scenario where no rules apply and where everyone is walking around with a pistol on their hip and a rifle slung over their shoulder. While that’s certainly one possibility for what may happen, the truth is that you will actually need to be more careful about how you carry and use firearms during an SHTF disaster than you may realized. Here are the top five considerations for carrying and using a firearm during an SHTF disaster. 1 – You Still Need To Follow Laws Guess what: the authorities and law enforcement most likely aren’t going away when disaster strikes, and that means that the laws are not going away anytime soon after. This means that any laws that currently apply to you at the Federal, state, or local levels will still need to be followed by you. Otherwise, you can run into serious trouble with the authorities. For example, what are the open carry laws in your area? If open carry is currently not allowed, just because a major disaster occurs doesn’t mean that it’s suddenly going to become legal or acceptable. Here’s another question to ask yourself: in your state or city, under what circumstances is it legal to use a firearm in lethal self-defense? Even if your home comes under attack, for instance, you may have a duty to retreat before you can fire a gun in lethal self-defense. 2 – Conceal Carrying A Sidearm Will Be Preferable To Open Carry In the midst of an SHTF disaster, it will always be wise to keep a handgun on you at all times (assuming it’s legal, because as we just went over you will still need to follow law) so you always have a defensive tool on your person that you can draw and fire if need be. That being said, it will also almost always be preferable to conceal carry this firearm rather than open carry it. This is because open carrying a firearm is going to draw to you lots of attention, not only from other people around you but from any military and law enforcement units nearby as well. This isn’t something that you want because one of the keys to survival in a disaster scenario will be to ‘fly under the radar’ and blend into the crowd rather than stand out like a sore thumb. 3 – A Defensive Long Gun Should Always Be Kept Within Reach Even though you would be wise to carry a sidearm on your person at all times for quick and easy access during an SHTF disaster, at the same time, it should be noted that a handgun should never be considered a primary combat weapon. A handgun can be an effective defensive tool, but at the end of the day, it’s really a last resort weapon or the gun that you use to fight your way to your rifle. In other words, in an SHTF disaster, don’t treat your handgun like it’s the primary weapon you’re going to use to defend your home and family with, because it’s not. You need to have a defensive long gun (preferably a semi-automatic rifle) that you can use for this task, and you’re going to want to keep that rifle loaded and within relatively easy reach while also keeping it out of sight from other people. 4 – Your Firearms May Not Even Be Legal This will largely depend on whether or not martial law is declared. However, martial law being declared as a result of a significant enough disaster is a very real possibility that you may face. When Hurricane Katrina struck the coast of Louisiana in 2005, the government declared martial law, which essentially means that ordinary law is suspended as the military and/or law enforcement takes direct control over local civilian affairs. As a result of martial law, the government will take action to control the civilian population, and part of what they will do to aid in that control is to confiscate as many firearms as they can. This is exactly what happened after Hurricane Katrina when military and law enforcement units went from door-to-door confiscating all kinds of firearms – rifles, shotguns, handguns, you name it. The lesson learned here is that your firearms may not even be legal, meaning that you could be taking a major risk just by conceal carrying a pistol. It also means that you will likely need to take steps to keep your firearms hidden as well. 5 – You Can’t Neglect Maintenance Last but not least, maintenance of your firearms will be of the utmost importance following disaster to keep them in good working condition over the long term. Keeping a firearms cleaning kit with all the essentials – such as cleaning rod, gun oil, and cleaning patches – will undoubtedly be an absolute must. But at the same time, you will need to actually take action to ensure that your firearms remain in good working condition. Inspecting your firearms carefully and conducting detailed maintenance will be important. Keep in mind, some of your firearms can and will take a serious beating, especially if you have to pack them consistently and perhaps even use them. You’re going to be using them a lot more than simply taking a trip or two a month to the shooting range. Conclusion All in all, these will be the top five considerations for you to follow with carrying and using firearms following a major disaster. If there’s anything that you learn from this article, it’s that whether it be an EMP attack, an economic collapse, or a natural disaster or whatever else, you need to be very careful and cautious about how you go about packing heat.
Fixed or Mechanical Broadheads? Guest Post by Bobby Scherer There is no end to the debate over which type of broadhead is better and why. I will admit to being a fan of fixed blade broadheads and use them at least 90% of the time when I want to make sure I get a kill. Maybe this is just because I am comfortable with them.Continue reading
5 ways to keep the safety gun safe A safety gun is meant for your own safety but it can be a danger to you and those around you as well. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, a home with a gun has four times more risk of accidental death compared to a home with no gun. This is proof that safety guns might not be that safe after all. However, these can be minimized by ensuring that safety guns are safely and securely stored.Continue reading.
Last week, in Part I, we learned about cool linguistics stuff such as morphemes and affixes, and decided that the way whole is splitting up another in a-whole-nother looks a lot like loose definitions of tmesis or infixing, but in fact, it’s not those things. It turns out that what matters here is the history and status of the word another.
Determiners Introduce Nouns
Merriam-Webster says another is an adjective, but linguists make a finer distinction than traditional grammar does, in that some adjectives, the ones that aren’t very “content-full” and are instead more “functional,” are given the more specific label determiner.
Determiners introduce nouns, and include articles like the, and possessive adjectives like my, but they do not describe nouns the way true, content adjectives do (think green or nice). (Nouns are content words too, rich with semantic meaning, such as apple or sunset, while prepositions are function words, in that prepositions like of are extremely difficult to define.) So, another is certainly a determiner; it introduces nouns, as in, another apple, but doesn’t modify them, like the true adjective ripe in ripe apple.
Next, what do we use another to express? We could summarize it as indicating “a second one” or “an additional one.” Notice that any context calling for That’s a-whole-nother thing! requires some original “thing” being contrasted with the new “thing.”
Whole Doesn’t Really Get “Infixed”
So, why can’t we just say that people have been pseudo-infixing the word whole into the word another? Let’s start with linguist James McMillan’s brief assessment of a-whole-nother as being metanalysis—not infixation—back in 1970, in which he cited examples dating back to 1958. Metanalysis, also spelled—incidentally—meta-analysis |
o-based medical marijuana producer Tilray, said the stringent regulations ensure the medicine for patients is "safe, pure and predictable." However, while they protect patients from false or unsubstantiated claims, "they also limit the amount of information that can be shared with physicians and patients about the differences between strains, which can help inform treatment decisions."
Companies can directly provide more detailed information about a product to an individual as long as it is not disseminated to the general public. But as Mr. Zettl counters: "Who wants to become a registered patient before they can get information?"
Health Canada declined to make a spokesperson available for an interview despite several requests. An e-mail from the department stated that in determining whether a message constitutes an advertisement, one must consider the context, the intended audience and who is delivering the message.
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"If the message is written by the drug manufacturer, it is more likely to be advertising," the statement said.Girih tiles
Patterned Girih tiles
Construction lines are usually hidden: geometric tiles on left, girih pattern on right.
Girih tiles are a set of five tiles that were used in the creation of Islamic geometric patterns using strapwork (girih) for decoration of buildings in Islamic architecture. They have been used since about the year 1200 and their arrangements found significant improvement starting with the Darb-i Imam shrine in Isfahan in Iran built in 1453.
Five tiles [ edit ]
The five shapes of the tiles are:
a regular decagon with ten interior angles of 144°;
an elongated (irregular convex) hexagon with interior angles of 72°, 144°, 144°, 72°, 144°, 144°;
a bow tie (non-convex hexagon) with interior angles of 72°, 72°, 216°, 72°, 72°, 216°;
a rhombus with interior angles of 72°, 108°, 72°, 108°; and
a regular pentagon with five interior angles of 108°.
These modules have their own specific Persian names: The quadrilateral tile is called Torange, the pentagonal tile is called Pange, the concave octagonal tile is called Shesh Band, the bow tie tile is called Sormeh Dan, decagram tile is called Tabl. [1]All sides of these figures have the same length; and all their angles are multiples of 36° (π/5 radians). All of them, except the pentagon, have bilateral (reflection) symmetry through two perpendicular lines. Some have additional symmetries. Specifically, the decagon has tenfold rotational symmetry (rotation by 36°); and the pentagon has fivefold rotational symmetry (rotation by 72°).
The Emergence of Girih Tiles [ edit ]
By the late 11th century, the Islamic artists in North Africa start to use “tile mosaic”, which is the predecessor of tessellation.[2] By 13th century, the Islamic discovered a new way to construct the “tile mosaic” due to the development of arithmetic calculation and geometry—the girih tiles.[3]
Girih [ edit ]
Girih are lines (strapwork) that decorate the tiles. The tiles are used to form girih patterns, from the Persian word گره, meaning "knot".[4] In most cases, only the girih (and other minor decorations like flowers) are visible rather than the boundaries of the tiles themselves. The girih are piece-wise straight lines that cross the boundaries of the tiles at the center of an edge at 54° (3π/10) to the edge. Two intersecting girih cross each edge of a tile. Most tiles have a unique pattern of girih inside the tile that are continuous and follow the symmetry of the tile. However, the decagon has two possible girih patterns one of which has only fivefold rather than tenfold rotational symmetry.
Mathematics of girih tilings [ edit ]
In 2007, the physicists Peter J. Lu and Paul J. Steinhardt suggested that girih tilings possessed properties consistent with self-similar fractal quasicrystalline tilings such as Penrose tilings, predating them by five centuries.[5][6]
This finding was supported both by analysis of patterns on surviving structures, and by examination of 15th-century Persian scrolls. However, we have no indication of how much more the architects may have known about the mathematics involved. It is generally believed that such designs were constructed by drafting zigzag outlines with only a straightedge and a compass. Templates found on scrolls such as the 97-foot- (29.5 metres) long Topkapi Scroll may have been consulted. Found in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, the administrative center of the Ottoman Empire and believed to date from the late 15th century, the scroll shows a succession of two- and three- dimensional geometric patterns. There is no text, but there is a grid pattern and color-coding used to highlight symmetries and distinguish three-dimensional projections. Drawings such as shown on this scroll would have served as pattern-books for the artisans who fabricated the tiles, and the shapes of the girih tiles dictated how they could be combined into large patterns. In this way, craftsmen could make highly complex designs without resorting to mathematics and without necessarily understanding their underlying principles.[7]
This use of repeating patterns created from a limited number of geometric shapes available to craftsmen of the day is similar to the practice of contemporary European Gothic artisans. Designers of both styles were concerned with using their inventories of geometrical shapes to create the maximum diversity of forms. This demanded a skill and practice very different from mathematics.[7]
Geometric construction of an interlocking decagram-polygon mosaic design [ edit ]
Firstly, divide the right angle A into five parts with same degree by creating four rays that start from A. Find an arbitrary point C on the second ray and drop perpendiculars from C to the sides of angle A counter-clockwise. This step creates the rectangle ABCD along with four segments that each has an endpoint at A and other endpoints are the intersections of the four rays with the two sides of BC and DC of rectangle ABCD. Then, find the midpoint of the fourth segment created from the fourth ray point E. Construct an arc with center A and radius AE to intersect AB at point F and the second ray at point G. The second segment is now a part of the rectangle's diagonal. Make a line, parallel to AD and passing through point G, that intersects the first ray at point H and the third ray at point I. The line HF passes through point E and intersects the third ray at L and line AD at J. Construct a line, passing through J which is parallel to the third ray. Also construct line EI and find M which is the intersection of this line with AD. From the point F make a parallel line to the third ray to meet the first ray at K. Construct segments GK, GL, and EM. Find the point N such that GI = IN by constructing a circle with center I and radius IG. Construct the line DN which is parallel to GK, to intersect the line emanate from J, to find P to complete the regular pentagon EINPJ. Line DN meets the perpendicular bisector of AB at Q. From Q construct a line parallel to FK to intersect ray MI at R. As shown in the figure, using O which is the center of the rectangle ABCD, as a center of rotation for 180°, one can make the fundamental region for the tiling.[1]
An interlocking decagram-polygon mosaic design
An interlocking decagram-polygon mosaic design
An interlocking decagram-polygon mosaic design
An interlocking decagram-polygon mosaic design
Geometric construction of a tessellation from Mirza Akbar architectural scrolls [ edit ]
First, divide the right angle into five congruent angles, a arbitrary point P was selected on the first ray counterclockwise. For the radius of the circle inscribed in the decagram one half of the segment created from the third ray, segment AM, was selected. The following figure illustrates a step-by-step compass-straightedge visual solution to the problem by the author.[1]Note that the way to divide a right angle into five congruent angles is not a part of the instructions provided, because it is considered an elementary step for designers.
Step-by-step compass-straightedge construction of the tessellation
Examples [ edit ]
Different patterns
Complex girih patterns with 16-, 10- and 8-point stars at different scales in ceiling of the Tomb of Hafez in Shiraz, 1935
A window of the crown prince's apartment in the Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, Turkey, with 6-point stars; the surrounds have floral arabesque tiling
Interior archway at the opening of the Sultan's Lodge in the Ottoman Green Mosque in Bursa, Turkey (1424), with 10-point stars and pentagons
The girih has been widely applied on the architecture. To begin with, girih on the Persian geometric windows meet the need of the Persian architecture. “The specific types of embellishments utilized in orosi typically linked the windows to the patron's social and political eminence.”The more ornate a window is, the higher social and economic status the owner is more likely to have. A good example for this would be Azad Koliji. The Azad Koliji is a Dowlatabad Garden in Iran. With the girih patterns on its window, the architects successfully demonstrate multiple layers. The first layer would be the actual garden which people can have a glimpse at when they open the window. In addition to this natural layer, the first girih pattern on the outside of the window (the carved pattern. Another artificial layer would be the colorful glasses on the window. The multi-color layer create a sense of a mass of flowers. This layer is abstract which forms a clear contradiction with the real layer outside the window, and gives the audience enough space to imagine.[8]
See also [ edit ]There is no place in the latest Cameroon squad for West Ham's Alex Song, despite the fact he has completed a three-match ban.
The Indomitable Lions are set to play Sierra Leone on 10 and 15 October in Group D of 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.
Song was given the suspension after being sent off during Cameroon's second match at the World Cup.
He was dismissed for elbowing Croatia's Mario Mandzukic in the 4-0 loss.
Cameroon's 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying so far Won 2-0 against DR Congo - goals from N'Jie and AboubakarWon 4-1 against Ivory Coast - 2 goals each from N'jie and Aboubakar
The 28-year-old missed the final Group A match in Brazil, a 4-1 loss to the hosts, and then Cameroon's opening two Nations Cup qualifiers.
Following the World Cup, he joined English Premier League side West Ham on a season-long loan from Spanish giants Barcelona.
There is a recall for the Lyon defender Henri Bedimo, who missed the qualifying wins against DR Congo and Ivory Coast through injury.
Cameroon are set to host both qualifiers against Sierra Leone in Yaounde as the Leone Stars are unable to play at home due to the ongoing outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the country.
The Indomitable Lions are top of Group D after the first two matches with the top two sides in each group guaranteed to qualify for January's finals in Morocco.
Cameroon squad:
Goalkeepers: Pierre Sylvain Abogo (Tonnerre Yaounde), Guy Roland Ndy Assembe (Nancy, France), Joseph Ondoua (Barcelona, Spain)
Defenders: Frank Bagnack (Barcelona, Spain), Henri Bedimo (Lyon, France), Cedric Djeugoue (Coton Sport), Jerome Guihoata (Valenciennes, France), Bana Moussa (Coton Sport), Nicolas Nkoulou, Brice Nlate (both Marseille), Ambroise Oyongo (New York Red Bulls, USA)
Midfielders: Enoh Eyong (Standard Liege, Belgium), Marc Kibong Mbamba (Konyaspor, Turkey), Raoul Cedric Loe (Osasuna, Spain), Georges Mandjeck (Kayseri Erciyesspor, Turkey), Stephane Mbia (Sevilla, Spain), Benjamin Moukandjo (Stade Reims, France), Edgar Salli (Monaco, France), Guy Christian Zock (Cosmos Bafia)
Forwards: Vincent Aboubakar (Porto, Portugal), Eric-Maxim Choupo Moting (Schalke 04, Germany), Jean Marie Dongou (Barcelona, Spain), Frank Etoundi (FC Zurich, Switzerland), Leonard Kwueke (Caykur Rizespor, Turkey), Clinton N'Jie(Lyon)This article is over 3 years old
The outlook for the Australian economy remains gloomy, the RBA says in its quarterly update, and a further cut in interest rates is still on the table
The Reserve Bank of Australia has refused to rule out further interest rate cuts amid concerns about slowing Chinese growth and weak business investment in Australia.
In its quarterly statement on monetary policy released on Friday, the RBA left the door open to another rate cut after slashing the cash rate to a fresh low of 2% on Tuesday.
“The board will continue to assess the outlook and adjust policy as needed to foster sustainable growth in demand and inflation outcomes consistent with the inflation target over time,” the RBA said.
The RBA also revealed a gloomier economic outlook than was forecast in its last statement on monetary policy in February, revealing particular concerns about Chinese growth and local business investment.
The central bank said economic growth was expected to be in the range of 2.5-3.5% in the year to June 2016, which was a quarter of a percentage point weaker than previously predicted.
“GDP growth is forecast to remain below trend for a bit longer than had been anticipated in the February statement,” the RBA said.
It said Australia’s major trading partners, especially China, were growing slower than predicted in February.
“In China, economic growth in 2015 is projected to be a little weaker than previously forecast, reflecting slower-than-expected growth across a rage of activity indicators in the March quarter,” the RBA said.
Domestically, the central bank said business investment and public spending remained sluggish, and that mining investment would “continue subtracting substantially from growth over the next couple of years”.
This was in line with what governor Glenn Stevens said in his statement accompanying Tuesday’s rate decision in which he referred to weakness in business investment, and said public sector spending was “scheduled to be subdued”.
He also pointed to the strong Australian dollar, saying further depreciation was “both likely and necessary”, particularly given declines in key commodity prices.
Most analysts believe another interest rate cut is unlikely in the months ahead because of signs of recovery in the economy, and the risk of overheating the property market in Sydney.
On the plus side, Friday’s RBA statement said the outlook for Australian dwelling investment was up, driven by lower interest rates and strong population growth.
It also said the jobs market looked stronger than previously forecast.
“The latest data from the labour force survey suggest that recent trends in the labour market have been a bit better than earlier indicated,” the RBA said.
It said underlying inflation was predicted to remain “well contained” over coming months.High-powered entertainment attorney Steve Warren demanded that Justice Clarence Thomas and the rest of the Supreme Court justices act against the Defense of Marriage Act and Prop. 8 during a stirring speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco last night.
“Our basic civil rights are currently being experimented with in 50 different state laboratories,” said Warren, a board member of the watchdog org and recent recipient of its Stephen F. Kolzak Award. “Many of which have little or no hope of ridding themselves of the prejudice and hate that still exists in so much of our country. It pains me to think of what could have been for our relationships, including my own of 26 years, if our nation had embraced all of us, and given us the love, respect and support given to heterosexual couples, of all races. We need, we deserve and we are rightfully entitled as American citizens to be included under the shield of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.”
Warren took specific aim at Justice Thomas, drawing a parallel between his interracial marriage and the struggle for the same recognition for same-sex couples.
“Because the Clarence and Virginia Thomas’s of the world are accorded the protections of the U.S. Constitution and we are not,” Warren stated. “Our basic civil rights are currently being experimented with in 50 different state laboratories. Many of which have little or no hope of ridding themselves of the prejudice and hate that still exists in so much of our country. It pains me to think of what could have been for our relationships, including my own of 26 years, if our nation had embraced all of us, and given us the love, respect and support given to heterosexual couples, of all races. We need, we deserve, and we are rightfully entitled as American citizens to be included under the shield of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.”Bottas: We are missing race pace and quite a big amount
Before the first race of the 2015 season many expected Williams to take the fight to Mercedes, but that has not transpired and the former world champions have even taken a step back in the current Formula 1 pecking order, with Valtteri Bottas lamenting the lack of race pace in the FW37.
After missing the season opener in Melbourne due to a back injury, Bottas was back in action at Sepang and reflected after his fifth place finish, “We maximised the result but we are missing race pace – and quite a big amount.”
“With the ideal race, starting at the front, the gap wouldn’t be that big but it is too big, much bigger than we expected. It shows we have a lot of work to do.”
“There is a lot more potential, we just need to get more performance because it is possible others made huge steps,” said the highly rated Finn referring no doubt to the leap made by Ferrari.
Bottas explained, “In traffic, we seem to struggle with traction a bit in slow-speed corners compared to Toro Rosso and Red Bull. Toro Rosso seem to be much stronger where we are weak, which is slow-speed, mid to exit.
“We have some updates coming and all we can do now is learn from anything we can,” concluded Bottas.
Last year Williams became a Mercedes F1 engine customer and, after a number of years in the doldrums, became front runners, eventually finishing the season third in the constructor’s standings.
In testing earlier this year they appeared to have retained the momentum, but in Australia they already appeared to have slipped a notch and in the heat of Malaysia Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel powered to victory and gave everyone ‘a wake up call.’The National Insurance number is a number used in the United Kingdom in the administration of the National Insurance or social security system. It is also used for some purposes in the UK tax system. The number is described by the United Kingdom government as a "personal account number".[1] The number is sometimes referred to as a NI No or NINO.[2] Contents
Allocation of number Edit
People born and resident in the UK are assigned a Child Reference Number shortly after birth when a claim is made for Child Benefit.[3] At age 15 years 9 months HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) notifies each child of their NI number.[4] In 1993, a one-off mass allocation of NI numbers was made to all children under the age of 16 whose parents were in receipt of Child Benefit. As a result of this, siblings who met the criteria above were allocated NI numbers sequentially.[5] Persons from abroad who wish to work in the UK, or those to whom a number was not initially allocated as children, must apply for a number through the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).[6] The prefixes used are typically different from those used in the normal run.[6][not in citation given]
Format Edit
The format of the number is two prefix letters, six digits and one suffix letter.[7] The example used is typically QQ123456C. Often, the number is printed with spaces to pair off the digits, like this: QQ 12 34 56 C. Neither of the first two letters can be D, F, I, Q, U or V. The second letter also cannot be O. The prefixes BG, GB, NK, KN, TN, NT and ZZ are not allocated.[8] Validation lists of issued two-letter prefixes are published from time to time.[9][10] After the two prefix letters, the six digits are issued sequentially from 00 00 00 to 99 99 99. The last two digits determine the day of the week on which various social security benefits are payable and when unemployed claimants need to attend their Jobcentre to sign on (renew their claims): 00 to 19 for Monday, 20 to 39 for Tuesday, 40 to 59 for Wednesday, 60 to 79 for Thursday and 80 to 99 for Friday.[11][12] The suffix letter is either A, B, C, or D.[7] (although F, M, and P have been used for temporary numbers in the past). The NI number is unique without the suffix letter[citation needed], so, for example, if AB 12 34 56 C exists, then there will be no other numbers beginning with AB 12 34 56 (although temporary numbers were not necessarily unique, because two people with the same date of birth would have had the same number). In official electronic submissions, the final letter may be represented by a space if not known.[13] Until 1975, the suffixes A, B, C and D at the end of the NI number signified the period of validity of the National Insurance cards originally used to collect National Insurance contributions (NICs). Cards were exchanged every twelve months and because of the very large numbers of cards issued the exchange was staggered. Suffix A cards ran from March of one year until March of the next when they were exchanged for a new one. Stagger B suffix cards ran from June until the following June, stagger C from September until the following September and stagger D from December until the following December. For example, a B stagger card issued in 1955 might have run from the first Monday in June that year until the first Sunday in June the following year. This staggered system operated from 5 July 1948 until 1975, at which time the A stagger cards were extended to run an extra five weeks, until 5 April 1975, in line with the end of the tax year. The B, C and D stagger NI Cards had a shorter period of validity in their final year, and ran from June, September and December respectively in 1974 until 6 April 1975. From 6 April 1975 onwards, a computerised National Insurance Recording System (NIRS) was used to allocate all NICs by tax years. In Great Britain, expired NI cards were sorted into one hundred separate groups corresponding to the final two numbers of the NI number and were posted to the individual insured person's NI account (the RF1) by the corresponding one hundred ledger sections at the Records Branch of the Central Office of the Ministry of Labour and its successors—the Ministry of National Insurance (from 1945), Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (1953), the Department of Health and Social Security (1968), Department of Social Security (1988), and Department for Work and Pensions (since 2001). These 100 sections dealt not only with the recording of NI contributions but with requests for information about qualifying contributions necessary to pay sickness, unemployment, widows, and other benefits and also with any correspondence arising from those NI accounts and NI cards. Within each of the 100 sections, NI numbers were allocated among 16 splits with one clerk administering each split. To trace unknown NI numbers, a general index contained millions of small RF2 index slips, filed in order of surname and listing the name(s), date of birth, and NI number for every person within the National Insurance scheme. The Northern Ireland National Insurance scheme is funded and administered separately from the scheme in Great Britain but operates identically so that, in practice, the same rules apply throughout the United Kingdom.
Temporary numbers Edit
Until April 2001, employers sometimes allocated their employees a temporary insurance number, which followed the format "TN dd mm yy x", where 'TN' stands for temporary number and is static and x is M for male, F for female, or P for pensioner and the numbers in the midsection were the employee's date of birth.[8] In the case of a woman born on 31 December 1958, for example, the temporary NI number would have been TN 31 12 58 F. Temporary NI numbers could not be used to trace back any NI credits or personal details. Since 2001 the National Insurance number must be obtained – the temporary code must not now be used.[14] Another type of temporary NI number is the Revenue-issued "temporary reference" used when HMRC is unable to trace a taxpayer's original NI number. It follows the format 63T12345.
Administrative numbers Edit
Reference numbers similar in format to NI numbers are sometimes allocated for tax or benefit purposes with special prefix letters. Special prefixes used in the past include the letters OO (for Tax Credit claims), CR (for investigations), FY (formerly for Attendance Allowance claims, named after the Fylde social security office where claims were processed), MW (used from 1980 to 1987 for migrant workers), NC (formerly for Stakeholder Pensions, PP (for use by pension schemes as PP999999P), and PY or PZ (both used for tax-only accounts created prior to 2003).[7]
Numbercards Edit
From 1984 until 2011, when a person was allocated an NI number they also received a plastic 'numbercard' of similar proportions to a credit card with the number raised on the front. Prior to 1984, a manila notification card was issued instead. The card is only used as a reminder of the number and the card itself is not needed to start work, and is not considered a valid identity card. Numbercards were phased out from September 2010, and the issue of numbercards ceased completely in October 2011. NI numbers are now notified by letter.[15]
Crown dependencies Edit
National Insurance numbers issued in the Isle of Man hold the prefix MA.[16] Similarly, those issued in Jersey start with JY, and those issued in Guernsey hold the prefix GY. Only Channel Island NINOs issued prior to 1975 are validated, and recognised for UK use by HMRC.[17]
Use for tax purposes Edit
The National Insurance number is used as a reference number in the Pay As You Earn system, and also by the self-employed. It is also used in applications for Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), to check that an individual has opened only one ISA in a tax year. However, the NI number is not used universally as a tax identification number. Taxpayers who need to file a tax return are given a different number, a Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR), which is used as a reference number in the self-assessment tax system.[18]
Use for identification Edit
NI numbers are sometimes used for identification purposes in other contexts which have nothing to do with their original National Insurance purpose – such as forming part of evidence of right to work in the UK.[19] The NI card, however, is not proof of identity.During the month of July, the Last Word On Sports NFL department will determine which three players deserve to be considered the faces of each franchise. For this series, we will only consider active players. In this edition, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the focus.
Faces of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Gerald McCoy
Head coach Lovie Smith said Gerald McCoy is “the best at his position” and “the best player on our team.” Since being drafted as the third overall pick in 2010, McCoy has established himself as arguably the best defensive tackle in the NFL. After accumulating 154 tackles, 27 sacks, 13 passes defended, four forced fumbles and three Pro Bowls in five seasons, he has proven to be one of the most productive defenders in football. His attributes such as his speed, explosiveness, and burst at the snap have caused difficulties for offensive linemen attempting to contain him. With his teammates raving about his skillset, McCoy continues to impress both the Buccaneers organization and the entire league.
Along with improving his game everyday, McCoy is striving to be the leader of this team. Earlier last season, he said that he appreciated the praises of his teammates, but he doesn’t plan to slow down with his production. Considering he plays for a franchise loaded with all-time great defensive linemen such as Simeon Rice and Hall of Famers Lee Roy Selmon and Warren Sapp, McCoy wants to continue to set the standard at his position.
Lavonte David
Another stalwart on the Buccaneer defense is weakside linebacker Lavonte David. At age 25, David already has 430 tackles, 19 passes defensed, 10 sacks, six interceptions and six forced fumbles in three NFL seasons. Voted an All-Pro in 2013, he is gradually becoming one of the premier defenders in the game. Although he hasn’t received the level of recognition as Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly–who plays in the same division–coaches and peers have recognized his superb play. As David’s teammate in 2013, All-Pro cornerback Darrelle Revis said that “if David was not a Pro Bowler, then something is wrong. The voting must be rigged.” Head coach Love Smith even compared David to Hall of Fame linebacker Derrick Brooks, another Tampa Bay legend. If both Lavonte David and Gerald McCoy can continue to dominate and lead their teammates, the league may see a new form of the 2002 Super Bowl Bucs defense.
Jameis Winston
Although he’s only a rookie, Jameis Winston may be the main driving force for Tampa’s success this season. Concluding a brief, yet illustrious career at Florida State University that featured a Heisman Trophy honor and a national championship, Winston will now be asked to lead an offense that has struggled mightily in the past two seasons after breaking franchise marks in 2012. Losing only one game as a collegiate starter in two years, Winston has proved he can make plays and lead his team on the field; his off-the-field antics, however, have caused analysts to question his character. Persuading the football world that he’s a changed man earlier this year, Winston will get his opportunity to display his abilities once September rolls around.
Main Photo:Bill Gates has been almost prophetic in his past predictions: his 1999 list was hauntingly accurate, foreseeing the advent of price comparison websites, smartphones, social media, and bots. Over the last few years, in interviews and annual letters, he has continued predicting: here are a selection of seven of his insights. 1. In the next 15 years, 33 million people could be wiped out in less than a year by a pathogen. At the Munich Security conference, Gates warned that “epidemiologists say a fast-moving airborne pathogen could kill more than 30 million people in less than a year.” This could be due to mutation, accident, or terrorist intent. While this may seem outlandish, similar events have occurred before: the most obvious example is the Black Death, which killed almost a third of Europe, but more recently, in 1918, the Spanish Flu wiped out between 50 and 100 million people. 2. Africa will become entirely self-sufficient in terms of food production. He believes Africa will achieve the goal due to a number of structural changes: First, better fertilizers and crops being developed will cause an upward spiral of greater nutrition leading to greater productivity.
Second, developments in infrastructure that are already taking place, such as Ghana increasing the width of highways connecting production zones to distribution zones and Senegal removing checkpoints that cause delays. Third, as phones become more widespread, this will allow the communication of information such as weather reports and market prices. 3. The lives of the poor will be transformed by mobile banking. Electronic banking systems will allow the poor to store and protect money digitally: he said in his 2015 annual letter that “by 2030, 2 billion people who don’t have a bank account today will be storing money and making payment with their phones.”
4. In the year 2035, poor countries will no longer exist. Gates cites how much the world has changed during his own lifetime — moving from a world segmented into the Soviet Union, the Western Allies, and “everyone else” to the world we see today — as a precedent for how much it has the potential to change. He wrote in his 2014 letter that “aid is a fantastic investment, and we should be doing more. It saves and improves lives very effectively, laying the groundwork for […] long-term economic progress.” 5. By 2030 there will be a clean energy breakthrough that will revolutionize our world. In a slightly more recent prediction, made in 2016, Gates does not name any existing method of renewable energy as the panacea, but he thinks the key is investment in young people. He has already invested $2 billion in alternative technologies. 6. Countless jobs will be lost to automation. In an interview with Quartz, Bill Gates envisages, as many industry leaders do, a world in which humans are put out of work by robots. Gates, though, has provided a possible plan of action: to tax robots in order to fund more jobs that can only be performed by humans, like taking care of the elderly or working with children. 7. Polio could be eliminated worldwide by 2019. In his 2013 Annual Letter, Gates revealed statistics showing that the prevalence of polio has been reduced from impacting millions of people in hundreds of countries to now being active in only three countries worldwide. The key, he states, is measurement: “You have to measure accurately, as well as create an environment where problems can be discussed openly so you can effectively evaluate what’s working and what’s not.”A Japanese man and woman, who met through a suicide website, have apparently killed themselves after forming a death pact.
The 46-year-old dentist and the 25-year-old woman got to know each other through a chat room on the suicide website about a month ago.
They met for the first time a few days before taking their lives at the dentist's home in Fukui prefecture, central Japan, according to reports.
Japanese newspapers said the pair had exchanged numerous e-mails in which they asked for the support of the other in committing suicide.
"If we have a common purpose, we have nothing to fear," the national daily Yomiuri Shimbun quoted one e-mail saying.
Autopsies showed they had died after swallowing lethal quantities of sleeping pills. Reports said suicide notes were found at the scene.
Websites
The dentist, who was separated from his wife, had serious health problems and family trouble, according to news agencies.
The woman, who had recently resigned from her job, was also thought to be worried about family problems.
Reports said they were found by the dentist's wife on Wednesday, but details of the case have only just emerged.
The website where they met provides information on different ways to commit suicide and a bulletin board with messages from people wishing kill themselves.
Police said there were several such sites in Japan.
Cyanide
In December 1998, a young Tokyo woman died after swallowing potassium cyanide acquired from an internet suicide service.
Investigations showed the poison packs, on offer for between $258 and $430, had been ordered by eight people.
Reports said the man who provided the cyanide had stocked enough to kill 3,000 people. He has since killed himself.
Last year another Japanese woman was found unconscious in a hotel room after she posted a message on the internet requesting a suicide drug.
A suspect was later arrested for allegedly sending her 100 sleeping pills.
One of the most popular recent films at the Japanese box office uses a plot twist about a suicide website.AP China-based hackers stole plans for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system in 2011 and 2012, according to an investigation by a Maryland-based cyber security firm first reported by independent journalist Brian Krebs.
The hackers also stole plans related to other missile interceptors, including the Arrow 3, which was designed by Boeing and other U.S.-based companies.
According to Krebs, "the attacks bore all of the hallmarks of the 'Comment Crew,' a prolific and state-sponsored hacking group associated with the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) and credited with stealing terabytes of data from defense contractors and U.S. corporations." The hackers gained access to the systems of three Israeli companies working on missile defense. Maryland-based Cyber Engineering Services could prove that 700 documents were stolen in the breach although it's likely that the actual number is higher.
Krebs reported that some of these documents bore "markings indicating that their access and sharing is restricted by International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) — U.S. State Department controls that regulate the defense industry."
The breach is reminiscent of the repeated state-sponsored Chinese cyber-attacks reported in The New York Times in February of 2013 — a sustained effort against American government targets that resulted in the federal indictment of five members of the People's Liberation Army this past May.
Elements of the Chinese state are willing to gain any potential intelligence or technological advantage regardless of the possible diplomatic consequences.
"The Chinese style of espionage is more like a vacuum cleaner than a closely-directed telescope," Jon Lindsay, a research scientist at the University of California's Global Institute on Conflict and Cooperation, explained to Business Insider. "They go after a lot of different kinds of targets — the leaders in any particular industry."
But this breach could also indicate a particular Chinese interest in granular and difficult-to-master military technologies. As Lindsay notes, missile defense is a technological puzzle, with high-profile systems like the U.S.'s Patriot missile battery often showing disappointing results in the field, as during the first Gulf War.
Israel has a highly developed domestic arms industry that seems to have mastered a difficult niche ability. With the Iron Dome's apparent success after Israel's 2012 conflict with Hamas, it must have seemed like an irresistible target to the Chinese — despite improving relations with Israel.
As it turns out, Iron Dome is of limited applicability outside of an Israeli context. It was made to pick off relatively unsophisticated short and mid-range missiles of a kind that threaten almost no other developed country or military.
And in the years since the apparent hack China and Israel have grown closer, with the exchange of high-level delegations and a major Chinese donation to Israel's |
perfectly abreast of a vehicle in the slow lane. And yet: everything in our commercial culture tells the chatty driver that he is in the right and tells everybody else that we are in the wrong–that we are failing to get with the attractively priced program of freedom and mobility and unlimited minutes. Commercial culture tells us that if we’re sore with the chatty driver it must be because we’re not having as good a time as he is. What is wrong with us, anyway? Why can’t we lighten up a little and take out our own phones, with our own Friends and Family plans, and start having a better time ourselves, right there in the passing lane?
Socially retarded people don’t suddenly start acting more adult when social critics are peer-pressured into silence. They only get ruder. One currently worsening national plague is the shopper who remains engrossed in a call throughout a transaction with a checkout clerk. The typical combination in my own neighborhood, in Manhattan, involves a young white woman, recently graduated from someplace expensive, and a local black or Hispanic woman of roughly the same age but fewer advantages. It is, of course, a liberal vanity to expect your checkout clerk to interact with you or to appreciate the scrupulousness of your determination to interact with her. Given the repetitive and low-paying nature of her job, she’s allowed to treat you with boredom or indifference; at worst, it’s unprofessional of her. But this does not relieve you of your own moral obligation to acknowledge her existence as a person. And while it’s true that some clerks don’t seem to mind being ignored, a notably large percentage do become visibly irritated or angered or saddened when a customer is unable to tear herself off her phone for even two seconds of direct interaction. Needless to say, the offender herself, like the chatty freeway driver, is blissfully unaware of pissing anybody off. In my experience, the longer the line behind her, the more likely it is she’ll pay for her $1.98 purchase with a credit card. And not the tap-and-go microchip kind of credit card, either, but the wait-for-the-printed-receipt-and-then-(only then)-with-zombiesh-clumsiness-begin-shifting-the-cell-phone-from-one-ear-to-the-other-and-awkwardly-pin-the-phone-with-ear-to-shoulder-while-signing-the-receipt-and-continuing-to-express-doubt-about-whether-she-really-feels-like-meeting-up-with-that-Morgan-Stanley-guy-Zachary-at-the-Etats-Unis-wine-bar-again-tonight kind of credit card.
There is, to be sure, one positive social consequence of these worsening misbehaviors. The abstract notion of civilized public spaces, as rare resources worth defending, may be all but dead, but there’s still consolation to be found in the momentary ad hoc microcommunities of fellow sufferers that bad behaviors create. To look out your car window and see the steam coming out of another driver’s ears, or to meet the eyes of a pissed-off checkout clerk and to shake your head along with her: it makes you feel a little less alone.
Which is why, of all the worsening varieties of bad cell-phone behavior, the one that most deeply irritates me is the one that seems, because it is ostensibly victimless, to irritate nobody else. I’m talking about the habit, uncommon 10 years ago, now ubiquitous, of ending cell-phone conversations by braying the words “LOVE YOU!” Or, even more oppressive and grating: “I LOVE YOU!” It makes me want to go and live in China, where I don’t understand the language. It makes me want to scream.
The cellular component of my irritation is straightforward. I simply do not, while buying socks at the Gap, or standing in a ticket line and pursuing my private thoughts, or trying to read a novel on a plane that’s being boarded, want to be imaginatively drawn into the sticky world of some nearby human being’s home life. The very essence of the cell phone’s hideousness, as a social phenomenon–the bad news that stays bad news–is that it enables and encourages the inflicting of the personal and individual on the public and communal. And there is no higher-caliber utterance than “I love you”–nothing worse that an individual can inflict on a communal public space. Even “Fuck you, dickhead” is less invasive, since it’s the kind of thing that angry people do sometimes shout in public, and it can just as easily be directed at a stranger.
My friend Elisabeth assures me that the new national plague of love yous is a good thing: a healthy reaction against the repressed family dynamics of our Protestant childhoods some decades ago. What could be wrong, Elisabeth asks, with telling your mother that you love her, or with hearing from her that she loves you? What if one of you dies before you can speak again? Isn’t it nice that we can say these things to each other so freely now?
I do here admit the possibility that, compared with everyone else on the airport concourse, I am an extraordinarily cold and unloving person; that the sudden overwhelming sensation of loving somebody (a friend, a spouse, a parent, a sibling), which to me is such an important and signal sensation that I’m at pains not to wear out the phrase that best expresses it, is for other people so common and routine and easily achieved that it can be reëxperienced and reëxpressed many times in a single day without significant loss of power.
It’s also possible, however, that too-frequent habitual repetition empties phrases of their meaning. Joni Mitchell, in the last verse of “Both Sides Now,” referenced the solemn amazement of saying I love you “right out loud”: of giving vocal birth to such intensity of feeling. Stevie Wonder, in lyrics written 17 years later, sings of calling somebody up on an ordinary afternoon simply to say “I love you,” and being Stevie Wonder (who probably really is a more loving person than I am), he half succeeds in making me believe in his sincerity–at least until the last line of the chorus, where he finds it necessary to add: “And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.” No such avowal is thinkable for the person who really does mean something from the bottom of his heart.
And, just so, when I’m buying those socks at the Gap and the mom in line behind me shouts “I love you!” into her little phone, I am powerless not to feel that something is being performed; overperformed; publicly performed; defiantly inflicted. Yes, a lot of domestic things get shouted in public which really aren’t intended for public consumption; yes, people get carried away. But the phrase “I love you” is too important and loaded, and its use as a sign-off too self-conscious, for me to believe I’m being made to hear it accidentally. If the mother’s declaration of love had genuine, private emotional weight, wouldn’t she take at least a little care to guard it from public hearing? If she truly meant what she was saying, from the bottom of her heart, wouldn’t she have to say it quietly? Overhearing her, as a stranger, I have the feeling of being made party to an aggressive assertion of entitlement. At a minimum, the person is saying to me and to everyone else present: “My emotions and my family are more important to me than your social comfort.” And also, often enough, I suspect: “I want you all to know that unlike many people, including my cold bastard of a father, I am the kind of person who always tells my loved ones that I love them.”
Or am I, in my admittedly now rather lunatic-sounding irritation, simply projecting all this?
The cell phone came of age on September 11, 2001. Imprinted that day on our collective consciousness was the image of cell phones as conduits of intimacy for the desperate. In every too-loud I love you that I hear nowadays, as in the more general national orgy of connectedness–the imperative for parents and children to connect by phone once or twice or five or ten times daily–it’s difficult not to hear an echo of those terrible, entirely appropriate, heartbreaking I love yous uttered on the four doomed planes and in the two doomed towers. And it’s precisely this echo, the fact that it’s an echo, the sentimentality of it, that so irritates me.
My own experience of 9/11 was anomalous for the lack of television in it. At nine in the morning, I got a phone call from my book editor, who, from his office window, had just seen the second plane hit the towers. I did immediately go to the nearest TV, in the conference room of the real-estate office downstairs from my apartment, and watch with a group of agents as first one tower and then the other went down. But then my girlfriend came home and we spent the rest of the day listening to the radio, checking the Internet, reassuring our families, and watching from our roof and from the middle of Lexington Avenue (which was filled with pedestrians streaming uptown) as the dust and smoke at the bottom of Manhattan diffused into a sickening pall. In the evening, we walked down to 42nd Street and met up with an out-of-town friend and found an unremarkable Italian restaurant in the West 40s which happened to be serving dinner. Every table was packed with people drinking heavily; the mood was wartime. I got another brief glimpse of a TV screen, this one showing the face of George W. Bush, as we were departing through the restaurant’s bar. “He looks like a scared mouse,” somebody said. Sitting on a 6 train at Grand Central, waiting for it to move, we watched a New York commuter angrily complain to a conductor about the lack of express service to the Bronx.
Three nights later, from 11:00 p.m. to nearly 3:00 a.m., I sat in a frigid room at ABC News from which I could see my fellow New Yorker David Halberstam and speak by video link to Maya Angelou and a couple of other out-of-town writers while we waited to offer Ted Koppel a literary perspective on Tuesday morning’s attacks. The wait was not short. Footage of the attacks and the ensuing collapses and fires was shown again and again, interspersed with long segments on the emotional toll on ordinary citizens and their impressionable children. Every once in a while, one or two of us writers would have 60 seconds to say something writerly before the coverage reverted to more carnage and wrenching interviews with friends and family of the dead and the missing. I spoke four times in three and a half hours. The second time, I was asked to confirm widespread reports that Tuesday’s attacks had profoundly changed the personality of New Yorkers. I could not confirm these reports. I said that the faces I had seen were somber, not angry, and I described seeing people shopping in the stores in my neighborhood on Wednesday afternoon, buying fall clothes. Ted Koppel, in his response, made clear that I’d failed at the task I’d been waiting half the night to perform. With a frown, he said that his own impression was very different: that the attacks had indeed profoundly changed the personality of New York City.
Naturally, I assumed that I was speaking truth and Koppel merely retransmitting received opinion. But Koppel had been watching TV and I had not. I didn’t understand that the worst damage to the country was being done not by the pathogen but by the immune system’s massive overresponse to it, because I didn’t have a TV. I was mentally comparing Tuesday’s death toll with other tallies of violent death–3,000 Americans killed in traffic accidents in the 30 days preceding September 11–because, not seeing the images, I thought the numbers mattered. I was devoting energy to imagining, or resisting imagining, the horror of sitting in a window seat while your plane came in low along the West Side Highway, or of being trapped on the 95th floor and hearing the steel structure below you begin to groan and rumble, while the rest of the country was experiencing actual real-time trauma by watching the same footage over and over. And so I was not in need of–was, for a while, not even aware of–the national televised group therapy session, the vast techno-hugathon, that unfolded in the following days and weeks and months in response to the trauma of exposure to televised images.
What I could see was the sudden, mysterious, disastrous sentimentalization of American public discourse. And just as I can’t help blaming cellular technology when people pour parental or filial affection into their phones and rudeness onto every stranger within earshot, I can’t help blaming media technology for the national foregrounding of the personal. Unlike in, say, 1941, when the United States responded to a terrible attack with collective resolve and discipline and sacrifice, in 2001 we had terrific visuals. We had amateur footage and could break it down frame by frame. We had screens to bring the violence raw into every bedroom in the country, and voice mail to record the desperate final calls of the doomed, and late-model psychology to explicate and heal our trauma. But as for what the attacks actually signified, and what a sensible response to them might look like, attitudes varied. This was the wonderful thing about digital technology: No more hurtful censoring of anybody’s feelings! Everybody entitled to express his or her own opinion! Whether or not Saddam Hussein had personally bought plane tickets for the hijackers therefore remained open to lively debate. What everybody agreed to agree on, instead, was that the families of 9/11’s victims had a right to approve or veto plans for the memorial at Ground Zero. And everybody could share in the pain experienced by the families of the fallen cops and firefighters. And everybody agreed that irony was dead. The bad, empty irony of the ’90s was simply “no longer possible” post-9/11; we’d stepped forward into a new age of sincerity.
On the plus side, Americans in 2001 were a lot better at saying “I love you” to their children than their fathers or grandfathers had been. But competing economically? Pulling together as a nation? Defeating our enemies? Forming strong international alliances? Perhaps a bit of a minus side there.
My parents met two years after Pearl Harbor, in the fall of 1943, and within a few months they were exchanging cards and letters. My father worked for the Great Northern Railway and was often on the road, in small towns, inspecting or repairing bridges, while my mother stayed in Minneapolis and worked as a receptionist. Of the letters from him to her in my possession, the oldest is from Valentine’s Day 1944. He was in Fairview, Montana, and my mother had sent him a Valentine’s card in the style of all her cards in the year leading up to their marriage: sweetly drawn babies or toddlers or baby animals voicing sweet sentiments. The front of her valentine (which my father likewise saved) shows a pigtailed little girl and a blushing little boy standing beside each other with their eyes bashfully averted and their hands tucked bashfully behind their backs.
I wish I were a little rock,
‘Cause then when I grew older,
Maybe I would find some day
I was a little “boulder.”
Inside the card is a drawing of the same two kids, but holding hands now, with my mother’s cursive signature (“Irene”) at the feet of the little girl. A second verse reads:
And that would really help a lot
It sure would suit me fine,
For I’d be “bould” enough to say,
“Please be my Valentine.”
My father’s letter in response was postmarked Fairview, Montana, February 14.
Tuesday Evening
Dear Irene,
I’m sorry to have disappointed you on Valentine’s Day; I did remember but after not being able to get one at the drugstore, I felt a little foolish about asking at the grocery or hardware store. I’m sure they have heard about Valentine’s Day out here. Your card fit the situation out here perfectly and I’m not sure if it were intentional or accidental, but I guess I did tell about our rock troubles. Today we ran out of rock so I’m wishing for little rocks, big rocks or any kind of rocks as there is nothing we can do until we get some. There is little enough for me to do when the contractor is working and now there is nothing at all. Today I hiked out to the bridge where we are working just to kill time and get a little exercise; it’s about four miles which is far enough with a sharp wind blowing. Unless we get rock on the freight in the morning, I’m going to sit right here and read philosophy; it hardly seems right that I should get paid for putting in that kind of day. About the only other pastime around here is to sit in the hotel lobby and take in the town gossip, and the old timers who haunt the place can sure put it out. You would get a kick out of it because there is sure a broad cross section of life represented here–from the local doctor down to the town drunk. And the last is probably the most interesting; I heard that he taught at the University of N.D. at one time, and he seems really to be quite an intelligent person, even when drunk. Normally the talk is pretty rough, about like Steinbeck must have used for a pattern, but this evening there came in a great big woman who made herself right at home. It all sort of makes me realize how sheltered a life we city people live. I grew up in a small town and feel quite at home here but I somehow now seem to view things differently. You will hear more of this.
I hope to get back to St. Paul on Saturday night but cannot tell for certain now. I’ll call you when I get in.
With all my love,
Earl
My father had recently turned 29. It’s impossible to know how my mother, in her innocence and optimism, received his letter at the time, but in general, considering the woman I grew up knowing, I can say that it was absolutely not the sort of letter she would have wanted from her romantic interest. Her valentine’s cutely punning conceit taken literally as a reference to track ballast? And she, who spent her whole life shuddering free of the hotel bar where her father had worked as a bartender, getting a kick out of hearing “rough talk” from the town drunk? Where were the endearments? Where were the dreamy discussions of love? It was obvious that my father still had a lot to learn about her.
To me, though, his letter seems full of love. Love for my mother, certainly: he’s tried to get her a valentine, he’s read her card carefully, he wishes she were with him, he has ideas he wants to share with her, he’s sending all his love, he’ll call her as soon as he’s back. But love, too, for the larger world: for the varieties of people in it, for small towns and big cities, for philosophy and literature, for hard work and fair pay, for conversation, for thinking, for long walks in a sharp wind, for carefully chosen words and perfect spelling. The letter reminds me of the many things I loved in my father, his decency, his intelligence, his unexpected humor, his curiosity, his conscientiousness, his reserve and dignity. Only when I place it alongside the valentine from my mother, with its big-eyed babies and preoccupation with pure sentiment, does my focus shift to the decades of mutual disappointment that followed my parents’ first few years of half-seeing bliss.
Late in life, my mother complained to me that my father had never told her that he loved her. And it may literally be true that he never spoke the big three words to her–I certainly never heard him do it. But it’s definitely not true that he never wrote the words. One reason it took me years to summon the courage to read their old correspondence is that the first letter of my father’s that I glanced at, after my mother died, began with an endearment (“Irenie”) that I had never heard him utter in the 35 years I knew him, and it ended with a declaration (“I love you, Irene”) that was more than I could stand to see. It sounded nothing like him, and so I buried all the letters in a trunk in my brother’s attic. More recently, when I retrieved the letters and managed to read through them all, I discovered that my father had in fact declared his love dozens of times, using the big three words, both before and after he married my mother. But maybe, even then, he’d been incapable of saying the words out loud, and maybe this was why, in my mother’s memory, he’d never “said” them at all. It’s also possible that his written declarations had sounded as strange and untrue to his character in the 1940s as they now sound to me, and that my mother, in her complaints, was remembering a deeper truth now concealed by his seemingly affectionate words. It’s possible that, in guilty response to the onslaught of sentiment he was getting from her notes to him (“I love you with all my heart,” “With oh so much love,” etc.), he’d felt obliged to perform romantic love in return, or to try to perform it, the way he’d tried (sort of) to buy a valentine in Fairview, Montana.
“Both Sides Now,” in the Judy Collins version, was the first pop song that ever stuck in my head. It was getting heavy radio play when I was eight or nine, and its reference to declaring love “right out loud,” combined with the crush I had on Judy Collins’s voice, helped to ensure that for me the primary import of “I love you” was sexual. I did eventually live through the ’70s and become capable, in rare accesses of emotion, of telling my brothers and many of my best male friends that I loved them. But throughout grade school and junior high, the words had only one meaning for me. “I love you” was the phrase I wanted to see scrawled on a note from the cutest girl in the class or to hear whispered in the woods on a school picnic. It happened only a couple of times, in those years, that a girl I liked actually said or wrote this to me. But when it did happen, it came as a shot of pure adrenaline. Even after I got to college and started reading Wallace Stevens and found him making fun, in “Le Monocle de Mon Oncle,” of indiscriminately love-seeking people like me–
If sex were all, then every trembling hand
Could make us squeak, like dolls, the wished-for words–
–those wished-for words continued to signify the opening of a mouth, the offering of a body, the promise of intoxicating intimacy.
And so it was highly awkward that the person I constantly heard these words from was my mother. She was the only woman in a house of males, and she lived with such an excess of unrequitable feeling that she couldn’t help reaching for romantic expressions of it. The cards and endearments that she bestowed on me were identical in spirit to the ones she’d once bestowed on my father. Long before I was born, her effusions had come to seem intolerably babyish to my father. To me, though, they weren’t nearly babyish enough. I went to elaborate lengths to avoid reciprocating them. I survived many stretches of my childhood, the long weeks in which the two of us were alone in the house together, by clinging to crucial distinctions in intensity between the phrases “I love you”; “I love you, too”; and “Love you.” The one thing that was vital was never, ever to say “I love you” or “I love you, Mom.” The least painful alternative was a muttered, essentially inaudible “Love you.” But “I love you, too,” if pronounced rapidly enough and with enough emphasis on the “too,” which implied rote responsiveness, could carry me through many an awkward moment. I don’t remember that she ever specifically called me out on my mumbling or gave me a hard time if (as sometimes happened) I was incapable of responding with anything more than an evasive grunt. But she also never told me that saying “I love you” was simply something she enjoyed doing because her heart was full of feeling, and that I shouldn’t feel I had to say “I love you” in return every time. And so, to this day, when I’m assaulted by the shouting of “I love you” into a cell phone, I hear coercion.
My father, despite writing letters filled with life and curiosity, saw nothing wrong with consigning my mother to four decades of cooking and cleaning at home while he was enjoying his agency out in the world of men. It seems to be the rule, in both the small world of marriage and the big world of American life, that those without agency have sentimentality and vice versa. The various post-9/11 hysterias, both the plague of I love yous and the widespread fear and hatred of the ragheads, were hysterias of the powerless and overwhelmed. If my mother had had greater scope for accomplishment, she might have tailored her sentiments more realistically to their objects.
Cold or repressed or sexist though my father may appear by contemporary standards, I’m grateful that he never told me, in so many words, that he loved me. My father loved privacy, which is to say: he respected the public sphere. He believed in restraint and protocol and reason, because without them, he believed, it was impossible for a society to debate and make decisions in its best interest. It might have been nice, especially for me, if he’d learned how to be more demonstrative with my mother. But every time I hear one of those brayed parental cellular I love yous nowadays, I feel lucky to have had the dad I did. He loved his kids more than anything. And to know that he felt it and couldn’t say it; to know that he could trust me to know he felt it and never expect him to say it: this was the very core and substance of the love I felt for him. A love that I in turn was careful never to declare out loud to him.
And yet: this was the easy part. Between me and the place where my dad is now–i.e., dead–nothing but silence can be transmitted. Nobody has more privacy than the dead. My dad and I aren’t saying a whole lot less to each other now than we did in many a year when he was alive. The person I find myself actively missing–mentally arguing with, wanting to show stuff to, wishing to see in my apartment, making fun of, feeling remorse about–is my mother. The part of me that’s angered by cellular intrusions comes from my father. The part of me that loves my BlackBerry and wants to lighten up and join the world comes from my mother. She was the more modern of the two of them, and although he, not she, was the one with agency, she ended up on the winning side. If she were still alive and still living in St. Louis, and if you happened to be sitting next to me in Lambert Airport, waiting for a New York-bound flight, you might have to suffer through hearing me tell her that I love her. I would keep my voice down, though.
Jonathan Franzen is the author of the novels The Twenty-Seventh City, Strong Motion, and The Corrections, as well as the nonfiction works How to Be Alone and The Discomfort Zone.The figures for 2014 showed China had 799,000 hectares (1.97 million acres) of land devoted to wine growing, compared with 1.02 million hectares for Spain.
France remained the biggest producer of wine in the world, pumping out 47 million hectolitres last year. It also made the most from selling wine abroad, raking in more than 7.7 billion euros ($8.4 billion).
Spain outstrips France and Italy in wine exports
Meanwhile, the United States is the biggest consumer, quaffing some 31,000 hectolitres -- 13 percent of the global intake -- followed by France and Italy.
China has rapidly emerged as a major player in viniculture, accounting for 11 percent of the territory given over to vineyards last year, up from 4 percent in 2000.
The biggest importers of wine were Germany, the United Kingdom and the US -- with total global trade valued at 26 billion euros.
China has rapidly emerged as a major player in viniculture, accounting for 11 percent of the territory given over to vineyards last year, up from 4 percent in 2000.
"They are plantations of dozens, even hundreds, of thousands of hectares created with Chinese money, but using the foreign expertise of wine-growers from Australia, the United States, Spain, France and Italy," said Jean-Marie Aurand, head of the IOVW.
He said many young Chinese were also travelling abroad to learn the arts of the trade, while China was now developing its own training centres.
Europe has purposefully shrunk its vineyards in a bid to improve quality and efficiency, and push up prices. Under a 2008-2011 plan, the European Union sought to reduce them by a total of 94,000 hectares per year.
France has lost a tenth of its wine-growing area in the past decade without threatening its comfortable lead in the production tables.JACKSONVILLE – The defending American Conference Champion Jacksonville Sharks have concluded training camp and have announced their team’s initial 24-man roster for the 2016 season.
Fourteen key players return to the team after last year’s championship run, including all offensive starters. Four of these offensive starters received All-Arena accolades in 2015, including OL Mo Ruffins, FB Derrick Ross, WR Joe Hills and WR Tiger Jones. Tommy Grady will return to the helm at Quarterback for his sixth AFL season (second in Jacksonville). Grady led the Sharks last season with 95 TDs and 4,660 passing yards. The Sharks have added QB Sean Brackett, WR Roger Jackson and OL Duke Robinson to the offensive side of the ball. Sean Brackett will serve as Grady’s back up for the 2016 season. Brackett enters his second season in the AFL after a solid season with the Las Vegas Outlaws in 2015 where threw for 23 TDs and passed for 1,114 yards in his rookie season. Jackson played for New Orleans in 2015, snaring 74 balls for 924 yards and 16 TDs. Under appreciated OL standouts Ray McNeil and Cornelius Lewis round the rest of the O-line which led the League in only 8 sacks against in 2015.
The front four of the defense has been completely revamped and will be led by veteran MLB Dexter Jackson who played the last two years for the Tampa Bay Storm and DE Khreem Smith.who has 8 years of pro experience in the AFL and CFL.. Rookie Laith Wallschleger and veterans Anthony DeGrate, Jason Holman and Antron Dillon round out the other DEs. The Sharks will look at veteran Mark Weivoda and newly acquired Chuckie Hunter to apply pressure up the middle at the NG position. Most noticeably missing from this year’s squad is 2015 Defensive Lineman of the Year, Joe Sykes, who is contemplating retirement and has not reported.
The Sharks’ secondary will contain familiar faces this season, including FSU product and 2015 Rookie of the Year and All-Arena DB Greg Reid, fan-favorite Laroche Jackson, Chris Smith, Micheaux Robinson, David Hyland and All-Arena product Alvin Ray Jackson.
Jacksonville University standout WR Andrew Robustelli also made the squad, but will be placed on IR to start the season.
Below is a list of the 24-Man Roster:
Tommy Grady, QB Derrick Ross, FB Mo Ruffins, OL Tiger Jones, WR
Sean Brackett, QB Ray McNeil, OL Joe Hills, WR
Cornelius Lewis, OL London Crawford, WR
Duke Robinson, OL Roger Jackson, WR
Jason Holman, OL/DL Andrew Robustelli, WR (IR)
Greg Reid, DB Dexter Jackson, MLB Khreem Smith, DE,NG
Laroche Jackson, DB Laith Wallschelger, DE
Chris Smith, DB Mark Weivoda, NG (IAR)
David Hyland, DB/WR/JLB Antron Dillon, DE
Micheaux Robinson, DB Anthony DeGrate, DE
Alvin Ray Jackson, DB/JLB Chucky Hunter, NG
About the Jacksonville Sharks
The Jacksonville Sharks are members of the Arena Football League (AFL). The ArenaBowl XXIV and four-time South Division Champions are presented by Sea Best Seafood and play all home games on Sea Best Field at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena. Season Tickets for the 2016 season are now available, two tickets as low as $99. To reserve your season tickets or for more information, please call (904) 621-0700. Follow the Sharks on facebook at facebook.com/jaxsharks and on Twitter @jaxsharks, as well as the Attack Dance Team at facebook.com/ sharkattackdance and Chum at facebook.com/chumsharks.Bleeding Cool reporter Marilyn Weiss writes:
Once again, the San Diego Public Library has partnered with Comic-Con International to bring back their special series of panels called Talking Comics with America’s Educators: The Comic Conference for Educators and Librarians. This is its own free five-day mini conference that takes play during Comic-Con. The series focuses specifically on libraries and educators, and presents new innovative ways to include comics and graphic novels in the educational process.
On Thursday morning at the Creators, Libraries, and Literacy panel, librarians and educators got to meet Raina Telgemeier, Matt Holm, Molly Ostertag, Zander Cannon and Mike Lawrence and discuss the impact that libraries and librarians had on their work. The general consensus was simple: libraries are a safe place of exploration. Or, as Telegemeier lovingly stated about them, “There’s a giant heart above my head.”
Each of the creators credited their love of books and comics to having library access as children. Libraries gave many of them a place to explore all different types of literature without any barriers. And, possibly just as important, it acted as a physically safe place to stay cool and out of trouble.
Unfortunately, comics have not always been embraced by parents and teachers as educationally valuable medium. But Lawrence credited the changing attitude towards comics in education to librarians who work hard to get comics into the hands of kids. He claimed that one of the biggest confidence boots he can get is librarians telling him that his books are always checked out and that he wouldn’t be where he is now without “librarians fighting a lot of our battles for us.”
The panel also offered some advice to educators looking for better ways to better support comic creators: support independent and self-published comics. Ostertag suggested that libraries could start by purchasing self-published mini-comics and getting in touch with creators at local comic book stores.
Panel attendees got to head home with a couple of freebees, including Ghosts by Telgemeier, as well as advanced readers copies of Swing It, Sunny by Matt and Jennifer Holm and The Witch Boy by Ostertag.
And speaking of libraries, be sure to stop and say hi to the San Diego Public Library at booth #5523. Attendees can sign up for a library card and pick up one of three officially licensed Comic-Con Library cards. There are three exclusive designs to choose from. The cards were designed by local artists Vince Alvendia, Robert McKeone, and Abbita Royster.
About Ray Flook Prouldy serving as TV Editor, Ray started with Bleeding Cool in 2013 as a contributing writer/photographer before being brought aboard as staff in 2017. Counting John Cusack as his pop culture "spirit animal," his "word fu" stays strong as he continues trying really hard to be the sheppard...
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None foundIn January, conservative blogger Milo Yiannopoulos launched the Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant, a scholarship for white men only. It was designed as a deliberate provocation to rile up liberals — but the money, at least, seemed to be headed toward college scholarships.
What happened to it? We now have an answer: The Daily Beast reported today that the money is sitting in Yiannopoulos' private accounts, and no one has seen a cent.
Twitter Milo Yiannopoulos
Yiannopoulos is best known as a provocateur demagogue of the "alternative right" movement, a horde of self-stylized right-wing intellectuals with misogynistic, xenophobic and anti-Semitic leanings. Yiannopoulos travels the country on his "Dangerous Faggot" tour, where he speaks at colleges with the intention of provoking campus activists.
When Yiannopoulos announced the Privilege Grant, he said it would be "exclusively available to white men who wish to pursue their post-secondary education on equal footing with their female, queer and ethnic minority classmates." The money was supposed to be doled out in "early summer 2016."
But the Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant hasn't yet filed the paperwork that would make it a legal nonprofit. "No scholarships have been awarded," the Daily Beast reported, "and the charity's website shows there isn't even a way for prospective students to apply for them." (Mic reached out to Yiannopoulos for comment.)
The accounting behind the scholarship fund came to light when Margaret MacLennan, a conservative YouTuber who helped Yiannopoulos fundraise, posted a sarcastic tweet showing that Yiannopoulos
was wiring money intended for the grant into a personal bank account.
We all know I clearly profited from donations made to the Grant. @NormalBotpic.twitter.com/je8MHetIaf
Yiannopoulos claims he's currently in the process of filing paperwork to legitimize the scholarship fund as a real charity, but the Daily Beast's legal experts say that waiting this long after collecting thousands of dollars in donations is potentially illegal.
Yiannopoulos has come under fire for financial delinquency before: In 2013, as the editor-in-chief of a blog called the Kernel, he had to answer to British investigators over unpaid wages.
During his 2015 crusade against New York Daily News columnist Shaun King, Yiannopoulos accused King of mishandling hundreds of thousands of dollars raised on behalf of families who lost loved ones to police violence. He asked King, "How is anyone supposed to verify that the funds you raise end up with the people they are supposed to benefit?"
Yiannopoulos now has to account for that question himself.EK releases RGB monoblock for GIGABYTE® Z270X motherboards
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Reagan didn’t radiate it and also didn’t attract it. He went on, in a genial enough way, to destroy the Democratic “New Deal” coalition. I don’t think Gov. Palin has quite that sort of folksy charisma, but I am still not sure it’s entirely wise to patronize her.
Interviewed by Rick Warren at the grotesque Saddleback megachurch a short while ago, Sen. Barack Obama announced that Jesus had died on the cross to redeem him personally. How he knew this he did not say. But it will make it exceedingly difficult for him, or his outriders and apologists, to ridicule Palin for her own ludicrous biblical literalist beliefs. She has inarticulately said that her gubernatorial work would be hampered “if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with god.” Her local shout-and-holler tabernacle apparently believes that Jews can be converted to Jesus and homosexuals can be “cured.” I cannot wait to see Obama and Biden explain how this isn’t the case or how it’s much worse than, and quite different from, Obama’s own raving and ranting pastor in Chicago or Biden’s lifelong allegiance to the most anti-“choice” church on the planet. The difference, if there is one, is that Palin is probably sincere whereas the Democratic team is almost certainly hypocritical. The same is true of the boring contest over who can be the most populist, and of the positively sinister race to see who can be the most demagogically anti-Washington. With this kind of immaturity right across both tickets, it’s insulting to be asked to decide on the basis of experience, let alone “readiness.”The Houston Astros grabbed all of our attentions a couple of weeks ago, when they rattled off 10 wins in a row and vaulted to the top of the American League West. They’ve cooled off quite a bit since, going 3-6 since that streak. Yet, despite their recent struggles, they had built up enough of a cushion to maintain a.618 winning percentage and a four-game lead over the second place Angels. Not bad for a team that lost 111 games just two seasons ago.
The Astros have a very good record, and a decent shot at making the playoffs (45% by our calculator), but their roster isn’t without holes. And perhaps none of these holes is bigger than the one at shortstop. Currently, the Astros are employing Marwin Gonzalez as their primary shortstop, with a little bit of Jonathan Villar on the side. To date, these two have wRC+s of 68 and 30, respectively, and have contributed a total of -0.5 WAR.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Astros signed Jed Lowrie to a three-year contract back in December to play shortstop, but he lasted all of three weeks before landing on the shelf with a thumb injury. As of this writing, Lowrie’s on the 60-day DL and isn’t expected to return until sometime after the All-Star break.
Gonzalez and Vilar are unlikely to contribute much value for the Astros going forward. And, given the nature of Lowrie’s injury, it’s anyone’s guess whether he’ll be of much use in the season’s second half. The immediate future looks pretty bleak for the Astros at short, but help is on the way. The Astros promoted top prospect Carlos Correa to Triple-A on Tuesday, putting him just a step away from the big leagues.
Correa’s promotion was certainly warranted. He hit an absurd.385/.459/.726 in 29 Double-A games this year, and was also went a perfect 15-for-15 in stolen-base attempts. If he does anything remotely close to that in Triple-A, the Astros brass will be tempted to — and likely will — plug Correa into the lineup sooner rather than later.
As you probably know, Correa’s been one of the best prospects in baseball for the last couple of years. And with the recent promotions of Kris Bryant and Addison Russell, he’s arguably the best prospect still in the minor leagues. Heading into the season, Kiley McDaniel ranked him as our fifth-best prospect, trailing only Bryant, Russell, Byron Buxton and Julio Urias.
Since the Astros took Correa with the #1 overall pick back in 2012, he’s hit a remarkable.316/.396/.494 in the minors. That’s pretty darn impressive for a shortstop. It’s even more impressive considering he’s been exceptionally young for his league every step of the way. He wRC+’d 147 as an 18-year-old in the Midwest League, and then posted a 144 mark as a 19-year-old in the California League. Now, at the tender age of 20, he’s doing more of the same in the high minors.
Correa’s demonstrated excellent control of the strike zone — leading to few strikeouts and many walks — in his baseball career. Last year, in High-A, Correa posted walk and strikeout rates of 12% and 15%, respectively. Both of these figures were markedly better than the California League average. His rates were very similar in 2013: 11% and 16%.
Correa’s strikeout and walk numbers have been on point this year as well. This is a notable accomplishment, as Double-A is the level where a hitter’s walk rate starts to gain substantial predictive value. However, Correa’s breakout campaign hasn’t really been a function of his controlling the strike zone. Instead, it’s had to do with his hitting, and the massive amounts of damage he’s done when he’s made contact.
Including his seven home runs, Correa put the ball in play 93 times in his brief stint with Double-A. And based on the results, it appears that many of those 93 were hit exceptionally hard. In addition to the seven that left the ballpark, 17 more resulted in extra-base hits and 21 more fell in for singles. Unsurprisingly, both his isolated power (.342) and BABIP (.447) were tops in the Texas League by a wide margin.
Neither hitting for power nor running a high BABIP are out of the ordinary for Correa. He did both of these things at an above-average clip in A-Ball as well, but has really outdone himself this season. Of course, it’s well documented that a hitter’s fate on balls in play has more to do with luck than skill. The same also goes for power in small samples. Even so, Correa’s performance to date suggests the power might be starting to coalesce, and that he might be moving towards the 55-power, 20-homer ceiling that Kiley McDaniel anticipates.
Correa’s excellent-but-mortal 2014 campaign graded out extremely well by my KATOH system. His forecasted 7.4 WAR through age-28 ranked 25th among prospects heading into the year. I’m working on integrating regressed stats (rather than raw ones) into my KATOH model, so I’ll hold off on plugging Correa’s 2015 performance into the KATOH machine. Small sample, high-BABIP stat lines are exactly the types of performances that will be addressed with this change.
Instead let’s look at some comps for Correa and his monster 2015 numbers. Using league-adjusted, regressed stats (a new feature!), along with age, I calculated the Mahalanobis distance between Correa’s Double-A performance and every Double-A season since 1990 in which a batter recorded at least 400 plate appearances. Below, you’ll find a list of historical players whose performances were nearest and dearest to Correa’s, ranked from most to least similar.
And here’s a list containing only the players who made the majority of their starts at shortstop.
*Batters who have yet to play their age-28 seasons.
I’ve compiled several of these comps lists since I started writing for FanGraphs, but I think this one’s the best I’ve seen to date, especially due to the guys at the top of the list. Cliff Floyd, Mike Cameron and Chris Young all turned into fine players. And although he’s yet to play his age-28 season, that Mike Trout kid is supposed to be pretty good, too. There weren’t all that many shortstops who approximated what Correa did in the minors, but several of those who came closest had solid careers. Some of the more prominent ones include Alex Gonzalez (the erstwhile Blue Jay, who retired in 2007), Erick Aybar and Alfonso Soriano.
Up to this point, I’ve written exclusively about Correa’s offensive exploits. That’s bound to happen when writing about a player whose OPS is pushing 1.200. But Correa’s much more than just an interesting bat. He also plays a fine defensive shortstop — Kiley gives his fielding a 50 and his arm a 65. A hitter like Correa, who can also play some defense, makes for a pretty exciting player.
So Carlos Correa looks like he’ll be pretty good. The more pressing question for the Astros, however, is whether he can be good right now. That’s a little harder to say. On the one hand, he’s absolutely demolished the minors these past few weeks. His Double-A stat line suggests he’s absolutely ready. At the same time, though, it took place over the course of 30 just games. Five weeks ago, Correa was a 20-year-old coming off of a broken leg, who had never played above A-Ball. I’m not sure if 140 plate appearances of excellence is sufficient evidence that he’s big-league ready.
Steamer, which theoretically takes all of this into account, seems to think he can hold his own, at least. The system pegs him for a 92 wRC+ from here on out. That would be more than cromulent for a shortstop. Less than half — 11 of 23 — of qualified shortstops are hitting better than that this season.
Based on his minor0league performance, Correa looks like he’s just about ready for the show. Whether he gets the call tomorrow, next month or three months from now remains to be seen, but it’s hard to imagine the Astros will hold him down too much longer. This is especially true given their lack of alternatives. In any event, all evidence suggests that Correa has a bright future ahead of him. Shortstops who hit like he does are few and far between. And players who dominate Double-A like Correa has often go on to do big things in the majors. Now, we play the waiting game.The Bloggers' FAQ on Intellectual Property addresses issues that arise when you publish material created by others on your blog.
Questions About Copyright
I found something interesting on someone else's blog. May I quote it?
Yes. Short quotations will usually be fair use, not copyright infringement. The Copyright Act says that "fair use...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." So if you are commenting on or criticizing an item someone else has posted, you have a fair use right to quote. The law favors "transformative" uses — commentary, either praise or criticism, is better than straight copying — but courts have said that even putting a piece of an existing work into a new context (such as a thumbnail in an image search engine) counts as "transformative." The blog's author might also have granted you even more generous rights through a Creative Commons license, so you should check for that as well.
What is fair use?
There are no hard and fast rules for fair use (and anyone who tells you that a set number of words or percentage of a work is "fair" is talking about guidelines, not the law). The Copyright Act sets out four factors for courts to look at (17 U.S.C. § 107):
The purpose and character of the use. Transformative uses are favored over mere copying. Non-commercial uses are also more likely fair.
The nature of the copyrighted work. Is the original factual in nature or fiction? Published or unpublished? Creative and unpublished works get more protection under copyright, while using factual material is more often fair use.
The amount and substantiality of the portion used. Copying nearly all of a work, or copying its "heart" is less likely to be fair.
The effect on the market or potential market. This factor is often held to be the most important in the analysis, and it applies even if the original is given away for free. If you use the copied work in a way that substitutes for the original in the market, it's unlikely to be a fair use; uses that serve a different audience or purpose are more likely fair. Linking to the original may also help to diminish the substitution effect. Note that criticism or parody that has the side effect of reducing a market may be fair because of its transformative character. In other words, if your criticism of a product is so powerful that people stop buying the product, that doesn't count as having an "effect on the market for the work" under copyright law.
May I freely copy from federal government documents?
Yes. Works produced by the US government, or any government agency or person acting in a government capacity, are in the public domain. So are the texts of legal cases and statutes from state or federal government. Private contractors working for the government, however, can transfer copyrights to the US government.
Am I free to copy facts and ideas?
Yes. You are free to report the facts and ideas embodied in another person's article or web page. Copyright only protects the expression — the combination of words and structure that expresses the factual information — not the facts themselves.
How does a Creative Commons license help?
Creative Commons licenses provide a standard way for authors to declare their works "some rights reserved" (instead of "all rights"). If the source you're quoting has a Creative Commons license or public domain dedication, you may have extra rights to use the content. Licenses don't trump fair use, but if you want to do more than fair use allows, look at the terms of the license to see what it permits and what, if anything, it requires you to do in return. The attribution license for example, lets you copy, distribute, and display a work so long as you name the original author. Share-alike lets you make derivative works so long as you use the same license for your re-mix. A work in the public domain is no longer under copyright, so you can use as much as you want in any way you like.
I'd like to let other people copy from my blog. Can I license it?
Sure. The Creative Commons licenses provide several copy and share licenses complete with legal code, computer code, and a human-readable declaration and graphic to let others know that they're invited to copy and share. You can choose whether to require attribution, permit commercial use, or allow modifications. If someone wants to do more than is permitted by fair use or the terms of your license, they can still contact you for permission. See Creative Common's licensing page for more information, or generate your own license.
If a reader comments on my blog, does she license the rights to me?
When a person enters comments on a blog for the purpose of public display, he is probably giving an implied license at least for that display and the incidental copying that goes along with it. If you want to make things clearer, you can add a Creative Commons license to your blog's comment post page and a statement that by posting comments, writers agree to license them under it.
Can I "deep link" to someone else's website or blog post?
Yes. Most people are happy to have other websites link to them. Indeed, "permalinks" for each blog post, to which others can link directly, are one of the features that have helped blogs and blog conversations take off. But some website owners complain that deep links — links that lead readers to an internal page on a website — "steal" traffic to the homepage or disrupt the intended flow of their websites. For example, Ticketmaster has argued that other sites should not be permitted to send browsers directly to Ticketmaster event listings. Ticketmaster settled a claim against Microsoft and lost a suit it had brought against Tickets.com over deep linking. See Ticketmaster v. Tickets.com.
So far, the courts have found that deep links to web pages are neither copyright infringement nor trespass. No court has enforced a website's terms of use that bar deep linking.
When can I borrow someone's images for my blog post?
Images are subject to the same copyright and fair use laws as written materials, so here too you'll want to think about the fair use factors that might apply. Is the image used in a transformative way? Are you taking only what's necessary to convey your point? A thumbnail (reduced-size) image, or a portion of a larger image is more likely to be fair use than taking an entire full-size image. If you want to go beyond fair use, look for Creative Commons licensed images.
I want to parody someone. Can I use some of their images and text in my parody?
Yes, parody is recognized as a type of fair use, like other commentary and criticism, and courts recognize that a parody must often take recognizable elements from the work it comments upon.
Courts do distinguish parody from satire. Parody copies from the object it mocks, while satire uses recognizable elements from the original work to mock something else or society in general. Parody gets broader fair use leeway than satire. If you want to make fun of Roy Orbison by changing "Pretty Woman" to "Big Hairy Woman," that's non-infringing parody; but if you make fun of the O.J. Simpson trial using Dr. Seuss illustrations and rhymes, that's satire and in one famous case, it was found to be infringing (Campbell v. Acuff-Rose, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. v. Penguin Books U.S.A., Inc.).
Questions about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
My ISP received a DMCA complaint about my weblog. What does that mean? Can I do anything about it?
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 USC § 512, creates a "safe harbor" immunity from copyright liability for service providers who "respond expeditiously" to notices claiming that they are hosting or linking to infringing material. The DMCA does not make ISPs liable if they do not remove content, but gives them a strong incentive to take the content down. That in turn gives those who want your material removed from the Net a strong incentive to make claims of copyright infringement.
If you get a DMCA takedown notice from your ISP, but you believe the material you posted does not infringe copyright, you have the option to counter-notify. An ISP can put the material back up after a counter-notification and still keep its immunity from liability. If you are harmed by an erroneous takedown demand, you can even use the DMCA's section 512(f) to sue back.
What are the rules for filing a DMCA notification?
In order to have an allegedly infringing website removed from a service provider's network, or have access to an allegedly infringing website disabled, the copyright owner must provide notice to the service provider with the following information:
The name, address, and physical or electronic signature of the complaining party [512(c)(3)(A)(i)]
Identification of the infringing materials and their Internet location [512(c)(3)(A)(ii-iii)], or if the service provider is an "information location tool" such as a search engine, the reference or link to the infringing materials [512(d)(3)].
Sufficient information to identify the copyrighted works [512(c)(3)(A)(iv)].
A statement by the copyright holder of a good faith belief that there is no legal basis for the use complained of [512(c)(3)(A)(v)].
A statement of the accuracy of the notice and, under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on the behalf of the copyright holder [512(c)(3)(A)(vi)].
A service provider is not required to respond to a DMCA notice that does not contain substantially all of these elements.
What are the counter-notice and put-back procedures?
The DMCA provides an opportunity for you to counter-notify, to tell
your ISP that the material in question is not infringing. Unless the
copyright claimant brings a lawsuit within 10 business days, the ISP
can put back the material and still remain immune from liability. A
form for creating your own counter-notification is online at http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca/counter512.pdf
A proper counter-notice must contain the following information:
The subscriber's name, address, phone number, and physical or electronic signature [512(g)(3)(A)]
Identification of the material and its location before removal [512(g)(3)(B)]
A statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification [512(g)(3)(C)]
Subscriber consent to local federal court jurisdiction, or if overseas, to an appropriate judicial body. [512(g)(3)(D)]
Can I sue if my site is wrongly taken down?
Yes. Section 512(f) of the DMCA creates liability for "Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section (1) that material or activity is infringing, or (2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification." If you were harmed by an improper takedown, you may be able to sue the person or company who sent the takedown demand for DMCA misuse under Section 512(f), and recover damages and your attorneys' fees. See EFF case Online Policy Group v. Diebold.
When can I claim the safe harbor for comments others post to my blog?
If you're concerned that people might post copyrighted material to your blog, you might want to be able to use the DMCA safe harbor yourself. You too can be a "provider of online services" — all you need to do is designate an agent for notification with the Copyright Office. The safe-harbor provision requires that providers have a policy against repeat copyright infringement by their "subscribers and account holders." If you have no subscribers or account holders, that policy can be as simple as "If we become aware that one of our users is a repeat copyright infringer, it is our policy to take reasonable steps within our power to terminate them."
I'm a music blogger, and I'm concerned that my blog will be taken offline by bogus DMCA notices. What extra steps can I take to protect myself?
Bloggers who write about music regularly and include links to music in their posts should read Practical Advice for Music Bloggers Worried About DMCA Takedown Censorship.
More information on the DMCA safe harbors:
https://lumendatabase.org/topics/14
Questions About Trademark
I want to complain about a company. Can I use their name and logo?
Yes. While trademark law prevents you from using someone else's trademark to sell your competing products (you can't make and sell your own "Rolex" watches or name your blog "Newsweek"), it doesn't stop you from using the trademark to refer to the trademark owner or its products (offering repair services for Rolex watches or criticizing Newsweek's editorial decisions). That kind of use, known as "nominative fair use," is permitted if using the trademark is necessary to identify the products, services, or company you're talking about, and you don't use the mark to suggest the company endorses you. In general, this means you can use the company name in your review so people know which company or product you're complaining about. You can even use the trademark in a domain name (like walmartsucks.com), so long as it's clear that you're not claiming to be or speak for the company.
Since trademark law is designed to protect against consumer confusion, non-commercial uses are even more likely to be fair. Be aware that advertising may give a "commercial" character to your site, and some courts have even gone so far as to say that links to commercial sites makes a site commercial. (See PETA v. Doughney)
Can I use a trademark in my blog's name or in the title of a blog post?
Yes, if it is relevant to the subject of your discussion and does not confuse people into thinking the trademark holder endorses your content. Courts have found that non-misleading use of trademarks in URLs and domain names of critical websites is fair. (Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. v. Faber, URL http://www.compupix.com/ballysucks; Bosley Medical Institute v. Kremer, domain name www.bosleymedical.com). Companies can get particularly annoyed about these uses because they may make your post appear in search results relating to the company, but that doesn't give them a right to stop you.
Sometimes, you might use a trademark without even knowing someone claims it as a trademark. That is permitted as long as you're not making commercial use in the same category of goods or services for which the trademark applies. Anyone can sell diesel fuel even though one company has trademarked DIESEL for jeans. Only holders of "famous" trademarks, like CocaCola, can stop use in all categories, but even they can't block non-commercial uses of their marks.
More information on trademark:
http://www.chillingeffects.org/trademark/faq
Questions About the Right of Publicity
What is a right of publicity claim?
The right of publicity is a claim that you have used someone's name or likeness to your commercial advantage without consent and resulting in injury. The plaintiff generally must prove that you're using their image or likeness for advertising or other solicitations. Freedom of speech rights protect your use of a public figure's name and likeness in a truthful way, but you can still be liable if a court determines that your use implied a false endorsement. Here are a few examples of cases where the right of publicity was at odds with the Constitution.This autumn more than a million students are going to take part in an experiment that could re-invent the landscape of higher education.
Some of the biggest powerhouses in US higher education are offering online courses - testing how their expertise and scholarship can be brought to a global audience.
Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have formed a $60m (£38m) alliance to launch edX, a platform to deliver courses online - with the modest ambition of "revolutionising education around the world".
Sounding like a piece of secret military hardware, edX will provide online interactive courses which can be studied by anyone, anywhere, with no admission requirements and, at least at present, without charge.
With roots in Silicon Valley, Stanford academics have set up another online platform, Coursera, which will provide courses from Stanford and Princeton and other leading US institutions.
The first president of edX is Anant Agarwal, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and one of the pioneers of the MITx online prototype.
He puts forward a statistic that encapsulates the game-changing potential.
The first online course from MITx earlier this year had more students than the entire number of living students who have graduated from the university.
In fact, it isn't far from the total of all the students who have ever been there since the 19th Century.
'Tipping point'
The internet provides an unparalleled capacity to expand the reach - but it also raises far-reaching and thorny questions for the traditional model of a university.
Image copyright AP Image caption Harvard, birthplace of Facebook, has joined a project to put courses as well as social lives online
"We've crossed the tipping point," says Professor Agarwal. The courses being launched in the autumn, he anticipates, will have at least 500,000 students - and probably many more.
As an example of how courses might be delivered, the MITx prototype taught an electronics course using an interactive virtual laboratory, e-textbooks, online discussions and video lectures.
Assessment of the course, which took 10 hours per week, was entirely automated.
"This could be the end of the two-hour lecture," says Professor Agarwal. "You can't hit the pause button on a lecturer, you can't fast forward."
Recorded lectures - available at the push of an iPad - could be more like text books, with universities using the best available.
Assessing large numbers of online learners raises a big practical challenge - and edX is a laboratory to see how this can be developed.
Michael Smith, dean of Harvard's faculty of arts and sciences, describes the "incredibly important research opportunity" provided by edX.
"We will collect enormous amounts of data from the edX platform about how students are interacting with the courses and online tools and assessments."
Degrees of degree
Professor Agarwal wants to include social sciences and humanities subjects, which would require free-text answers - and he raises ideas such as peer marking among students as one approach.
Image copyright Other Image caption Video lecture from the Coursera online project, with content from Stanford
This might seem difficult now - but Professor Smith says online practices are constantly advancing.
"People interact with and receive information in new ways today, compared with even a few years ago. Universities like Harvard need to be in that space."
Accrediting such courses is another tricky area.
The online courses are promised to be as rigorous as anything else from MIT or Harvard - but successful students will get a "certificate of mastery" and not a degree or any formal university credit. It's being set at arm's length from what's on offer for the paying customers.
If students on campus are paying $50,000 (£32,000) per year, it's going to be difficult to give away qualifications to online learners without charge.
High fees
The edX project has the good fortune to have two wealthy parent institutions - and getting a financial return won't be a pressing necessity.
But Daphne Koller, co-founder of Coursera, says the expansion of online courses will raise difficult questions about what mainstream universities offer for such high fees.
Image copyright SPL Image caption Would lectures be better as online recordings that could be stopped and started?
Because if the content of university courses becomes freely available, what is it that students are paying for?
Is it the interactions with staff? Or is it the time with other students? Is it something to put on a CV?
"This is causing universities to rethink their value to students," says Professor Koller, who is from Stanford University's computer science department.
The most prestigious universities are always going to have enough demand for places - but the emergence of high-quality online courses could be tougher for middle-ranking institutions.
Why would you pay high fees to sit through a mediocre lecture, when you could go online and watch world experts at another university, even if it's in another country?
"The universities in the middle will really have to think about their proposition," she says.
Google economics
Professor Koller says Coursera will keep its content free by following the Silicon Valley approach of companies such as Google.
For the younger generation, the gap between online and real life is blurred Anka Mulder, Delft University
With large numbers of motivated, employable students - so far about 600,000 and rising - there are going to be plenty of opportunities and partnerships for revenue streams.
The online projects are also aimed at meeting the huge international demand for higher education.
In its initial stages, Coursera has acquired students in 190 countries. Outside the US, the biggest numbers are in the UK, Brazil, Russia and India.
"This is a real democratising influence, making a profound change. It will tap into unused talent," says Professor Koller.
"Technology has got to the point where it's feasible. We shouldn't stratify society by who can afford access to education."
Earlier this week, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it was giving $1m to MIT to use edX courses in partnership with colleges serving low-income students - which raises an intriguing possibility of bringing high-quality resources where they are most needed.
Of course there have already been online degrees and courses. The UK's Open University has been a trailblazing pioneer of such distance learning. Stanford has also been experimenting.
In the US, large numbers of students have taken for-profit online degrees aimed at those unable to access campus-based courses.
But so far online projects have been in counterpoint to the mainstream.
Into the mainstream
The entry of such giants such as Harvard, Stanford and MIT means that it is coming into the centreground.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Student protest in Montreal: The rising cost of university is an international issue
It is also a development that coincides with the growing accessibility of high-quality online video and devices such as iPads and smartphones.
There are already rich seams of free educational material online - such as on iTunes U - and this is increasingly being structured into something more formal.
But there are also warnings against under-estimating the challenges.
William Dutton, professor of internet studies at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, says universities have been experimenting with teaching online for a decade, but "it's not there yet".
"It's much harder than teaching a class face-to-face," he says.
It's good that institutions such as MIT and Harvard are putting their shoulder to the wheel, he says, but so far no one has really worked out how to harness the internet for a university degree course.
Moral purpose
Professor Dutton also warns that the funding model of edX - subsidised by two very wealthy institutions - is not going to be affordable by many other universities.
But the idea of open learning has its own "moral purpose", says Anka Mulder, head of Delft University in the Netherlands.
Dr Mulder is president of the OpenCourseWare group which advocates free online course materials.
The demand for higher education is growing, both in the developed and developing countries and Dr Mulder says it "can't be achieved by building universities".
She also argues that scepticism about whether courses can be delivered online - and worries about a lack of interaction - is being overtaken by changing social habits.
Talking and sharing online is no longer such a leap of the imagination.
"For the younger generation, the gap between online and real life is blurred," she says.
Dr Mulder says that in five years most universities will be incorporating online learning in some form.
"Open learning is a movement that isn't going to go away," she says.Hillary Clinton speaks during a campaign stop in Orlando on Sept. 21. (Matt Rourke/AP)
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — After a request by the city’s mayor, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will postpone their plans to visit Charlotte.
Clinton had intended a Sunday visit to the city, which is still dealing with unrest after an African American man was shot and killed by police.
Donald Trump had also reportedly considered a trip to Charlotte on Tuesday, but has since decided to delay it as well.
Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, a Democrat, said on Friday night that she would prefer presidential candidates delay their visits so as to not further tax the city’s resources.
“We appreciate the support of the candidates. We appreciate that they are concerned about Charlotte,” Roberts said on CNN’s Erin Burnett on the “OutFront” program. “At this point, we do have very stretched resources for security and they are working around the clock. If there would be a way to delay those visits in terms of giving us a chance to get our city back to order and back to more of a state of normalcy, that would probably be ideal.”
In a statement, Clinton’s communications director Jennifer Palmieri said that Clinton had accepted an invitation from faith leaders to visit on Sunday, but would delay the trip until the following Sunday, Oct. 2.
“Hillary is grateful for, and intends to honor, the invitation from faith leaders to visit with the Charlotte community,” Palmieri said. “After further discussion with community leaders, we have decided to postpone Sunday’s trip as to not impact the City’s resources.
“She will plan to visit Charlotte next Sunday, provided circumstances allow. In the meantime her prayers are with the people of Charlotte during these difficult days,” she added.
The scheduling change came shortly after Clinton on Friday called on North Carolina officials to release dashboard and body camera video of the shooting that left Keith Lamont Scott dead after an encounter with police on Tuesday.
Trump responded to Clinton’s postponement in a tweet that criticized her:
Crooked Hillary's bad judgement forced her to announce that she would go to Charlotte on Saturday to grandstand. Dem pols said no way, dumb! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2016
(Although the tweet says Clinton planned to go on Saturday, she actually had planned to visit Sunday.)
Scott, a 43-year-old black man, was shot and killed after police encountered him in a search for another man who was a suspect with an outstanding warrant.
The police department has so far refused to release two videos of the incident unless there is a “compelling reason.”
Charlotte should release police video of the Keith Lamont Scott shooting without delay. We must ensure justice & work to bridge divides. -H — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 23, 2016
However, in a video recorded by Scott’s wife and released on Friday by his family, police can be seen shouting for Scott to drop a weapon. Meanwhile, his wife pleads with officers not to shoot her husband. She told them that he had no weapon. Police later said that a gun was found nearby.
Rakeyia Scott filmed a cellphone video during her husband Keith Lamont Scott's fatal encounter with Charlotte police officers on Sept. 20. (Editor's note: This video contains graphic images and language.) (Family of Keith Lamont Scott)
[Video taken by Keith Scott’s wife shows part of fatal Charlotte police shooting]
Clinton has spoken out on this incident and several other police-involved shootings that have left African Americans dead in recent months.
Most recently, she commented on a shooting in Tulsa in which 40-year-old Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man, was killed by an officer who approached him after his vehicle broke down on the road. The officer in that shooting was charged with manslaughter this week.
Another unarmed Black man was shot in a police incident. This should be intolerable. We have so much work to do. #TerenceCrutcher -H — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 20, 2016
Trump has criticized the Tulsa officer, saying she may have been scared or “choking” when she shot Crutcher. He has also condemned violent protests in Charlotte that have followed the Scott shooting. He added his belief that drugs are a “very, very big factor in what you’re watching on television at night.” But he has not commented directly on the Scott killing.Experience Talk Radio Done Right!
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adding a new “saturated” color mode to both devices.
All this to say — and you probably wouldn’t be shocked by this if you’ve read my criticism on Twitter — I don’t think this is a very good display. Even compared to the Pixel 2 and the original Pixel and Pixel XL, it seems clear to me that the Pixel 2 XL has the worst display of the lot.
And then came Google’s response
I think all the concerns about the display are valid, but the way Google handled the situation should also be considered.
Two year warranty
Google is giving all past and present buyers of both the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL an extended 2-year warranty. If there are any weird manufacturing problems with your device, you can rest assured that they’ll be taken care of for at least 24 months. That alone is a big deal. For $850+, most buyers want to know that the device they’re getting is going to be steady for them for a couple years at least, and this extended warranty is Google telling those buyers that they aren’t discrediting their concerns of the issues many have talked about.
It’s also worth noting that Google seems to be very understanding for customer’s concerns in these early days of providing replacement units. I’ve seen reports of Google going as far as to replace units for customers complaining of black smear and blue tint, both of which seem to be just the nature of the device. Obviously many of these customers are just grasping for hope that they’ll get a unit that won’t have these problems to the degree they’re experiencing them. Whether it’s actually true or not, many have reported that they’ve gotten replacement devices that actually were less bad. So maybe you should give that a shot if you think yours is worse than average.
Unsaturated color
Google says it opted for a “more natural and accurate reproduction of colors” with the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, and that the unsaturated colors you might notice are intended functionality. That said, Google is going to push out a software update with an option for more vibrant colors. I’d say this is the least of the concerns with the Pixel 2 XL’s display — pretty much a non-issue in my book.
Burn-in/image persistence
Google stands by the LG-made display in the Pixel 2 XL as up to industry standard, but is also going to push out some fixes to hopefully mitigate the burn-in that many users have noticed. Google is going to dim the navigation bar buttons after “a short period of inactivity” and encourage apps to adopt a light navigation bar. Furthermore, max brightness on the Pixel 2 XL will be lowered by 50 nits. Seeing the max brightness dropping is a bit unfortunate in my book, but if Google thinks it will help prevent permanent damage, then I’m all for it.
Blue tint/off-axis color shift
This is the only response that feels inadequate to me, but it seems there’s just nothing Google can do about it. I’ve tested 3 different units, and all three of them show blue shift at as little as 5-10 degrees off axis and show shift to a greater degree than just about every other phone in this price range. Worse than the LG V30, worse than anything with a Samsung display, worse than the Pixel 2, and worse than the Pixel XL.
In short, Google’s official word on the blue shift is to say that it isn’t an issue, rather an inherent part of this display. The company says that this only happens at “sharp angles,” but our experience doesn’t exactly match that (one could say we very often see this blue tint at very dull angles, har har). This is just an unfortunate quality of the display.
Black smear
Google hasn’t commented on the black smear issues we’ve noted. This problem of black smear is far from unique to the Pixel 2 XL, but it’s mostly a non-problem on many modern OLED displays. We saw exaggerated black smear on all three of our Pixel 2 XL units when viewing web pages and the like at the lowest brightness setting (which is basically how you use your phone at night in bed). Further proving that this is just the nature of the XL 2’s poor display, we were not able to reproduce this issue on the smaller Pixel 2. Another unfortunate quality of the display, and not likely something that would be remedied with a replacement, and not something Google will ever do anything about.
Graininess
Google hasn’t officially commented on this issue, but since we saw variance in this between our three devices, we’d guess that Google will treat it as a quality control issue that can be remedied with an RMA. This issue is definitely on the minor side — you can only really notice it, even in this worst cases, if you look really closely — but it could still bug some that it’s not a problem at all with the smaller Pixel 2. If that’s you, I’d suggest getting a replacement and crossing your fingers that you get one that has less grain.
Other weird problems
Other weird problems like green lines, random dead spaces on the side of the display, lines of dead pixels, and others would probably all qualify, like the grain issue, as quality control. All of these issues will likely receive a prompt replacement from Google if you contact support.
But even with a bad display, the Pixel 2 XL is too good
Taking into consideration what we know now about all of the Pixel 2 XL’s display woes, as well as Google’s response to them, I’m leaning on the side of many who defended the phone from the get-go. The bad display doesn’t kill the phone. I think that my first review unit was worse than average — I had obvious burn-in and bad graininess on my display, something that other reviews like MKBHD said they never experienced — and the current unit I’m using doesn’t seem to have these problems to the same degree. For that, I’m happy.
It really comes down to whether you think the “unfortunate quality of the display” issues that Google isn’t able and/or deciding not to do anything about are enough to make or break the phone for you. Unsaturated colors are being fixed, burn-in and image retention — which is only really there if you go looking for it — is being remedied with software, and weird quality control concerns are getting replaced under warranty for up to 2 years. It’s really just about whether or not you can live with the slightly-worse-than-average blue off-axis tint and black smear.
For me, after a couple weeks with the phone, the answer is clear. I can live with worse-than-average blue off-axis tint and seeing worse-than-average black smear at night for the sake of all the benefits the Pixel 2 XL brings. And if you’re a normal person who isn’t going to look at this phone under a microscope and just wants a great phone, you’d probably love the Pixel 2 XL. That said, I can most certainly understand those that don’t want to settle on these two issues. If near-perfect displays matter to you and you want get the most of your $850, Pixel 2 XL isn’t for you. The Samsung Galaxy S8 is better. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is better. The iPhone X is better. Even the LG V30 seems better in some ways.
For most others, including myself, the display issues will go mostly unnoticed after a week or two of adjustment. I noticed the blue off-axis tint very often in my first few days with the phone, but as my eyes have adjusted over the last two weeks, it has become less and less noticeable. It’s still there if I look for it, but it’s just something that you learn to ignore. The black smear is still really obvious, though, and still bothers me when I’m scrolling through web pages at night. But that’s only because I’ve been spoiled with great OLED displays on other phones that don’t have this issue. After two weeks, these problems have become overshadowed by other things that I love about the phone.
If you focus too closely on its screen, it’s easy to forget the many ways the Pixel 2 XL is better than its predecessor and its competitors. It has a modern-but-functional design that I personally think is one of the nicest on a phone (it’s nice not to have the huge bezels of the smaller Pixel 2, that’s for sure). It has improved specs across the board that make performance and using the phone a whimsical and delightful day-to-day experience — perhaps the best on the phone. It has an improved camera that is pretty much unrivaled. It has Google’s killer software which, yes, is not unique to the 2 XL, but is altogether a great reason to feel confident that you’ll be happy with your purchase.
Everything that Google accomplished with the first Pixels is still here, more or less. Yes, these display gripes are annoying. And yes, it would be nice if I could crown the Pixel 2 XL as the no-compromise best Android phone on the market without having to talk about them. But just like last year, I think the Pixel 2 XL brings features and qualities that have long been under-appreciated on the Android side of things. It has killer battery life (seriously, does this thing ever die? I can’t tell), the UI is buttery smooth — by far the best on an Android phone, period — and the software features Google has added atop Android are useful and done well. And, personally, I love the resurgence of Italian design.
Keep an eye out for our final, full review of both phones in the coming days.
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:PPP’s new South Carolina poll continues to find Donald Trump with a wide lead in the state. He’s at 35% to 18% each for Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, 10% for John Kasich, and 7% each for Jeb Bush and Ben Carson.
What’s striking about Trump’s support is how consistent it is across different demographic groups- he’s at 41% with ‘somewhat conservative’ voters, 40% with younger voters, 38% with men, 36% with self identified Republicans, 35% with Evangelicals, 35% with middle aged voters, 34% with non-Evangelicals, 31% with women, 30% with self identified independents, 30% with ‘very conservative’ voters, 30% with seniors, and 29% with moderates. He has a lead of some size within every single one of those groups, similar to what he was able to do in New Hampshire.
The race is still pretty fluid in South Carolina- 29% of voters say they might change their minds between now and Election Day. Trump benefits from having supporters who are pretty resolute though- 77% of them say they will definitely vote for him, compared to 76% for Cruz and 62% for Rubio. Among voters who say their minds are completely made up, Trump’s support goes up to 40% to 20% for Cruz and 16% for Rubio.
There are some reasons within the numbers to think Rubio might put in an unexpectedly strong performance on Saturday night. If voters have to choose just among the top three candidates he finishes in a clear second place with 28% to Trump’s 40% and Cruz’s 22%. Among voters who are either undecided or support one of the also rans- Bush, Carson, Kasich- 37% say they would move to Rubio compared to 19% for Trump and 13% for Cruz if they had to choose one of the top three. So if strategic voting occurs, that’s likely to be to Rubio’s benefit.
One surprising finding from the poll is that Ted Cruz has the worst net favorability rating of the candidates, with 42% of voters seeing him positively to 48% who have a negative opinion of him. He and Jeb Bush (41/43) are the only candidates under water. Showing that popularity isn’t everything Ben Carson is by far the most widely liked hopeful in the state with a 68/23 favorability rating, followed by Rubio at 58/32 and Kasich at 52/29. Trump is only the fourth most well liked at 50/43, but in contrast to the other candidates most of the voters who like him are also planning to vote for him.
There’s been a lot of speculation that Trump might take on water after attacking George W. Bush on Saturday night, and Bush is relatively popular with 64% of voters seeing him favorably to 25% who have an unfavorable opinion. But despite his comments Trump is still leading even among voters with a positive view of GWB- he gets 26% to 22% for Cruz, 20% for Rubio, and 10% for Jeb Bush. And Trump is dominant with the swath of voters that doesn’t like George W. Bush, getting 57% to 12% for Kasich, and 11% each for Cruz and Rubio.
Trump’s support in South Carolina is built on a base of voters among whom religious and racial intolerance pervades. Among the beliefs of his supporters:
-70% think the Confederate flag should still be flying over the State Capital, to only 20% who agree with it being taken down. In fact 38% of Trump voters say they wish the South had won the Civil War to only 24% glad the North won and 38% who aren’t sure. Overall just 36% of Republican primary voters in the state are glad the North emerged victorious to 30% for the South, but Trump’s the only one whose supporters actually wish the South had won.
-By an 80/9 spread, Trump voters support his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States. In fact 31% would support a ban on homosexuals entering the United States as well, something no more than 17% of anyone else’s voters think is a good idea. There’s also 62/23 support among Trump voters for creating a national database of Muslims and 40/36 support for shutting down all the mosques in the United States, something no one else’s voters back. Only 44% of Trump voters think the practice of Islam should even be legal at all in the United States, to 33% who think it should be illegal. To put all the views toward Muslims in context though, 32% of Trump voters continue to believe the policy of Japanese internment during World War II was a good one, compared to only 33% who oppose it and 35% who have no opinion one way or another.
There continues to be evidence that the race for the Republican nomination will get a lot tighter down the line as more candidates drop out. Trump leads Rubio only 46/45 in a head to head match up, with supporters of Bush (73/10), Cruz (67/26), Carson (54/34), and Kasich (50/29) all strongly preferring Rubio to Trump if those were their choices. If Rubio can make the race in South Carolina more into a choice between him and Trump he has the potential to end up with a strong second place finish. Trump has wider leads in head to heads with Bush (50/40) and Cruz (48/38).
On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders 55/34. South Carolina exemplifies the way in which the Democratic race changes in places where there’s a large African American electorate. Clinton and Sanders are tied with white voters at 46%, pretty similar to how the race played out in Iowa. But among African Americans Clinton continues to have a substantial advantage over Sanders at 63/23. Clinton is very popular among black voters with a 71/12 favorability, while feelings about Sanders continue to be pretty mixed with him coming in at 39/33.
South Carolina’s being an open primary works to Sanders’ advantage. Clinton is up 31 with actual Democrats, 60/29, but Sanders cuts a lot into her advantage thanks to a 55/27 lead with the independents planning to vote in the Democratic primary. Some of the other customary big demographic splits we’ve seen in other places present themselves in South Carolina as well- Sanders is up 45/43 with men and 44/42 with younger voters, but that is more than drowned out by Clinton’s 64/25 advantage with women and 70/20 one with seniors.
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The FDA is discussing whether it should allow scientists to perform in-vitro fertilization with genetic material from three parents:
The two-day meeting of the Food and Drug Administration panel is focused on a procedure that scientists think could help women who carry DNA mutations for conditions such as blindness and epilepsy. The process would let them have children without passing on those defects. ….The FDA’s announcement several months ago that it would hold a public hearing on the subject elicited an outcry from scientists, ethicists and religious groups, who say the technology raises grave safety concerns and could open the door to creating “designer” babies, whose eye color, intelligence and other characteristics are selected by parents. Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society and a vocal critic of the procedure, said human trials would mark the first time the FDA had approved a gene-modification technique whose effect is transmitted to a person’s descendants. “What we’re talking about is radical experimentation on future children…. A decision of such profound magnitude should not be made behind the mostly closed doors of this agency,” Darnovsky told the committee Tuesday.
It’s about time we faced up to this, I think. As the technology for this steadily advances, and designer babies become possible, parents are going to get designer babies. If the United States bans it, they’ll go to Switzerland. If Switzerland bans it, they’ll go to China. If China bans it, they’ll go underground. But one way or another, if this technology exists, the demand for it is going to be irresistible.
As a good liberal, my concern is largely that this gives rich families yet another leg up in the great lottery of life. Conservatives seems to be more concerned that we’re flouting the will of God or something. And I guess everyone is concerned about the safety of the procedure and where it ultimately leads. Eyes in the back of the head? Gills in addition to lungs? Custom-designed arm muscles that allow your kid to put Sandy Koufax to shame?
None of that really scares me, so I’m basically OK with all this as long as it’s done slowly and methodically. But I don’t think it much matters if I’m OK with it. If it can be done, there is simply nothing that will stop parents from getting it. That’s a movie trope Hollywood gets right. We should be discussing how to reasonably regulate this kind of thing, not whether to allow it at all.Dead Rising 2 - Chuck Greene's Motorcycle Jacket
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Dead Rising 2 - Chuck Greene's Motorcycle Jacket
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features Brand: Kadoya (leading Japanese motorcycle wear manufacturer)
Size: 3L (equivalent to US size M-L)
Bust: 120cm Hem: 107cm
Length: 67cm Cuff: 65cm
Shoulder: 50cm
Neck: 49cm
Material: Leather & Nylon
Official Dead Rising 2 merchandise
Limited availability
description No matter whether you are a cosplayer, a biker, or a zombie slayer, the Capcom X Kadoya Collaborate Biker's Jacket will provide you with all the bragging rights and protection you need.
Chuck Green has this jacket ordered in Japan and Kadoya has it especially made for him. Now, this famous bikers' wear brand brings the jacket to the real world for all aspiring Chuck Greens to wear to their missions.
The jacket is made with synthetic leather and nylon and provides you with extra protection around the shoulders and elbow areas. This jacket is not just a costume to look cool in, it's designed to accommodate your real biking habits. The garment is in Japanese size XXL and will fit action heroes who wears US size L.
further info Genre Jackets & Coats PAX-Code PAX0003176229
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Please Missing links?Please log in or create account to submit your link recommendations.So I’d rather be on a team that has no bad people than a team with stars. There are certain people who you just know are not going to make a mistake, even if the other guy’s faster than them, or whatever. They’re just reliable.
And are you a playmaker? There are people who don’t want to screw up, and so they just pass the ball right away. Then there are the ones who have this kind of intelligence, and they can make these great plays. These people seem to have high emotional intelligence. It’s not that they’re a star player, but they have decent skills, and they will get you the ball and then be where you’d expect to put it back to them. It’s like their head is really in the game.
Q. How has your leadership style evolved, given your experience running several companies?
A. You can manage 50 people through the strength of your personality and lack of sleep. You can touch them all in a week and make sure they’re all pointed in the right direction. By 150, it’s clear that that’s not going to scale, and you’ve got to find some way to keep everybody going in productive directions when you’re not in the room.
And that, to me, is a huge amount of what it means to manage. But I went to Harvard Business School and that never occurred to me the whole time. And I’d started a bunch of companies and never gotten to that understanding, even with one company I had that I did take up to over 200 people.
Q. So give me an example of what you did to change that.
A. I’d turn people into C.E.O.’s. One thing I did at my second company was to put white sticky sheets on the wall, and I put everyone’s name on one of the sheets, and I said, “By the end of the week, everybody needs to write what you’re C.E.O. of, and it needs to be something really meaningful.” And that way, everyone knows who’s C.E.O. of what and they know whom to ask instead of me. And it was really effective. People liked it. And there was nowhere to hide.
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Q. So who were some of your new C.E.O.’s?
A. We had this really motivated, smart receptionist. She was young. We kept outgrowing our phone systems, and she kept coming back and saying, “Mark, we’ve got to buy a whole new phone system.” And I said: “I don’t want to hear about it. Just buy it. Go figure it out.” She spent a week or two meeting every vendor and figuring it out. She was so motivated by that.
I think that was a big lesson for me because what I realized was that if you give people really big jobs to the point that they’re scared, they have way more fun and they improve their game much faster. She ended up running our whole office.
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Q. Did everybody want to be C.E.O. of something?
A. There are people who want the comfort and structure of a job where they’re given tasks and told what to do. I think it’s actually a minority of people. The majority of people don’t want that, but I’d say that the companies I’ve built are full of people with something to prove.
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Q. But don’t most people have something to prove?
A. Some more than others. I keep my eye out for someone who has achieved a lot, so they’ve been a great athlete or on a great team, but then something didn’t go quite right, and they’re still very hungry and want to be C.E.O. of something. I like to bet on people, especially those who have taken risks and failed in some way, because they have more real-world experience. And they’re humble.
I also like to hire people into one position below where they ought to be, because only a certain kind of person will do that — somebody who is pretty humble and somebody who’s very confident.
This is another thing I really, really value: being a true meritocracy. The only way people will have the trust to give their all to their job is if they feel like their contribution is recognized and valued. And if they see somebody else higher above them just because of a good résumé, or they see somebody else promoted who they don’t think deserves it, you’re done.
My approach is that you have to earn the respect of people you work with. And so, if you come in and you start bossing people around and they don’t want to work with you, they won’t. In our company, if you want to switch teams, you can. In hiring, it’s also a sign of a great manager when you tell me that there’s all these people who want to come with you, or when you join us and we find other people are all sending us their résumés because you’re here.
Q. What else is unusual about how you run the company?
A. John Doerr [the venture capitalist] sold me on this idea of O.K.R.’s, which stands for objectives and key results. It was developed at Intel and used at Google, and the idea is that the whole company and every group has one objective and three measurable key results, and if you achieve two of the three, you achieve your overall objective, and if you achieve all three, you’ve really killed it.
We put the whole company on that, so everyone knows their O.K.R.’s. And that is a good, simple organizing principle that keeps people focused on the three things that matter — not the 10.
Then I ask everybody to write down on Sunday night or Monday morning what are your three priorities for the week, and then on Friday see how you did against them. It’s the only way people can stay focused and not burn out. And if I look at your road map and you have 10 priorities for you and your team, you probably don’t know which of the three matter, and probably none of the 10 are right.
I can look at everyone’s piece of paper, and their road map shows every item you were going to do and your predicted results and actual results, and then the results are in red if you missed them, yellow if they’re close and green if you passed them. I think road maps are a great principle just for managing your life. It keeps everybody focused, and it lets me know what trains are on or off the tracks.
Q. What has surprised you most after you really started focusing on leadership and management?
A. The most general thing is it surprised me how rewarding it is to focus on management and being a C.E.O. And how much you get back from places where you weren’t expecting it. I’m surprised how much people at the far reaches of the organization are touched by it, and that touches me. I’ve been surprised how much they can achieve without me being involved. That’s been awesome.I’m no sports nut but I’ve spent enough time at kids’ soccer games to understand that it’s impossible to score if you’re playing on the wrong side of the field.
Which is why I have found the White House strategy for dealing with Republicans on the deficit so befuddling.
The fight over spending this fiscal year is a case in point. The prospect of a Republican takeover of the House was evident well before the election. The inevitable result was going to be more draconian cuts than would have been required if the spending bills were passed beforehand.
In the aftermath of the Democrats’ losses, the entire debate played out in terms they were destined to lose. If the argument is framed solely in terms of budget cuts, Republicans always win: They are willing to out-cut Democrats. That inescapable tilt was exacerbated by the virtual absence of a White House message about the impact of a shutdown or the cuts themselves.
In the final hours, Democrats rallied their troops with complaints about a Republican “war on women” — and held fast against eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood. But how many people knew that the House-passed budget would have eliminated all federal money for family planning? Hardly anyone — because the White House and Democrats weren’t telling them. The argument was about bottom-line numbers, not underlying policy.
A second, maddening example of the White House allowing the other side to frame the debate involves the longer-term fiscal picture. The president convened a commission on the topic and then abandoned it. First, he did not lift a finger to help his co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, assemble the 14 votes necessary to get the commission’s plan a congressional vote. Then, when the plan was released, the president pointedly declined to express a view. He stuck to the vagueness strategy in his State of the Union address and his 2012 budget proposal.
In the meantime, the void was filled — and the playing field was shifted even further rightward — by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. The Wisconsin Republican unveiled a plan that makes the centrist Simpson-Bowles proposal look as if it were written by Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean.
If the White House had weighed in on Simpson-Bowles before Ryan released his plan, it could have staked out an argument that the framework — a combination of spending cuts and tax increases — was correct but that some specifics (the precise mix of the two, the details of the Social Security fix) went too far in the conservative direction. Now the “reasonable” compromise would be between Simpson-Bowles on the leftward side and Ryan on the right.
The White House decided to hold back and let Ryan go first. The notion was that his plan would look so extreme that it would give Democrats a useful opening to attack, much as Republicans scored points against Democrats during the last election over cuts to Medicare in the new health-care law.
Meanwhile, the administration insisted, coming forward with a plan of its own would be counterproductive. The history of budget deals, officials argued, was that public presidential proposals get shot down (George W. Bush on Social Security in 2005, for example); successful outcomes are crafted behind the scenes.
Indeed, this was happening in the form of the so-called Gang of Six, the bipartisan group of senators working to write the Simpson-Bowles framework into law. Just as the gang was nearing agreement, the Ryan plan came along, and the White House, rattled by its reception, decided it needed to get into the game.
It hurriedly arranged for a speech and slapped together what seems to be shaping up less as an Obama plan than as an endorsement of the Gang of Six approach. I’m all for the president weighing in — in fact, I’ve been recommending it for months. But I question the haste and timing: If the Gang of Six looks like the Democratic alternative to Ryan, its Republican members will be out on a limb. Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss, who convened the gang along with Virginia Democrat Mark Warner, said the White House “threw us a little bit of a curveball” with its surprise Sunday announcement. And if the White House was going to support the Simpson-Bowles framework all along, why not do it earlier and take advantage of the momentum?
Back to the sports metaphor, it makes you wonder: Can’t anybody here play this game?
ruthmarcus@washpost.comThe son of a Co Tyrone IRA victim has branded last night’s ‘Loughgall martyrs’ commemoration near Pomeroy “sickening”.
Rev Alan Irwin’s father Thomas was shot dead in March 1986 – 12 months before the SAS shot and killed eight members of the IRA’s ruthless East Tyrone unit as they attacked Loughgall RUC station in 1987.
Marchers at the Loughgall IRA commemoration on Sunday evening
One of the guns taken from the body of a dead terrorist at Loughgall had been used to murder the DOE worker and part-time UDR man near Omagh.
• Morning View: Loughgall event illustrates the challenge facing unionists
Yesterday evening, Sinn Fein leader Michelle O’Neill was the main speaker at a march and rally in honour of the eight-man IRA gang.
The event got under way from the car park of the Church of Immaculate Conception at Altmore. One of those killed at Loughghall, Eugene Kelly, is buried in the graveyard of the church.
Rev Irwin, from Lack in Co Fermanagh, said the presence of Ms O’Neill at the commemoration was disappointing but not surprising.
“It is another glorification of those who had deliberately set out to murder,” he said.
“I think what surprises me is how gullible, or how naive, a lot of people are to have swallowed some of the rhetoric – that they (Sinn Fein) are talking about ‘equality’ and all of these things but continue to justify terrorism.
“If somebody is committing a criminal act they should face justice, but to start to glorify them, and to put them on some sort of a pedestal, is sickening.”
Commenting on the use of Catholic Church property, apparently without prior permission, Rev Irwin said: “I suppose that is a matter for the Roman Catholic Church, but I do think they need to come out and make a very clear statement in relation to the use of their property.
“But then it doesn’t surprise me as Sinn Fein don’t really have respect for anyone else – they are quite happy enough to use anybody’s property. The church needs to come out and say that it is not happy for its grounds to be used for that type of event.”
On the day former IRA leader and deputy first minister Martin McGuinness was buried in March, Rev Irwin led a service in Lisnaskea to remember the innocent victims of terrorism.
He said the Catholic Church “needs to take a firmer approach in relation to terrorism and terrorist activity,” and added: “It is a matter for them but I do think they need to be very clear on where they stand.
“There is fear there. This whole peace process was built on fear and continues to be built on fear. The threat is always there – that fear of going back to ‘the bad old days’. I think that’s why people are afraid to speak out or say anything.”
Over a number of days the News Letter has asked the Catholic Church whether it condoned or condemned the use of its property as an assembly point for the commemoration parade in honour of an IRA gang.
No response has been received to date.
• Morning View: Loughgall event illustrates the challenge facing unionistsThe actor Barry Clayton – whose deep bass voice was behind movie trailers and the introduction to the Iron Maiden song The Number of the Beast – has died at the age of 80.
An Islington resident for 40 years, Clayton was also a pioneer of black television and radio programming.
He produced the Black Londoners radio programme for the BBC – the first black daily radio programme – from its first airing in 1974 until 1988 when he left to join Capital Radio.
He also arranged for a Christmas link-up with Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad for a Channel 4 special in 1981.
Clayton cut his teeth at Joan Littlewood’s famous theatre school after training in Poland. He did a stint as a producer for Granada’s north-west magazine TV programme, People and Places, and narrated the children’s television programme Count Duckula.
This was reported by London’s Islington Tribute, and a full tribute will appear on it next week.
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commentsHow The Merchants Of Doubt Push Climate Denial On Your Television March 8, 2015 10:27 AM EDT ››› Blog ›››››› DENISE ROBBINS
A new documentary shows how a "professional class of deceivers" has been paid by the fossil fuel industry to cast doubt on the science of climate change, in an effort akin to that from the tobacco industry, which for decades used deceitful tactics to deny the scientific evidence that cigarettes are harmful to human health. The film, Merchants of Doubt, explores how many of the same people that once lobbied on behalf of the tobacco industry are now employed in the climate denial game. An infamous 1969 memo from a tobacco executive read: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy." Using similar tactics, a very small set of people have had immense influence in sowing doubt on the scientific consensus of manmade climate change in recent years. Merchants of Doubt features five prominent climate science deniers who have been particularly influential in deceiving the public and blocking climate action. Their financial connections to the fossil fuel industry are not hard to uncover. Yet major U.S. television networks* -- CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business, ABC, CBS, and PBS -- have given most of these deniers prominent exposure over the past several years. Merchant of Doubt Number of TV Appearances, 2009-2014 Marc Morano 30 James Taylor 8 Fred Singer 8 Tim Phillips 7 Now that these Merchants of Doubt have been exposed, the major cable and network news programs need to keep them off the airwaves, a sentiment echoed by Forecast the Facts, which recently launched a petition demanding that news directors do just that.
Marc Morano
Marc Morano rose to prominence working for two of the most vocal climate deniers in the U.S., Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. These days Morano runs the climate science denial blog Climate Depot, for which he is paid by the fossil fuel industry-funded Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). He played a key role in falsely scandalizing "Climategate," and once |
road outside deserted. No one drove any more unless they were secret police or favoured by the Party. Inside, Irén and János Vargha sat watching their two-year-old son’s eyelids as he slept through his fever. The only visible sign of the attack, they were told, would be if György’s eyeballs started moving rapidly. Polio was unpredictable. Often no more harmful than any other childhood infection, it could on occasion ‘turn’ with swift, inexplicable savagery, destroying a child’s nerve cells and leaving him paralysed for life. If it damaged the nerves controlling his lungs they could freeze up and György would either die or spend the rest of his life inside an iron lung that breathed for him. The hours crept by without him showing any symptoms of paralytic polio, but the next morning, as Irén stood him on the table to get him dressed, his legs buckled. She stood him up again – again his legs wouldn’t support him. This moment is his earliest childhood memory. “I could stand easily before,” he says. “Now I could still bend my legs but I couldn’t straighten them. For me it was astonishing and interesting that my legs were doing that strange thing. But my mother was afraid.” György was rushed 100 km to the hospital in Debrecen. Then began the frantic search for gamma globulin. The antibody-rich solution was the only medicine then known to have some ability to disarm the poliovirus in the bloodstream, preventing it from invading the nerves. But gamma globulin was scarce. Irén and János rode from town to town and village to village on their motorbike, pharmacist after pharmacist regretfully shaking their heads. © Alex Hedworth/Eye Candy Later that evening, as they sat at home thinking of their son fighting his lonely battle in a strange bed far away, there was a knock at the window. Behind the curtain they saw two ávós – secret police agents – waiting at the door, a large black Pobeda parked in the empty road behind them. In 1950s communist Hungary, when a black car stopped outside your house in the middle of the night, there was only one explanation: the ávós had come to take you away. But when János and Irén opened the door, fear gave way to relief, then bafflement. The men explained they had driven three-and-a-half hours from Budapest because they had heard the Varghas’ son had polio. They were very sorry and had brought the boy some gamma globulin. Sixty years on, György’s daughter, historian Dr Dora Vargha, tells me her father’s story over coffee in Bambi Presszó on the Buda side of the Danube. Her own little boy is three years old, a little older than György was when he first caught polio. Her son was born just as she was starting to write up her research, the first ever history of polio in Cold War Hungary. “It put everything in a different place. I could suddenly feel the stakes – the fear. I took him for his first polio vaccination just after I finished my research. That was a strong moment for me.” We’re just down the street from the National Institute of Rheumatology and Physiotherapy (ORFI), where György spent a large part of his childhood. Sadly, the ávós delivery arrived a little too late for the young György, who needed six operations on his legs and rehabilitative therapy in the Lukács Thermal Baths opposite the ORFI. In communist Hungary, both the café and the baths were favourite haunts of intellectuals and dissidents, who exchanged ideas in the haze drifting over ashtrays or rising from sulphurous, shadowy thermal waters. The tradition began at the end of the 19th century, when Budapest’s new middle class constructed elegant bridges, the continent’s first subway, the world’s first-ever telephone exchange, and Andrássy Avenue – a vast, leafy boulevard to rival the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Writers, artists, inventors and philosophers gathered in the city’s cafés and baths to talk about the exciting, radical future. Half a century later, the stucco had been blasted from Budapest’s once-elegant frontages, the glass from its windows, and its bridges had been blown up by the retreating Nazis. The world was divided between the two postwar superpowers: the democratic USA and the communist USSR, who, under the threat of an apocalyptic nuclear war, were locked in ideological combat – the Cold War. Each side sought to prove that its was the right way to build a bright new world by demonstrating technological and economic superiority and happier, healthier citizens. In Europe, the divide was physical as well as ideological. The continent was cut in half by a vast, impregnable military barrier, passing along Hungary’s western border. No one could cross the Iron Curtain in either direction without permission from the highest levels of government, and activity behind it was invisible to the other side. The Soviets had installed a communist government in Hungary, and in place of the coffeehouse intellectual there was a new hero: the proletariat worker. The vision for the country – shared by many of its homegrown communists – was of a centrally managed, classless state whose resources were shared equally among everyone. By 1950, all its mines, factories and banks had been nationalised and the large country estates divided among the peasants. “You couldn’t own your own store or business any more. But most people kept their home, if it was a reasonable size,” says Dora. “Large houses were divided into apartments to house more families. You still see the effect of that in Budapest: one flat will have the kitchen, and the next-door flat will have the big bathroom.” It made the Varghas’ strange encounter with the ávós in 1954 all the more baffling. As the district veterinarian for the farms and villages surrounding Kisvárda, János was indisputably a member of the former middle class, the hated bourgeoisie. Why had two ávós driven nearly four hours in the middle of the night to help a child they had never met? Years later, the family found out. “It turned out my grandfather was the vet for the parents of one of the pharmacists he had asked about the gamma globulin,” explains Dora. “And the pharmacist had a brother-in-law who was an ávó in Budapest at the time. The communist ideal was that everything should be shared equally, but in reality, access to scarce resources depended on who you knew.” © Bill Bragg
Prams
After the War, countries everywhere were short of the labour they needed to build a prosperous modern society – whether their economies were capitalist or communist. Hungary was in a dilemma: without rapid industrialisation there wouldn’t be a proletariat on which to build the communist state. But those of its citizens who had survived the War and were fit enough to work – even if they couldn’t be proven to be bourgeois or dissident – had fought (albeit reluctantly) on the side of Nazi Germany and were by definition ideological enemies. While the UK encouraged mass immigration from its former colonies to swell its workforce, the Hungarian state directed its utopian gaze towards its children. Given the right education, enough food and free healthcare, untainted Hungarian children would grow up to be productive, ideologically pure miners and steel workers. “Wherever you looked, you would see images of the healthy, muscular body of the hard-working citizen. You couldn’t get away from it. Statues, posters, newspapers and magazines all depicted the same ideal,” says Dora. To make that shining vision a reality, the government introduced a range of measures to encourage women to have children. It didn’t matter if they weren’t married. Propaganda reassured them: “To give birth is a duty for wives, and glory for maidens.” A special tax was levied against anyone over 20 who was still childless. From 1952, abortion was made a crime, accompanied by public show trials (guilt a foregone conclusion) of women charged with having abortions and the doctors charged with performing them. To allow mothers to parade their babies proudly through Hungary’s streets and squares, the national bus-manufacturing company Ikarus started producing prams in 1954 – the year György caught polio. One of Dora’s favourite images among the photographs and film footage she unearthed in her research – and one that is redolent of the era in which it was taken – is of a collection of pristine, bus-shaped Ikarus prams (with women cooing into them) in front of a row of proud, parental buses.
A childhood with polio: in pictures A selection of photographs from György Vargha’s childhood in Hungary.
Enter polio. A disease that specifically targeted and disabled children, the first epidemic struck in 1952, the second – the one that paralysed György – in 1954. That same year, Hungary watched closely as trials of the world’s first vaccine against polio began on more than a million children throughout the USA. The trials were deemed a success and the injectable Salk vaccine, named after Jonas Salk – a Jewish scientist from New York, who developed it using an inactivated virus – was quickly introduced nationwide in the USA. In April 1955, the US Cutter Laboratories (one of the companies licensed to produce the vaccine) released a batch containing poliovirus that had not been fully inactivated. As a result, almost 200 vaccinated Americans went down with paralytic polio. A Hungarian newspaper was swift to declare that “due to such negligence many thousands of children became the guinea pigs of the savage protectors of free enterprise”. The American Medical Association, meanwhile, blamed the ‘Red Menace’ of socialised medicine in the form of mass trials for the notorious ‘Cutter incident’. Yet in June the following year, after a series of international success stories had confirmed the safety and efficacy of the Salk vaccine, Hungary decided to start producing it domestically. It went even further and sent two virologists and the director of the Human Vaccine Production and Research Institute (a nationalised vaccine production company) to Denmark, a centre of polio research in Europe at the time. That they were allowed to travel across the Iron Curtain was remarkable, all the more so considering that scientists, like vets and doctors, had been kingpins of the conservative prewar society. America was less liberal with its own scientists, rejecting 600 passport applications on political grounds before 1958. However, doctors and scientists were in short supply. Many had fled when the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944. Others had returned from Russian prisoner-of-war camps ‘unable to work’ (as a result of deprivation or torture) or been deported to the Siberian gulags because of their ‘bourgeois’ affiliations. The desperate need gave scientists more freedom than academics in the more politicised humanities and social sciences, says Dora. “The Party turned more of a blind eye to their political and ideological views, and after a while many physicians and scientists actually regained the social status they had before the war. There wasn’t a clean break from the prewar society – just a new set of inequalities.” Four months after its scathing condemnation of America, the Hungarian government was forced to make a rare admission of negligence itself. The construction of new hospitals was one of the objectives set out in the first Five-Year Plan, of 1950, an economic blueprint for rapid industrialisation. But on 19 October 1956, Health Minister József Román told the leaders of the health institutes that none had been built. Existing hospitals were overcrowded, and to cope with the strain other buildings – not originally intended for healthcare – had been converted into makeshift infirmaries (the ORFI was first established in a former hotel). Román also admitted that public health and epidemiology had been neglected. The lack of investment in healthcare was a stunning omission, particularly since free healthcare was a key tenet that communist leaders used to distinguish their system from the capitalism of the West – supported by the belief that a healthy body led to a healthy mind that would choose the most rational ideology (theirs). The government also took the rare step of allowing public discussion of those concerns in the media. “For a brief moment in time newspaper reports spoke the same language as those in the ministerial archives,” says Dora. Her grandparents saw the reality. György’s hospital in Debrecen was unable to cope with the ever-increasing influx of children with polio. János’s medical contacts had advised him that the ORFI had a large polio ward and offered the most advanced treatment and surgeries for polio-induced paralysis, so the Varghas transferred their son 250 km away to Budapest. Only three at the time, György now has just fragments of memory of the period he spent in Debrecen, enduring agonising daily lumbar punctures (spinal taps, in which a needle is inserted into the lower part of the spine; even in the early 1950s it was seen as an outdated, and painful, treatment for polio). “I remember lying on my belly on an operating table, crying in pain,” he says. “And lying on my back in my bed, which was in the far corner of a ward with perhaps 12 other children. When the nurse came towards my bed I started crying before she even reached me.” © Bill Bragg
Tanks
On 23 October 1956, tens of thousands of students, workers, writers and intelligentsia marched together to Parliament calling for greater independence for Hungary from the Eastern Bloc and “the rights of free men for all its citizens”. The government labelled the revolt “chauvinistic, nationalistic, and anti-Semitic”, and Moscow sent in its Red Army to help quell the “counter-revolutionaries”. Street battles with tanks, machine guns and Molotov cocktails ensued, making new craters in Budapest’s patched-up façades, as rebels set the ávós’ black Pobedas ablaze. Five-year old György witnessed the uproar from the ORFI. Sat upright on a raised physiotherapy bed he could see out of the window to the navy-blue waters of the Danube in the distance. He had a clear view when a tank directly outside raised its gun at a machine-gunner on the roof of the neighbouring building – to the electrified György it looked as if it was pointing directly at the hospital. Eventually, his parents came to take him home to Kisvárda; the ORFI couldn’t look after him any more as food and medical supplies had run dry due to the revolution. With all international communications down and airports closed, Budapesters relied on Radio Free Europe (RFE), a CIA-funded broadcasting network, to let relatives abroad know they were all right as the violence raged on. RFE broadcasts from the West offered tactical advice to the “freedom fighters” and urged them to hold on, assuring them that help was on its way. In the last days of October 1956 RFE served another purpose. Another polio epidemic erupted in the midst of the revolution, but the iron lung at the hospital in Debrecen, where György had first stayed, was broken. A replacement was needed urgently to save a child’s life. The hospital contacted local radio stations, which broadcast an appeal. It was picked up by RFE and made its way to Munich, where the West German Red Cross managed to track down an iron lung. In the evening of 29 October, a German plane carrying the lung crossed the Iron Curtain and made its way towards Debrecen airport. But the fighting had spread to Debrecen, the airport was in darkness and with all the phone lines down it was impossible to reach anyone who worked there. The nearest alternative was Miskolc airport, over 100 km away. The radio station in Miskolc broadcast an urgent appeal – and its citizens responded. People living near the airport illuminated the area with lights, while local amateur radio transmitters contacted the plane and helped guide it safely to the ground. On 1 November, in Budapest, revolutionary leader Imre Nagy announced that Hungary was withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact (the Eastern Bloc equivalent of NATO) and appealed through the UN for the USA, the UK and other powerful countries in the West to recognise Hungary as a neutral state, no longer aligned with the USSR. He also set out plans to transform the country into a multi-party democracy. Across the river on Rózsadomb (Rose Hill), one of the leafy hills overlooking all the turmoil from the Buda side, five buildings had been seized by the rebels. Once the luxury villas of the prewar bourgeois elite, they had been nationalised by the communists, then turned into a kindergarten for the children of the Party elite. On 4 November – three days after his bid for Hungary’s independence – Nagy paused in the midst of trying to implement those radical changes and gave orders for orthopaedist Dr László Lukács to set up a specialised polio hospital in the annexed buildings. This was to be the only one of his orders that was fulfilled. A few hours later, a Soviet radio station announced the formation of a new Hungarian government headed by a new Moscow-installed leader, János Kádár, who declared his dedication to eliminating imperialist, Western, “counter-revolutionary” elements from Hungary. Nagy was deposed and given sanctuary in the Yugoslav embassy (he was later arrested when he left the embassy and was tried and executed in secret). No military support for the rebels arrived and by then, despite the promises broadcast by RFE, it was clear that it wasn’t going to. That same day, the USSR stepped up its intervention and the Russian Commander-in-Chief gave the order to attack. György, back home in Kisvárda near the Soviet border, awoke to find the ground was trembling and rumbling. His father carried him to the edge of the road, where crowds silently assembled, watching the Soviet army march from the USSR towards Budapest. Hour after hour, the seemingly endless procession of tanks, big guns, cars and soldiers filed past – terrifying to most onlookers but enthralling to a little boy. © Bill Bragg
Laundry
The Soviet military finished routing the rebels by 11 November. A day later, despite the hostility of a political elite who wanted their kindergarten back, Lukács upheld Nagy’s orders and opened the Heine Medin Post Treatment Hospital in the appropriated villas on Rózsadomb. The communist elite had chosen well: it was a perfect place for children. The new hospital was surrounded by small parks and woods, and from the top of the hill the children could look down over the treetops towards the gleaming curve of the Danube and the fairytale domes and spires of the Parliament building far below. As well as being the only hospital in the country dedicated to the long-term effects of polio, the Heine Medin also became a home for children with polio whose parents couldn’t afford to care for them. “They could live together and grow up there together,” says Dora. Party members who had lost their lovely kindergarten may have been compensated in one respect: the secluded location meant that polio-stricken bodies – the antithesis of the ideal, healthy proletarian body – were largely out of sight. The next challenge for the Heine Medin was to equip itself – no mean task, considering the revolution had brought the country to a halt, the infrastructure was still down and supplies were scarce. Help came from the West, with the International Committee of the Red Cross coordinating donations of hospital beds, bed linen, surgical equipment and medicine from all over Europe (the high-quality blankets from Sweden were known as the ‘Swedish blankets’ for years afterwards). Meanwhile, the new hospital’s only van had been hit in the street fights and sported a large hole in its side and base. Children and babies paralysed by polio were carried up the hill to the Heine Medin with the clean laundry, in laundry baskets tied to the inside of the van. It was perhaps inevitable that children paralysed by polio sometimes had to undergo painful rehabilitative surgery that failed or was even injurious. For one of the patients Dora interviewed, polio made her legs uneven in length. To help her walk more easily, Lukács sawed off a part of her unaffected leg near the knee joint – one of the most common surgeries at the hospital – so that instead of one bad and one good leg, she ended up with two short legs. Because ether in large doses was considered dangerous for children, some weren’t given full anaesthesia for the operation. “I still remember the pain and the sound of him tinkering away at my bones,” she told Dora. “Even though they said I wouldn’t feel anything, I can tell you I felt every single thing.” Down the hill in the ORFI, György’s first operation – an attempt to manipulate his muscles, when he was four – had also turned out to be painful and superfluous. He was at least given ether, but found it extremely unpleasant. “Everything went dark after they put the mask on, then a red-orange colour passed in front of my eyes. Then I fell asleep and when I woke up I vomited.” He also recalls the discomfort of being in a cast that enclosed his leg and his lower body for about six weeks after each operation. “I mostly lay in bed looking at the ceiling. It was very boring.” When it was hot the children sometimes begged the nurses to remove their casts at night to give them some relief from the unbearable itching. Sometimes the nurses did – risking the wrath of the head of the hospital, who occasionally made surprise visits to the wards in the middle of the night. Once the cast came off for good, the real pain began: physiotherapy to re-tone the muscles that had been in plaster. It was a critical part of the rehabilitation process and could be more efficient than surgery, but György remembers the agony of having the therapist stretch and move his legs again. The pain of physiotherapy, and the degree of cooperation required from the child, meant many of the children had an unusual amount of autonomy over what surgeries they had. Doctors and therapists took pains to forge strong relationships with them and gain their trust, so that they would buy into their treatment. When György was eight years old, the chief doctor and medical students came to his bed on their ward rounds and told him he needed another operation. He began to scream and shout at them. Sharing a hospital room with adult men had added some choice swear words to his vocabulary and he put them to good use now. “I sent the whole company to hell,” he recalls. The medics beat a hasty retreat, but the matter wasn’t over. György’s favourite physical therapist came talk to him. After she had managed to calm him down, she gently persuaded him to agree to give the surgeon a chance to explain why he should have the surgery before he made up his mind. Outside, the country was licking its post-revolution wounds. While help from the West had come for Hungary’s polio-stricken children, its revolutionaries realised that no help was coming their way. With the tacit agreement of the West, Hungary remained part of the Eastern Bloc. In the two years after the revolution, the new government led by Kádár meted out harsh punishment to the rebels: trainloads were deported to the Siberian gulags, while those remaining faced mass arrests, imprisonments and executions. Once Soviet power was restored – and Kádár’s own position stablilised – things slowly changed for the better. Briefly, the revolution had unmasked the reality of the ‘People’s State’ for the rest of the world to see. And the communist governments in both the USSR and Hungary had also learned an important lesson: if communism was to succeed in Hungary, there had to be bit more give in the system. Gradually people’s lives became easier, albeit at a price. “The new government positioned itself as the paternalistic provider for and protector of its citizens,” says Dora. “But it wanted acknowledgement for that. In return for free healthcare education and mass-dining canteens it expected happiness, loyalty and gratefulness from its people.” Before it could adopt that new role, however, the state had to rebuild homes, workplaces, roads and power lines that had been damaged in the revolution – and treat citizens who had been harmed in the street fighting or by the polio epidemic. The challenge was compounded by the fact that in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, even basic necessities like soap were difficult to get hold of – and many of the 200,000 rebels who had fled the country were much-needed doctors and other professionals. In desperation the state turned for aid to those it had driven away. It announced that all packages arriving containing food, clothing and medicine – many of which were sent by dissidents who had fled Hungary – would be duty-free. It also offered amnesty to those who hadn’t been affiliated with the revolt. Around 50,000 Hungarians were lured back home in the early summer of 1957 (some of whom were imprisoned or executed despite that promise), but most of them never returned. However, as it turned out, the most disastrous immediate consequence of the revolution was the interruption to the production of Salk vaccine.
Beer
It was the summer of 1957. A heatwave enveloped Budapest, the temperature rising to a scorching 45°C. While Budapesters sought relief along the banks of the Danube and in the city’s outdoor spas and pools, the government took pains to ensure that beer production (by the nationalised breweries in Budapest’s Kőbánya district) would be sufficient to quench its citizens’ thirst throughout the long, hot summer. Then, on 27 June, a warning appeared on the back pages of newspapers: polio had appeared in the city. In the following weeks its darkening shadow spread across the country, claiming more victims than it had in any of its previous visitations. As anxious parents followed its progress in newspaper and radio reports, mass organised vacations in the mountains or by Lake Balaton were banned and – in the relentless, claustrophobic heat – children were forbidden to go to the baths and spas. Today, over half a century later, a similar heatwave has just broken in Budapest. “It was over 38 degrees in the city yesterday,” says Dora. “As I was walking around I was thinking, ‘Oh my god what could it have been like in 1957?’ It was only the year after the revolution so there wasn’t time to rebuild everything and lots of people didn’t have running water in their homes. And then if you can’t go to the public pools, it’s just deadly, the streets get so hot. I took my son to this fountain where the water’s coming from the ground and the kids were running around enjoying the water and that was a lifesaver.” The new Kádár-led government was in a quandary. Inadequate healthcare and the lack of doctors (and the criticisms of those who had stayed behind) had been one of the grievances driving the revolution six months ago – and it simply couldn’t risk another uprising. It needed to flex its muscles against polio – and be seen to win. But Hungary hadn’t yet begun to produce the Salk vaccine. Once again, it turned to its enemies in the West and ordered a shipment of Salk vaccine from Denmark. The shipment (originally produced in Canada) was delivered by a West German pilot who had volunteered for the job on his day off and was heralded as a hero in the Hungarian press. For once there was no suggestion that he might be an imperialist spy. Shortly afterwards, the government had to reach through the Iron Curtain again because the shipment brought by the West German pilot wasn’t enough for the entire population. It purchased a batch from the American pharmaceutical company Parke-Davis – and accepted a donation from the World Health Organization (WHO) of 40,000 doses – despite the fact that Hungary, along with other Eastern Bloc countries, had withdrawn its membership in 1949. Perhaps most remarkably, it accepted further donations of vaccine from the national Actio Catholica organisation. In the 1950s, the relationship between the Hungarian state and the Catholic Church was extremely fraught. The head of the Hungarian Church, Cardinal József Mindszenty, who staunchly opposed communism, had been tried, tortured and given a life sentence in a 1949 show trial. The revolutionaries had managed to free him, and he was now living in sanctuary in the US embassy. The temporary but necessary graciousness towards its enemies seemed to pay off. When the next year passed without an epidemic – held up as proof that the campaign had succeeded – the Hungarian government had cause to congratulate itself. Or so it thought. © Bill Bragg
Ice cream
György, now aged eight, had his second operation in 1959. The surgeon divided a flexor muscle of his right leg, and reattached it to allow him to straighten it. He remembers a group of doctors gathering round his bed when the cast came off. “They said, ‘Extend your leg’. I tried but it didn’t work and they were disappointed. Then the Chief Medical Officer had an idea – she told me to bend my leg instead. I tried to, and it straightened! I was thrilled. For a short time I had to think of bending to extend my leg, then my brain got used to it.” Outside, the city was sweltering in another heatwave. A newspaper article from the period warns people that all buses going into the hills were completely packed, reassuring them that if they went to cool off in the open-air baths instead, there would be enough beer and ice cream for everyone. Then, on 21 July, the impossible happened: a health minister’s report on the back page of Népszava, the trade unions’ newspaper, mentioned a growing number of polio cases in Budapest. Ten days later, a newspaper article warned parents to avoid crowds and swimming pools. Polio was back – with a vengeance. As the epidemic unfolded it again reached every corner of the country, the dreaded paralytic form claiming 1,830 new victims – just slightly fewer than it had in 1957. But this time everyone had supposedly been vaccinated. How could this have happened? The mystery and fear were compounded by silence from the government. This time there were no weekly reports from the Health Ministry detailing the number of cases and what cities and counties were affected, as there had been in 1957. In 1959 there were only two reports throughout the long, hot weeks of the epidemic, and these discussed the success of the vaccination programme before going on to blame parents for not taking their children to be vaccinated when they had the chance. The internal papers of the Health Ministry, however, told a different story. There was hardly any mention of parental negligence. Instead the reports dwelt on practical, organisational issues that could have compromised the vaccination programme. One was the lack of a clear registration system. Another was the difficulty in diagnosing polio when 95 per cent of cases were abortive (non-paralytic). When polio was diagnosed, doctors and hospitals often failed to report it. And even if they did, information about when and how many doses of vaccine the child received (if any) wasn’t covered by the form. There were also complaints from doctors that the needles supplied by the Health Ministry were leaking; many started using their own needles (working against the communist ideal of a centrally organised, standardised method). Moreover, doctors were suspicious of the injection method the government had chosen to adopt. Most countries injected 0.5 ml of vaccine into the muscle, but the Danish method of injecting a lower dose (0.3 ml) into the skin instead seemed to be equally effective. The saving was very appealing to the cash-strapped Hungarian government – which parents now blamed for lowering the dose. Why had the Salk vaccine seemed to work in 1958 but not 1959? One suggestion is that another intestinal virus, the Coxsackie B virus, had been circulating in 1958 and may have interfered with the poliovirus in the gut, where it replicates, preventing an epidemic. Chris Maher, senior adviser on polio operations and research at the WHO, offers another: “The injectable, inactivated [Salk] vaccine gives really good individual protection, by boosting immunity in the bloodstream, but it doesn’t stop the live poliovirus from infecting the gut.” The virus replicates in the gut for a few weeks, without doing that particular host any harm, and is eventually shed back into the sewage system where it can circulate until it finds someone else to infect. This, he says, is why samples taken from Israel’s sewage system in June 2013 were found to contain live poliovirus. “Israel has a highly immunised population, their basic coverage is 90 per cent, but they use the inactivated vaccine. So when poliovirus of Pakistan tribal origin was brought over, no one got hurt. But people are obviously getting infected and shedding the virus – because we’re continuing to find virus. So there is the risk that they could end up with clinical cases of polio.” More worryingly, people from Israel, although protected themselves, could carry the virus to places where vaccination rates are lower, like southern or eastern Europe, and unknowingly infect many more people.
Sugar
Back in 1959, salvation for the harassed Hungarian government and frightened parents arrived – and this time it came from the ‘right’ side of the Iron Curtain: the USSR. Albert Sabin, a Polish-American Jewish researcher, had developed a new vaccine in the USA. But he couldn’t test it there because a large proportion of children there had already been immunised with the Salk vaccine. So he had turned to the East and, in a much-lauded Cold War scientific collaboration, trials had begun in 1957 on millions of children in the USSR and Czechoslovakia. This vaccine used a weakened (attenuated) rather than a killed poliovirus, and could be delivered orally on a sugar lump – a method that, in contrast to the Salk vaccine, didn’t require any medical expertise or specialised training. Importantly, the vaccine went straight to the gut where the virus replicates, so it would induce the immune system to stop the virus there so it wouldn’t be shed to circulate in the population; the harmless, attenuated virus would be shed in its place, immunising anyone it infected who hadn’t been vaccinated. Although the new vaccine provided less personal protection than the Salk vaccine (it didn’t boost the immune system in the bloodstream so well), it seemed to be a better tool for protecting large communities. The Sabin vaccine did not come without risks. The weakened but live virus might mutate in the gut and become more virulent, leading to vaccine-derived strains of polio. “If you’ve got high vaccine coverage in a population, vaccine-derived strains aren’t an issue – they need a large, susceptible population,” says Maher. This, he says, gives the virus time to mutate and develop circulating characteristics, by hopping from one susceptible gut to the next. And once the mutated virus does begin to circulate as a vaccine-derived strain, it has the same characteristics as wild-type (naturally occurring) poliovirus, including the power to cause paralysis. “The most active vaccine-derived strain circulating [in December 2013] is in Pakistan, in the same region as the wild-type virus, where there’s a very susceptible, unvaccinated tribal population,” he says. Fifty years ago, this concern was exacerbated by Cold War suspicion. Doctors and scientists on both sides of the Iron Curtain distrusted the Sabin vaccine for the same reason: because it hadn’t been tested in the USA. Americans doubted the reliability of Russia’s results (some even believed they may have been deliberately misrepresented, as part of wider attack on the West’s children). And some Russians were suspicious of a vaccine that the Americans had developed but not tested on their own children. Despite these concerns, Hungary took the plunge. It began its own trials of the Sabin vaccine on 3–4 November 1959, and a month later became the first country in the world to begin a nationwide vaccination campaign with it. By 1969, polio had been practically eradicated in Hungary, ten years before the USA achieved the same result. “The oral vaccine – the attenuated live vaccine – can knock it out of circulation completely because it creates immunity in the gut and stops the virus spreading. That’s why the first countries to use it could eradicate polio early on,” says Maher. “Once polio had been knocked out of some fairly large areas for good, that prompted health organisations to start thinking about global eradication. The oral vaccine has since been demonstrated to eradicate polio in just about every setting.” In fact, he says the best possible vaccine schedule is a combination of the two. “In Syria [in 2013] the routine vaccination is a combination of the injectable inactivated vaccine and the oral attenuated one. A marriage of the two protects the individual and the community – it gives you a better bang for your buck.” However, the eradication campaign responding to an outbreak of polio caused by the civil war there (which has led to a drop in vaccination rates) is using the oral vaccine alone. “You use the oral vaccine to respond to an outbreak, because it’s easy to administer, it stops people shedding the virus back into the environment, and it helps protect the wider community.” Yet even given the well-documented success of the Sabin vaccine, polio remains endemic in small pockets of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, where vaccinators are prevented from gaining access to unvaccinated children. “Worldwide, people aren’t refusing the vaccine at a household or community level because they think it might harm them. That’s not a significant issue now,” says Maher. “The main obstacle is armed conflict; the group in control will decide not to allow us in.” Often, he says, it’s not that they don’t trust the vaccine or that they think it’s a Western plot to poison their children. They’re more wary of the idea that vaccinators, as they move from house to house, might be as gathering intelligence, passing information around, or marking houses. “In an era of target-marking and air attacks, it’s not an entirely illogical position for these guys to have,” says Maher, “but it certainly makes life complicated for us.”
SnowName of the Fangirl: Alison
Fangirl’s Occupation: Star Wars Cosplay Hat Maker
What is her fangirl interest?
Star Wars, Cosplay, Once Upon a Time, Nightmare Before Christmas
Why did you decide to shine the spotlight on this fangirl?
I just recently started my own Star Wars cosplay hat business. I worked my first comic book show (PalmCon) in September and it was one of the best times of my life! It |
over. (Posted on 8/28/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Shipping was on time. Case is original and sealed by RUAG. GP11 are perfect Swiss quality, as I know them since 50 years. 15 of 51
Good condition Review by Patrick. (Posted on 8/26/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Nice condition full sealed case of Ammo. 1981 production. Shipped quickly and best price with reasonable shipping cost. First order from Lucky Gunner and will order again. 16 of 51
7.5 x 55 Swiss ammo Review by GERMSKI. (Posted on 8/18/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Great price, quick service and when you pull the trigger it goes bang! 17 of 51
topnotch Review by milserp. (Posted on 8/17/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality And they call this stuff surplus?! Packaging is great, rounds look better than much of the new hunting ammo I use. Non-corrosive match grade surplus at a great price, with great service like always. Shoots great too! 18 of 51
Super quick shipping great price. Will definitely order again. Review by Bill W. (Posted on 8/17/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Can't find this ammo locally. Shipping was super quick ordered on Sunday received it on Wednesday. Price was very good among the best online. I will definitely be ordered from Lucky Gunner again! 19 of 51
Best Mil-Surp You Can Buy Review by Andy. (Posted on 8/15/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Excellent ammo, sealed in original packaging, brass is nice and shiny. The two cases I received were 1979 production which is a little earlier than the case I got from Sportsman's Guide, but worked just fine. No misfires from about 50 rounds. Should keep my K31 well fed for years to come. Fast shipping and quick turnaround. 20 of 51
Great Ammo, Fast Shipping, Good Price Review by Tootsie. (Posted on 8/14/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality My first order from Lucky Gunner didn't disappoint. GP11 is great ammo for the price. The only downfall is it's Berdan primed, but at.52 cents a round its a STEAL! This ammo will shoot more accurately than I ever could. 21 of 51
Best food for your Straight Pull rifle. Review by Monte. (Posted on 8/14/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality You will not find better ammo for your Swiss Rifles. I don't understand why they stopped making this ammo. It's what a.308 should have been. 22 of 51
4* Review by Mike. (Posted on 8/3/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality So far I have shot ten rounds with 1 misfire... but once I reloaded it fired the second time. 23 of 51
Fast delivery. Fair price Review by JT. (Posted on 7/11/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Anyone into Swiss rifles knows that GP11 is hard to improve upon for accuracy. Lately it's been impossible to find but LG had some. Bought a battle pack immediately and it arrived in a few days. Very pleased. Regarding GP11 accuracy... I have a Model 70 Pre 64 Target with a custom heavy match barrel. It's 1/2 MOA all day long with GP11. Pretty good with old milsurp ammo. Like I said, hard to improve upon. 24 of 51
Great Stuff Review by mikey. (Posted on 7/7/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality This ammo is top notch. It is shipped in a durable case for storage and is in excellent shape. I shot about 50 rounds through my K31 and it shoots like Match ammo - very accurate and no misfires. Good ammo for a low price. I also appreciate the prompt service and shipping I received from Lucky Gunner. 25 of 51
Great ammo Review by LonnieG. (Posted on 7/7/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality I have had no problems with this ammo even though it is 30 years old. Swiss made says it all. 26 of 51
Feel better is you have a stack of this on-hand Review by Urban Farmer. (Posted on 7/6/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Price was good, shipping and packaging was top notch.
Seems like this GP-11 comes and goes into the US. Get some while you can.
This stuff is very accurate, hard hitting. Don't use on steel under 100 yds or it will leave a divot. (Nickel Jacket)
27 of 51
Great stuff Review by Moil. (Posted on 7/6/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Great ammo at a good price. Comes in a cool box too! Another item to add to the collection. 28 of 51
Best surplus Review by 123 in Ohio. (Posted on 7/6/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality G-r-e-a-t milsurp ammo. The best "surplus" I have ever seen, bar none, match quality. Good price too! Wish I could afford a dozen cases, this won't be available forever. 29 of 51
great ammo, great price, fast shipping Review by Paparon. (Posted on 7/3/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality This is first rate ammo, have used for a long time. Very accurate. Wish it were easily reloadable. Price is better than before the outage of ammo recently. Only wish I could afford more at this time. 30 of 51
Great Ammo! Review by Dogtick. (Posted on 6/30/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality This ammo is extremely accurate for military surplus. I shot a 7 inch grouping with my K31 at 1000 meters with this ammo, couldn't believe it (the wind was perfect). Love this ammo! 31 of 51
Good stuff Review by Denali. (Posted on 6/20/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Promptly received 2 1983' cases which were both undamaged. The rounds are bright and shiny and look like they were packaged yesterday. Cant go wrong with these at this price. Buy em cheap and stack em deep while you can. 32 of 51
Great ammo, great supplier Review by Richard. (Posted on 6/17/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Excellent cartridge for my k31. 2 inch group of 10 rounds at 300yds scoped. Berdan primed, so not reloadable by me. However, others grab the good brass as fast as the k31 ejects it. Case delivered with seal intact. Glad to see available stock after a long drought.
This is my first purchase with LuckyGunner. My next order will be with LuckyGunner. I like that they contact you via phone to confirm your first purchase. Apologies LG, thought you were a telemarketer and hung up the first time. Glad you tried again and got through. 5 stars for the product, 5 stars for LG. 33 of 51
Great service and product Review by Lonnie. (Posted on 6/14/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Shipping was extremely fast. The ammo is probably the best of any brand that I have bought in the past 50 years. I wish they made these in hollow point. 34 of 51
FINALLY! Review by David A. (Posted on 6/10/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Had searched for MONTHS for this ammo, and it finally came in at Lucky Gunner FIRST! Hard to find these days. But, I had seen this ammo on "bid" sites for $480 and UP, and TWICE the shipping cost! GREAT price, and delivered extremely quickly. Wish my discretionary funds allowed me to by MORE! Thanks! 35 of 51
Quality ammo and really fast shipping! Review by Tony. (Posted on 6/9/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality I had this ammo on my doorstep 2 days after ordering. Gp11 is excellent ammo. My Swiss rifles thank you! 36 of 51
Top Notch Review by Lonnie. (Posted on 6/9/16) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality I placed my order on the morning of June 7 and had the ammo here by 9:00 on the 9th of June! I haven't fired any of the ammo yet but, if it is like everything else made by the Swiss it should be dang near perfect. Thank you, Lucky Gunner, for EXCELLENT service! 37 of 51
Please find more Review by MJH. (Posted on 9/14/15) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality This is the best bang for the buck K31 surplus ammo. The Germans loaded these perfectly and used easily reloadable brass cases. Such a shame this great rifle doesn't have enough fans stateside to get major ammo manufacturers to start loading 7.5 swiss. Awesome round. 38 of 51
Best milsurp ammo there is Review by Slapdashbr. (Posted on 8/14/15) Customer rating: Quality
Performance
Value Use this in my K31. Fantastic ammo- match grade quality, totally non-corrosive. 39 of 51
Great, great, great! Review by Lyle. (Posted on 6/18/15) Customer rating: Quality
Performance
Value Great product, great price and great customer service. This was my first order and will hopefully be the first of many to come. The ammo (swiss 7.5x55)was exactly as advertised, priced better than anywhere else and the customer service was exceptional and fast. 40 of 51
Great Ammo!!! Review by Chris. (Posted on 6/18/15) Customer rating: Quality
Performance
Value This ammo is great. So accurate. First order with Lucky Gunner and I will be ordering more things from them. Shipping was very fast. Highly recommend!!!
41 of 51
perfect and smooth tranaction, Review by Gary. (Posted on 6/17/15) Customer rating: Quality
Performance
Value Awesome ammo extremely accurate and Luckygunner shipping is super fast,down fall,,sold out :-( 42 of 51
Great ammo Review by jaegerman. (Posted on 5/18/15) Customer rating: Quality
Performance
Value After two sighting shots put 18 into 3 1/2" group at 100 yards. That is as good as my 50+ eyes and open sights might hope for. 43 of 51
Excellent Ammo for the K31 Lover Review by Krueger. (Posted on 4/1/15) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality This ammo runs very well in my 1953 K31. Out of 120~ rounds fired in two range trips I've had two light primer strikes, one on my first trip and the second on my second trip. I've been keeping tabs on when these failures happen to check if there is a pattern, but there doesnt appear to be any. I'll test more with a seperate rifle to see if these are a fault of my gun or if its just bad primers.
Aside from the two failures to fire, the ammo is very accurate (shooting at 300~ yards) and doesnt have much recoil, and I weigh lighter than a feather which says something. The price is good if you buy in bulk, being similar to Steel cased.308.
I would highly reccomend buying this ammo in bulk if you enjoy weekend range trips with friends or by yourself.
44 of 51
Great Match Round Review by Gunny B. (Posted on 3/21/15) Customer rating: Value
Quality
Performance Excellent round for NRA and CMP matches. Its tough to hand load a round with similar performance.
Excellent service and happy that you shipped to my FFL in the People's Republik of NY. 45 of 51
Great ammo Review by Del. (Posted on 1/19/15) Customer rating: Value
Quality
Performance Fast delivery and well packaged. This great ammo, just wish there was more available! 46 of 51
Positive review. Review by Tom. (Posted on 12/11/14) Customer rating: Value
Quality
Performance Outstanding, good price, fast shipping, great communication. Quality ammo. 47 of 51
I'll be ordering again! Review by Al. (Posted on 9/28/14) Customer rating: Quality
Performance
Value I purchased a full case of these mil surp rounds
They come in a black wax case with the mfg seal.
Inside, there are paper and foil wrapped,
hermetically sealed boxes. Excellent condition!
I only needed 20 rounds at the range at
100 yards to see that these were top quality
rounds. Nice brass, which I will definately
reload. Great deal, prompt service, and a
network of convenient dealers to accept
my NY delivery. Thanks so much! Al 48 of 51
Back to Future Basics Review by JohnsonLightFoot. (Posted on 9/23/14) Customer rating: Quality
Performance
Value Quality ammunition for an excellent bolt action, iron sighted rifle, the Swiss K31. The ammunition is packed amazingly well and shoots better than I can shoot without a rifle sled of some kind. At 200 yards, ok meters, this ammunition is superb. I suspect it would do very well in a sporterized K31 which with my eyes that would be the only way to make meaningful performance evaluations past 300 yards.
This ammunition compares well to 30.06 and.308 in cost. Considering that I would not put a scope on my K31, anymore than I would do the same to an M1 Garand then the K31 with this ammunition is an excellent combination that probably would out perform most off the shelf bolt action.308 or 30.06 rifles.
"Back to the Future" considering highly accurate ammunition made 33 years ago fired from a rifle made 60 years ago. My batch of GP11 was made on 11th of February 1981, to use the European date order. I will keep purchasing this ammunition to keep my supply drought proof. I have no worries about its shelf life due to the quality of manufacturing and exceptional packaging. 49 of 51
Good stuff. Review by Jack. (Posted on 8/17/14) Customer rating: Performance
Value
Quality Good stuff. Works well in my rifle. 50 of 51Additionally, US Central Command confirmed in a statement on Monday that one airdropped bundle had missed its target,. However, CentCom said it had been destroyed in a follow-up airstrike to stop it falling into enemy hands.
The grenades seen at 1:28 in the video are reported to be German-made. Berlin sent 10,000 grenades to Iraqi Kurdistan in August as part of a consignment of military aid provided to the KRG's peshmerga fighters, according to publicly available German government documents.
The video could not immediately be independently verified, but A3maq News has previously posted IS-linked content and the some of the weapons seen in the video appear to match those possessed by Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which supplied the arms.
A video posted on YouTube on Tuesday by a group calling itself "A3maq News" purports to show airdropped supplies in the hands of the extremist group. The footage shows a masked and armed militant examining a package attached to a parachute. Later, he looks into crates containing various munitions, including RPG rounds and grenades.
Islamic State (IS) fighters may have captured weapons airdropped by the US near the Syrian town of Kobane, intended for the Kurdish forces defending it against the jihadists' onslaught.
Read more
Islamic State (IS) fighters may have captured weapons airdropped by the US near the Syrian town of Kobane, intended for the Kurdish forces defending it against the jihadists' onslaught.
A video posted on YouTube on Tuesday by a group calling itself "A3maq News" purports to show airdropped supplies in the hands of the extremist group. The footage shows a masked and armed militant examining a package attached to a parachute. Later, he looks into crates containing various munitions, including RPG rounds and grenades.
The video could not immediately be independently verified, but A3maq News has previously posted IS-linked content and the some of the weapons seen in the video appear to match those possessed by Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which supplied the arms.
The grenades seen at 1:28 in the video are reported to be German-made. Berlin sent 10,000 grenades to Iraqi Kurdistan in August as part of a consignment of military aid provided to the KRG's peshmerga fighters, according to publicly available German government documents.
Additionally, US Central Command confirmed in a statement on Monday that one airdropped bundle had missed its target,. However, CentCom said it had been destroyed in a follow-up airstrike to stop it falling into enemy hands.
American C-130 planes delivered weapons, ammunition and medical supplies provided by the KRG to People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters at dawn on Sunday, according to a CentCom statement. The operation was intended to "enable continued resistance against ISIL's attempts to overtake Kobane," CentCom added, using the former name for the Islamic State.
YPG spokesperson Redur Xelil told Reuters that the weapons would "help greatly" in the fight against IS. "The military assistance dropped by American planes at dawn on Kobane was good and we thank America for this support," he said.
Kobane is surrounded on three sides by IS and is bordered to the north by Turkey. The Turkish government has thus far refused repeated requests to open a land corridor allowing humanitarian and military supplies into the town, leading to accusations of tacit complicity in the IS assault on the Kurds, whose struggle for greater autonomy has long been a thorn in Ankara's side. However, on Monday it announced that it would allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters to cross the border to the town.
The airdrops were the first of their kind, but the US launched a series of airstrikes on IS targets in August, then extended operations into Syria in September. American planes have now carried out more than 135 airstrikes against IS in Kobane, according to the Centcom statement, which it says are indicated to have "slowed ISIL [S] advances into the city, killed hundreds of their fighters and destroyed or damaged scores of pieces of ISIL combat equipment and fighting positions."
Follow John Beck on Twitter: @JM_BeckThe Government of Canada, as well as Animal Justice — an animal rights group — argued that the court ought to take a common sense approach to the law and naturally consider any sexual contact with animals as wrong, abusive, and illegal.
His case was surprisingly complex. His lawyers contended that Parliament had never intended to criminalize oral sex with animals. Instead, they argued before the court, the charge, which carries no formal definition in the Criminal Code, was linked to 'buggery' — a similar charge also criminalized homosexual acts — and therefore required penetration.
The case before the court involves an unnamed man, accused of forcing the family dog to perform oral sex on his underage daughter. The man was convicted of a litany of sexual offences in relation to the abuse, and sentenced to 14 years in jail. On one charge of bestiality, however, he was acquitted on appeal.
The ruling essentially invites Parliament to get to work and fix that.
In a surprising decision from Canada's Supreme Court, the country's top judges ruled that forcing a dog to perform oral sex is not, in fact, bestiality and therefore not necessarily illegal.
Read more
In a surprising decision from Canada's Supreme Court, the country's top judges ruled that forcing a dog to perform oral sex is not, in fact, bestiality and therefore not necessarily illegal.
The ruling essentially invites Parliament to get to work and fix that.
The case before the court involves an unnamed man, accused of forcing the family dog to perform oral sex on his underage daughter. The man was convicted of a litany of sexual offences in relation to the abuse, and sentenced to 14 years in jail. On one charge of bestiality, however, he was acquitted on appeal.
His case was surprisingly complex. His lawyers contended that Parliament had never intended to criminalize oral sex with animals. Instead, they argued before the court, the charge, which carries no formal definition in the Criminal Code, was linked to 'buggery' — a similar charge also criminalized homosexual acts — and therefore required penetration.
The Government of Canada, as well as Animal Justice — an animal rights group — argued that the court ought to take a common sense approach to the law and naturally consider any sexual contact with animals as wrong, abusive, and illegal.
Related: Nobody Is Sure If Oral Sex With Animals Is Illegal in Canada, But Court Aims to Find Out
They managed to convince one judge.
"Acts with animals that have a sexual purpose are inherently exploitative whether or not penetration occurs," wrote Justice Rosalie Abella in a dissenting opinion, adding that preventing exploitation is what Canada's laws "were all about."
The majority court, however, ruled that if Parliament had wanted to criminalize oral sex with animals, it would have — and, in so doing, it wouldn't have used the word 'buggery.'
"When Parliament uses a term with a legal meaning, it generally intends the term to be given that meaning," the majority court wrote.
While the court upheld the man's acquittal, it did, however, nudge the government towards taking action to fix the legislative gap.
"Any expansion of criminal liability for this offence is within Parliament's exclusive domain," they wrote.
And one member of Parliament was quick to accept the invitation.
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, a backbench MP with the governing Liberal Party, introduced C-246, which would explicitly ban all sexual activity between man and animal.
The legislation would also add a host of other legal protections for animals.Television fans anxiously awaiting the the return of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” should set their DVRs for next week’s “Whitehorse City Council” based on a recently-released trailer for the upcoming series.
The new series airs on Community Cable 9 and is set in the North (a familiar location for ‘Thrones’ fans) in a land known as the Yukon and if the action-packed trailer is any indication it appears to be an intense political drama exploring themes of power and liberty at the edge of the world.
SPOILER ALERT: This week’s episode involves Whitehorse’s ruler, a stoic Mayor Dan Curtis, gathering his grey-haired council around his roundtable to discuss the future of their homelands, including the funding of a “museum.”
But don’t listen to me, watch the trailer for yourself.
However, despite strong early reviews on YouTube, some critics say the show’s cast is far too male-dominated (only two women are shown) and does not represent the diversity of its viewers.
The series airs on Monday, 7:30 p.m. local time.
Upstart cable channel Community Cable 9 (owned by Northwestael Community TV) was shut out of yesterday’s Emmy nominations but looks to have a strong contender for the 2014 television season.
Other shows on Cable 9 include “Short Sweet Yoga With Erica,” a five-minute sitcom about a time-travelling yoga instructor who moves from Toronto to Whitehorse and
“Late Night Campfire,” a hot horror-drama about a summer camp attended by vampires.
If you have trouble viewing the video, click here to watch it on YouTube.For sketching and drawing on the iPad, Procreate is a simple, yet powerful option and one of the fastest. Taking advantage of the iPad’s powerful CPU, Procreate allows you to adjust precision and pressure levels to achieve maximum flexibility, together with custom brushes. Procreate supports layers and also exports to Photoshop’s PSD format for further editing on a desktop computer. ShowYou
Price: Free
Developer: Remixation
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch If your friends share videos via their social networks, then ShowYou is an app that will give you lots of enjoyment. ShowYou connects with your account to services such as Twitter and Facebook and scours them for links your friends share to online videos. If you have an AppleTV, you can sit on the couch and flick videos straight to your big screen – great for when there’s nothing on TV.
Air Video
Price: $2.99 (free version also available)
Developer: InMethod
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch Air Video streams your collection of videos from your computer, direct to your iPad with minimal configuration and in great quality. Supporting virtually every video format, just grab the app from the App Store, download the Windows or Mac client and install it on your computer. Point Air Video to where your videos are kept and you can start streaming immediately. Instapaper
Price: $5.49
Developer: Marco Arment
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch
Instapaper revolves around the idea of reading things later. You may be browsing around the web and spot something a bit lengthy that you want to read later. Using Instapaper’s bookmarklet, simply click ‘‘Read It Later’’ and the article is downloaded to the Instapaper app on your iOS device and formatted perfectly for the smaller screens, stripping ads and combining multiple page articles. Road Inc. - Legendary Cars
Price: $6.49
Developer: Pyrolia
Platforms: iPad If you love cars, this beautifully designed interactive book will keep you fascinated for hours. Road Inc profiles dozens of the world’s most famous cars in great detail, with extensive interior and exterior photo galleries, essays about each car and even engine sounds. Kayak Mobile Pro
Price: 99c (ad supported free version also available)
Developer: Kayak Software Group
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch
There are many flight search engines available for the iPad, but Kayak routinely has the best selection and best pricing. Its iPad app is a pleasure to use, with a streamlined and clutter free interface, unlike many other apps of this type, which attempt to upsell or include advertisements. McSweeney’s
Price: Free
Developer: McSweeney’s
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch One of the most celebrated literary journals, McSweeney’s uses its iPad app to bring the latest output from its collection of writers such as Spike Jonze, Judd Apatow and Maurice Sendak direct to you. The usual McSweeney’s fare of essays, short stories, interviews and comics are updated daily and extra content can be purchased within the app.
Tweetbot
Price: $2.99
Developer: Tapbots
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch The official Twitter client for iPad is great, but Tweetbot includes some handy features and interface tweaks the official app does not, such as mute filters for annoying hashtags, quick gesture support, a customisable tab bar and a clean user interface. Scorekeeper XL
Price: Free
Developer: Matt Rix
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch
Whether it be sports or board games, Scorekeeper XL is a simple and handy scoreboard app for the iPad. Simply add in names and press the buttons to increase or decrease the score. It’s as simple as that. OzTV
Price: $2.99
Developer: Apps Perhaps
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch TV guides are nothing new, but having one on your iPad is handy for when you’re on the couch and want to know what’s on. OzTV’s data comes from eBroadcast, so it’s accurate and includes all the free to air channels up to a week in advance. You can even search for keywords and set reminders so you don’t forget to watch your favourite shows. Verbs IM
Price: 99c
Developer: #include tech
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch
Verbs is an instant messaging client that supports GoogleTalk, Facebook Chat and AIM. It has minimal features, but that’s what makes it so good. You can log in, chat to who is online, swipe between multiple chats and that’s it. Verbs also supports push notifications, so if Verbs isn’t open and you’re logged in to an IM service, you’ll know someone is trying to talk to you and will leave you logged in for up to 7 days. Skitch
Price: Free
Developer: Evernote
Platforms: iPad Skitch is wonderful for annotating images. Take photos using the iPad’s camera or use existing images in your photo roll and Skitch will let you scribble, write and add shapes to it. Once you’re done, export to Twitter, email, Evernote or back in to the camera roll. Skitch also has a built in web-browser and Google Maps integration, so you can annotate any website or map too.
Instacast HD
Price: $5.49
Developer: Vemedio
Platforms: iPad Subscribe to your podcasts with Instacast and you’ll be able to download or stream them over 3G, which is great – but Instacast HD’s best feature is the ability to view podcast show notes, while you listen to the show. A great feature for those who enjoy podcasts that discuss news articles. Lovely Charts
Price: $5.49
Developer: This is Lovely!
Platforms: iPad
If you need to quickly make a chart, Lovely Charts makes it much easier. Just draw the shapes and lines you want and Lovely Charts interprets that into properly rendered chart items. Use multi-touch gestures to connect, edit (things like colours and text), auto-align and move items, then share them via email, PDFs or as images. PDF Expert
Price: $10.49
Developer: Readdle
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch PDF Expert lives up to its name, with loads of features that make handling PDFs on your iPad a superior experience to that on a desktop computer. PDF Expert supports annotations, notes, signatures, forms and can even look inside ZIP files for PDFs. It supports syncing with all the popular services out of the box, but the best feature is the insane speed of PDF rendering, even with enormous files. Green Kitchen
Price: $5.49
Developer: Amazing Applications
Platforms: iPad
Cookbooks don’t get more beautiful than this perfectly designed app. Green Kitchen revolves around vegetarian recipes and displays them to you with high resolution images and helps you cook with easy to follow instructions and clear ingredient lists. Capo
Price: $20.99
Developer: SuperMegaUltraGroovy
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch When learning to play a song on any instrument, it helps to have it slowed down or have bits of the song isolated, to help with practice. Capo takes any song on your iPad and can slow it down to any speed you wish. Capo also lets you select a region of a song and can play it in a loop, so you can practise over and over, until you’ve got it.
ThinkBook
Price: $5.49
Developer: Bitolithic
Platforms: iPad Everyone makes dot point lists. From simple shopping lists to world domination plans, everything can be made easier with lists. Thinkbook aims to collect all your ideas into a single, clean and easy to use app. Thinkbook’s interface makes rearranging items in your list simple and also supports checklists, question and answer lists and indented lists. Of course, syncing with Dropbox is included too. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Price: $5.49
Developer: Moonbot Studios
Platforms: iPad
A book for the 21st century. Amazingly detailed, excellent narration and Hollywood quality animation, children and adults alike will be in awe with this story. Multi-touch gestures launch interactive animations that help tell the story of the missing books of Morris Lessmore. Pulse: Volume One
Price: $2.99
Developer: Cipher Prime Studios
Platforms: iPad Think of it as Dance Dance Revolution, combined with Guitar Hero, but for your fingers. Pulse uses multi-touch gestures to tap dots in time with the music and a pulsing circle emanating from the middle ring. Great original music is often added – be sure to wear headphones for the best experience. Hard Lines
Price: 99c
Developer: Spilt Milk Studios
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch
We all remember Snake from our venerable Nokia phones. Well, Snake is back and on steroids with a hint of MDMA. Hard Lines is a giant snake playing field, full of other snakes, flashing power ups, timed challenges and awesome music. Charadium II
Price: $2.99
Developer: On5
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch Pictionary is fun, but you’ve got to find a pencil, have enough paper, and find some friends to play it with. Charadium takes the idea of Pictionary, puts it on the iPad and takes it online. You’re plonked into a chat room where you have to guess what a person in the room is drawing. The sooner you answer it, the more points you get. Eventually it will be your own turn to draw and the room needs to guess what you’re drawing.
1112
Price: $7.49
Developer: Agharta Studio
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch Consisting of three episodes (with more to come), 1112 is an adventure game full of puzzles and deep thinking. You navigate the game in beautiful landscapes, immersed in high quality music, talking to people to gain clues, solve puzzles to reveal more clues and hopefully solve the mystery of the protagonist’s headaches and weird dreams. Super Stick Man Golf
Price: 99c
Developer: Noodlecake Studios
Platforms: iPhone, iPad & iPod touch
Super Stick Man Golf (SSG) is a huge mini-golf course, with the usual aim of getting the ball, into a hole. However, in SSG, the hole is far away and often above or below you, with obstacles like valleys, lava flows and moving platforms that get between you and the hole. Machinarium
Price: $5.49
Developer: Amanita Design
Platforms: iPad Puzzle lovers will enjoy Machinarium, with its amazing graphics and intricate point and tap story, serving as a beautiful backdrop for fun, but challenging puzzles. Winner of the Independent Games Festival excellence in visual art award and runner-up of Kotaku’s PC game of the year, it’s a classic everyone will enjoy. Anthony Agius is an Apple enthusiast and founder of MacTalk, a site where Australian Apple fans congregate.
*Editor's note: Fairfax's Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers also have their own app. SMH / The Age
Price: Free
Developer: Fairfax
Platforms: iPadFrom JSON to RDF in Six Easy Steps with JRON June 4, 2010
Sometimes, if you stand in the right place and squint, JSON and RDF line up perfectly. Each time I notice this, I badly want a way to make them line up all the time, no matter where you’re standing. And, actually, I think it’s pretty easy.
I’ve seen a few proposals for how to work with RDF data in JSON, but the ones I’ve seen put too much burden on JSON folks to accomodate RDF. It seems to me we can let JSON keep doing what it does so well, and meanwhile, we can provide bits of RDF which can be adopted when needed. Instead of pushing RDF on people, allow them to take the parts they find useful.
In thinking about it, I’ve come up with six things RDF can do that are not standard parts of JSON. These are things one can do with JSON, of course, but not in any standard way. My suggestion is these bits of functionally be provided in an RDF-compatible way (as I detail below), so that the JSON world and the RDF world can start to really play well together.
I’m interested to hear what people think of this. Blog comment, email to sandro@hawke.org (maybe cc semantic-web@w3.org?), or catch me in the halls at SemTech. I expect this general topic of RDF-meets-JSON will be discussed at the RDF Next Steps workshop, and if the stars line up right, maybe we can get a W3C Recommendation in this space in the next year or so. Let’s call this particular proposal JRON 0.1 (Javascript RDF Object Notation), not “Sandro’s Proposal”, so I can be freer to like other designs and be properly neutral.
Step 0: Start with ordinary JSON
In general, JSON and RDF are very similar, although they are usually described using different terminology. Of course, they both have strings and numbers. They both have way of encoding a sequence of items: arrays in JSON, lists in RDF (some details below). The main structuring is around key-value pairs, which JSON calls an ‘object’. In RDF we call it the “subject” and focus on its connection with each key-value pair; the three together form an RDF triple.
The point here is that ordinary JSON structures correspond to an important subset of RDF. The don’t exactly match that subset because RDF uses namespace, as detailed in step 5 below. The other steps below show the ways in which JSON is a subset of RDF. If one takes all the steps here, using JSON with these conventions, one has full RDF.
So, here are the steps. Steps 1-3 are pretty simple and not very interesting. They address everyday concerns in data processing. Steps 4-6 may be a little more surprising if you’re not familiar with RDF.
Step 1: Allow Extended Datatypes
Why: For datatypes, JSON only has strings, numbers, booleans. Sometimes people want to store and manipulate other datatypes, such as dates, or application-specific datatypes.
How: RDF uses XML’s datatype mechanism, where data values are conveyed as a pair of items: a lexical representation (a sequence of characters) and a datatype identifier (a sequences of characters which happens to be a URI). Each datatype is a mapping from strings (lexical representations) to values; the datatype identifier tells us which datatype is to be used to interpret this particular representation.
In JRON, we represent this pair like this:
{ "__repr": "2010-03-06", "__type": "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#date" }
You can put this as a value in a list or in a key-value pair, just like a string or number.
RDF |
began to experience miosis (constriction of the pupils of the eyes), dizziness, and severe shortness of breath. It took them three weeks to recover fully.
In 1935, the Nazi government had passed a decree that required all inventions of possible military significance to be reported to the Ministry of War, so in May of 1937, Schrader sent a sample of tabun to the chemical warfare (CW) section of the Army Weapons Office in Berlin-Spandau. Dr. Schrader was summoned to the Wehrmacht chemical lab in Berlin to give a demonstration, after which Schrader's patent application and all related research was classified. Colonel Rüdiger, head of the CW section, ordered the construction of new laboratories for the further investigation of tabun and other organophosphate compounds, and Schrader soon moved to a new laboratory at Wuppertal-Elberfeld in the Ruhr valley to continue his research in secret throughout World War II. The compound was initially codenamed Le-100 and later Trilon-83.
Sarin was discovered by Schrader and his team in 1938, and named after their initials. It was codenamed T-144 or Trilon-46. It was found to be more than ten times as potent as tabun. Sarin is the most toxic of the four G-agents made by Nazi Germany.
Sarin in Nazi Germany during World War II
In mid-1939, the formula for the agent was passed to the chemical warfare section of the German Army Weapons Office, which ordered that it be brought into mass production for wartime use. A number of pilot plants were built, and a high-production facility was under construction (but was not finished) by the end of World War II. Estimates for total sarin production by Nazi Germany range from 500 kg to 10 tons.
Though sarin, tabun, and soman were incorporated into artillery shells, Germany ultimately decided not to use nerve agents against Allied targets. German intelligence was unaware that the Allies had not developed similar compounds, but did speculate that they might have and they also understood that unleashing these compounds would lead the Allies to develop and use chemical weapons of their own. They were concerned that the Allies' ability to reach German targets would prove devastating in a chemical war.
Sarin after World War II
U.S. Honest John missile warhead cutaway, showing M139 Sarin bomblets (c. 1960).
The following is a timetable of the development and use of sarin since World War II.
1950s (early). NATO adopted sarin as a standard chemical weapon, and both the U.S.S.R and the United States produced sarin for military purposes.
1953. Twenty-year-old Ronald Maddison, a Royal Air Force engineer from Consett, County Durham, died in human testing of sarin at the Porton Down chemical warfare testing facility in Wiltshire. Maddison had been told that he was participating in a test to "cure the common cold." Ten days after his death an inquest was held in secret, which returned a verdict of "misadventure." In 2004, the inquest was reopened and, after a 64-day inquest hearing, the jury ruled that Maddison had been unlawfully killed by the "application of a nerve agent in a non-therapeutic experiment" (BBC 2004).
1956. Regular production of sarin ceased in the United States, though existing stocks of bulk sarin were re-distilled until 1970.
1960s (developing). Declassified secret documents indicate that the United States unsuccessfully sought Australian permission in the 1960s to test sarin and VX gas on 200 "mainly Australian" troops (Ansley 2008).
1978. Michael Townley in a sworn declaration indicated that sarin was produced by the secret police of Chile's Pinochet regime DINA, by Eugenio Berríos. The testimony indicated that it was used to assassinate the state archives custodian Renato León Zenteno and the Army Corporal Manuel Leyton (El Mercurio 2006).
1980–1988. Iraq used sarin against Iran during the 1980–88 war. During the 1990–91 Gulf War, Iraq still had large stockpiles available, which were found as coalition forces advanced north.
1988. Over the span of two days in March, the ethnic Kurd city of Halabja in northern Iraq (population 70,000) was bombarded with chemical and cluster bombs, which included sarin, in the Halabja poison gas attack. An estimated 5,000 people died.
1991. UN Resolution 687 established the term "weapon of mass destruction" and called for the immediate destruction of chemical weapons in Iraq, and eventual destruction of all chemical weapons globally.
1993. The United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention was signed by 162 member countries, banning the production and stockpiling of many chemical weapons, including sarin. It went into effect on April 29, 1997, and called for the complete destruction of all specified stockpiles of chemical weapons by April 2007 (OPCW 2005).
1994. The Japanese religious sect Aum Shinrikyo released an impure form of sarin in Matsumoto, Nagano.
1995. Aum Shinrikyo sect released an impure form of sarin in the Tokyo Subway. Twelve people died.
1998. Time Magazine and CNN ran news stories alleging that in 1970 U.S. Air Force A-1E Skyraiders engaged in a covert operation called Operation Tailwind, in which they deliberately dropped sarin-containing weapons on U.S. troops who had defected in Laos. After investigations, both internally and by the Pentagon, CNN and Time Magazine retracted the stories and fired the producers responsible (CNN 1998).
and CNN ran news stories alleging that in 1970 U.S. Air Force A-1E Skyraiders engaged in a covert operation called Operation Tailwind, in which they deliberately dropped sarin-containing weapons on U.S. troops who had defected in Laos. After investigations, both internally and by the Pentagon, CNN and retracted the stories and fired the producers responsible (CNN 1998). 1999. The 3D crystal structure of sarin complexed with acetylcholinesterase was determined by Millard et al (1999).
2004. On May 14, Iraqi insurgency fighters in Iraq detonated a 155 mm shell containing several liters of binary precursors for sarin. The shell was designed to mix the chemicals as it spins during flight. The detonated shell released only a small amount of sarin gas, either because the explosion failed to mix the binary agents properly or because the chemicals inside the shell had degraded significantly with age. Two United States soldiers were treated for exposure after displaying the early symptoms of exposure to sarin (MSNBC 2004).
Notes
↑ United States Senate, 103d Congress, 2d Session, 1994 (May 25), Material safety data sheet: Lethal nerve agent sarin (GB), Gulf War Veteran Resource Pages. Retrieved August 16, 2008.
References
Blood agents: Cyanogen chloride (CK) – Hydrogen cyanide (AC) Blister agents: Lewisite (L) – Sulfur mustard gas (HD, H, HT, HL, HQ) – Nitrogen mustard gas (HN1, HN2, HN3) Nerve agents: G-Agents: Tabun (GA) – Sarin (GB) – Soman (GD) – Cyclosarin (GF) | V-Agents: VE – VG – VM – VX Pulmonary agents: Chlorine – Chloropicrin (PS) – Phosgene (CG) – Diphosgene (DP) Incapacitating agents: Agent 15 (BZ) – KOLOKOL-1 Riot control agents: Pepper spray (OC) – CS gas – CN gas (mace) – CR gasBoosted by growth in individual and corporate income taxes in a month not typically significant for revenue collections, Virginia posted a 15.7 percent revenue increase in October, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell announced Tuesday.
But McDonnell cautioned October’s good news comes amidst uncertainty over the future of the federal government, as Congress prepares to address the fiscal cliff.
“While any increase in revenues is certainly positive … Virginia must look beyond these short-term increases and prudently prepare for how to weather any potential financial challenges in the coming months,” McDonnell said in a statement. “To not do so would be irresponsible.”
Collections of payroll withholding taxes rose 13.8 percent compared to October 2011, and collections of individual non-withholding taxes rose 43.2 percent. Due in part to late corporate September payments, collections of corporate income taxes rose 143 percent.
Total revenue collections rose 4.8 percent through October, ahead of the annual forecast of 2.9 percent growth. October’s increase follows a 0.7 percent decrease in September.
Last week, McDonnell asked all state agencies to submit their plans on how to reduce spending in their departments by 4 percent as his administration prepares the upcoming budget.As I recently traveled across Europe, and ultimately to PorcFest, I took time to talk to talk to entrepreneurs, technologists, and libertarians about LBRY.
For the mutualistic education of myself and others, below are the questions and answers to five frequently asked questions.
Five Questions
1. When will LBRY come out?
As we recently Tweeted, we're extremely close to releasing a POC client:
LBRY's doors are locked, but gaze through the glass and one behold's the hazy form of a proof-of-concept pic.twitter.com/93ViBCx72g — LBRY (@LBRYio) July 1, 2015
To make sure you hear as soon as it is available, join our mailing list or follow us on Twitter.
2. What happens if someone uploads infringing content to LBRY?
LBRY changes the way information is shared. LBRY's decentralized nature makes it impossible for LBRY Inc. to control any information published to the LBRY network. LBRY Inc. cannot censor or remove content from the network.
That said, a user who initially uploads infringing content to the LBRY network may be liable for civil or criminal copyright infringement under their local laws. A patron who accesses infringing content via the LBRY network may also be liable for copyright infringement. LBRY Inc. strongly encourages creators to refrain from publishing content which may infringe upon copyright and urges patrons to wait for authorized providers to source content.
Additionally, we've designed LBRY to protect miners and hosts. Content about information, or metadata, is stored in the LBRY blockchain and is required in the production of LBRY credits. Hosts only store tiny pieces of encrypted information, so they never have knowledge of their content nor, from a technical perspective, do they possess it. However, we are not your lawyers and this is neither legal advice nor a promise.
3. If LBRY is Bitcoin + BitTorrent, why does it not use the Bitcoin blockchain?
We spent a lot of time debating whether it was possible to build LBRY on top of Bitcoin. We certainly wanted to, as Bitcoin offers a tremendous user base.
Ultimately, we decided this was not possible to do. We want LBRY to be the most efficient market for selling and buying information. From a fundamental perspective, kludging LBRY on top of Bitcoin would result in reduced efficiency.
We are huge believers in Bitcoin and recognize we would not be here without it. If we have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of anonymous giants. For this reason, we plan to commit a significant initial portion of LBRY credits to Bitcoin holders.
We will also be releasing the source of LBRY so that others may stand upon us.
4. What's the difference between LBRY and MaidSafe (or X)?
There are several attempts to build a decentralized computing platform. LBRY is not one of them; it exists only for information. Products that subsume the information problem, such as MaidSafe or Ethereum, will crumble under their own weight at the worst and not approach LBRY's performance at their best. Building an information delivery network inside of a larger decentralized platform is guaranteed at a fundamental level to result in worse performance, greater expense, or both.
Other crypto-data solutions are about providing reliable and known data-access methods for publishers (i.e. they give you a name, frequently gibberish, and attempt to promise that data will remain available at that name). LBRY is about creating the best experience for consumers, who care less if names change than if a name gives them the information they desire.
LBRY's reservation-based approach to names means unlike any other existing solution. We've leveraged Nobel Prize-winning economics to create a system in which names are extremely likely to resolve to what user's desire as well as be owned by the proper content creator. Greater user experience + greater creator experience = WNNNG1.
1 New LBRY policy: when disemvoweling, aim for maximum confusion.
5. Allowing anyone to bid a higher price for a name is insane|brilliant.
First, for clarity, here is LBRY's naming system as succinctly as possible:
Whoever pledges the most credits against a name holds it, subject to a defined window for a counter-bid
Our instinctual desire to have confident possession of our property makes LBRY's reservation-only name system feel off. However, it has strong economic underpinnings. Famed economist Ronald Coase made the insight that as long as property rights are clearly defined, and there are sufficiently low transaction costs, an efficient outcome will result regardless of the initial allocation of property.
First, let's ensure the premises to our theorem hold. In LBRY, property rights could not be more explicit - whoever has committed the most credits holds the name. Second, transaction costs are close to zero.
In the sense of this theorem, the efficient outcome is that the owner of any name will be the entity for whom the name holds the most value. When does a name hold the most value? When it maps to content that is most desired by users.
What do users desire when accessing a name? For a name to resolve to the content, they envisioned as well as for that content to be provided by its legitimate creator. The former desire may outstrip the latter, but consumers would clearly rather pay a legitimate creator than a non-legitimate creator. Thus, the legitimate content creator has maximal incentive to provide a LBRY name mapping to their content.
The end-result of LBRY's reservation scheme is two-fold: 1) names will almost always resolve to what user's desire and 2) content creators will economically benefit from publishing content via LBRY.
What No One Said
Exposing even a straightforward creation to the public is daunting. LBRY, with several machinating, interlocking parts, is straightforward's antipode. In these first days, with our bare shelves, understanding the edifice we are building requires the ability to make acute insights. Particularly with LBRY's naming scheme, it veers into the imposing Kingdom of the Counter-Intuitive.
Despite this, no one said "I don't get it" or "you're crazy". Some people certainly got it faster than others, but everyone saw the need and the opportunity. People were excited. While we'll admit our early testing grounds are favorable (tech groups and a liberty festivals), the reaction has been equally favorable. Every interaction leaves us more inspired to create the most egalitarian, efficient library the world has ever seen.Well, the last few days have not been fun, have they? Fortunately, the pesky Pittsburgh Pirates have left town, but in their place stand the Milwaukee Brewers, a group that has consistently been a bigger thorn in the Cubs’ side than the Bucs.
Since the beginning of 2016, the Cubs hold a collective 13-9 record against the Brew Crew, which initially appears to be successful. When you compare that tiny difference to the massive disparity between the two teams’ overall records, however, you can see that the Brewers have done significantly better against the Cubs than against everyone else. Regardless of past performance, the Cubs need to forget this past weekend ASAP, and a successful series against Milwaukee can do just that.
Previewing the Cubs
Yeah, so they got swept. Whatever. By my calculations, the Cubs were swept at some point last year, so this sweep means they will win the World Series again this year. In all seriousness, though, it may be disappointing that they’re back to.500 (and annoying that the White Sox have a better record), but the reality is that nobody will remember being swept by the Pirates come August.
What is important to note is that only one of the three losses was charged to a Cubs starter. This questionable bullpen blew two late leads, and, ultimately, the series. This is immensely disappointing as, entering Friday, the pen was on fire; they didn’t surrender a single earned run to the Dodgers last week. Part of this sudden faltering is the fact that Carl Edwards hasn’t been with the team, as he was deactivated and put on the Bereavement List on Friday due to the death of a family member (we wish all the best for Edwards and his family).
It’s become apparent, however, how crucial he is to the Cubs’ pen. Brian Duensing, activated off the Disabled List as Edwards’s replacement, was perfect in an inning on Friday, but began Saturday’s self-destruction by giving up three earned runs (before Pedro Strop continued the mess). Further, despite his relatively clean inning on Saturday, Koji Uehara was at fault for Sunday’s loss. Even Justin Grimm, solid to this point in 2017, gave up a three run bomb. Unpredictability seems to be the only predictable aspect of the bullpen. I suspect Theo might make a bullpen change prior to this series against Milwaukee, but it won’t be too drastic. Be on the lookout for how this pen reacts to their struggles.
Jon Lester and Jake Arrieta looked phenomenal this series, but, unfortunately, they will be the two starters not taking the mound opposite the Brewers. Pay attention to Brett Anderson on Tuesday; he has looked phenomenal through two starts this year despite a career full of inconsistency and mediocrity. Last year’s ERA leader Kyle Hendricks will look to get back on track when he starts on Wednesday.
The offense wasn’t horrible this weekend, it just wasn’t enough. Kris Bryant FINALLY exploded, hitting two homers (including one off of the left field video board). There were plenty of hits and opportunities, the team just couldn’t capitalize. Entering Sunday’s game, the Cubs were hitting just.235 with runners in scoring position. Team hitting leaders include Jason Heyward, who is still batting.284, and Anthony Rizzo, who has raised his average to.277. Albert Almora still leads the team, but he didn’t start once against the Pirates and went 0-2 in pinch hitting opportunities.
It’ll also be interesting to see how Joe Maddon juggles his lineup against Milwaukee, as he’s gone with Heyward in center, Ben Zobrist in right, and Javier Baez at second three straight games. Is this the official go-to lineup?
Previewing the Brewers
The Cubs are entering this series ice cold, but the Brewers are coming in scorching hot. They’ve won five of their last six and just took three of four from the first place Cincinnati Reds. Their pitching has been solid, but former Korean star Eric Thames might just be the key to their winning. He homered five times in their four-game set against the Reds and has raised his batting average to.368. It will be very interesting to see if the Cubs pitching can hold him in check.
Their pitching staff has also been doing nicely. In their recent 5-1 stretch, they’ve given up 17 runs, with seven of those being added from the lone loss. Two of the three starters headed to the mound this week, Chase Anderson and Jimmy Nelson, have given up a combined three earned runs in four total starts. Nelson held the Cubs to one run in six innings just over a week ago, but the third starter this week, Tommy Milone, surrendered four earned runs in the same number of innings the same series. Watch to see if the Cubs use their experience against both pitchers to their advantage.
GAME TIMES, HOW TO WATCH/LISTEN
Monday, April 17 – 7:05 PM / CSN-C+ / AM 670 The Score
Tuesday, April 18 – 7:05 PM / WGN / AM 670 The Score
Wednesday, April 19 – 1:20 PM / WGN / AM 670 The Score
PROBABLE STARTERS
Monday
RHP John Lackey (1-1, 3.00 ERA) vs. RHP Chase Anderson (1-0, 0.67 ERA)
Tuesday
LHP Brett Anderson (1-0, 0.84 ERA) vs. RHP Jimmy Nelson (1-0, 1.38 ERA)
Wednesday
RHP Kyle Hendricks (1-1, 5.73 ERA) vs. LHP Tommy Milone (0-0, 9.00 ERA)
SERIES PREDICTION
Chase Anderson shuts down the offense in the opener, extending the Cubs’ unpleasant skid. On Tuesday, however, behind the emerging Brett Anderson’s perfect game, they respond with the vengeance of a thousand suns and win by a score of 18-0. Hendricks shows progress on Wednesday, though minimal, and, because it’s enough to support the newfound offense’s demolition of Tommy Milone, the Cubs return to above-.500.
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Among the millions of people incarcerated in the United States, a significant portion have long been thought to be parole violators, those who were returned to prison not for committing a crime but for failing to follow rules: missing an appointment with a parole officer, failing a urine test, or staying out past curfew.
But their actual number has been elusive, in part because they are held for relatively short stints, from a few months to a year, not long enough for record keepers to get a good count.
To help fill the statistical gap, The Marshall Project conducted a three-month survey of state corrections departments, finding more than 61,250 technical parole violators in 42 state prison systems as of early 2017. These are the inmates who are currently locked up for breaking a rule of parole, rather than parolees who have been convicted of a new crime; the number does not include those in county and local jails, where thousands more are likely held. (The eight remaining states — Alabama, Connecticut, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia — said either they did not keep current state-level data or it would be too costly to generate.)
The total, 61,250, seems small, given the 2.3 million people behind bars in this country. Imprisoning fewer technical violators would make only a dent in the effort to reduce mass incarceration. “But still,” said Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, “the numbers aren’t trivial.”
To Mauer and other experts on what drives prison and jail populations, the fact that tens of thousands of people are incarcerated for infractions such as traveling without permission or frequenting a bar that serves alcohol is significant in itself.
That may be all the more true in seven states — Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, and Pennsylvania — which, according to the Marshall Project data, have more technical parole violators in their prisons than the other 35 states combined.
There are various reasons for such large discrepancies in the numbers. For one, the decision to send someone back to prison is often based on the discretion of a parole officer — and protocol, training and oversight for P.O.’s vary widely by jurisdiction.
Second, in the current era of criminal justice reform, states have differed in their attempts to incarcerate fewer technical violators. Some have done nothing, while others are implementing a variety of less punitive sanctions for parolees or capping the number of days they can be incarcerated for.
The Next To Die A detailed, up-to-date schedule of upcoming executions in the United States
Also, while states like Illinois lock up most or all of their parole violators in state prisons, others put them in county jails, which do not show up in these data. California, for example, has zero technical parole violators currently in its prisons, but many are incarcerated at the local level. Following a 2011 court decision that required the state’s corrections department to reduce prison overcrowding, a variety of inmates, including parole violators, were shifted from packed state prisons to county-level jails, halfway houses, and treatment centers, through a process called “realignment.”
In Arkansas, however, the number of parole violators in state prisons is extremely high — 6,135 out of a total prison population of 16,499 as of January — due largely to a single event. Following the high-profile murder of a teenager by a parolee in 2013, the state’s corrections system immediately and dramatically cracked down on everyone caught in violation of parole. In the last six months of that year alone, the number of parole revocation proceedings increased by 300 percent, a zero-tolerance approach to the issue that has continued.
The bigger question underlying these numbers, for corrections officials and reformers alike, is whether being released after serving a court-imposed sentence ought to be seen as a privilege — subject to parole guidelines — or a right.
Experts also point out that some — perhaps as many as half, by some estimates — of the supposedly “technical” parole violators currently in state prisons may have also been arrested for a new crime in conjunction with their violation (or the arrest may have even been the violation). But in such cases, prosecutors often find it more expedient to send the individual back into prison by simply revoking their parole, rather than by going through the process of indicting, convicting and sentencing them for the new crime they were arrested for.
“It’s called a pretextual violation,” said John Pfaff, a Fordham University law professor whose new book argues that technical parole violations are largely overrated as an explanation for mass incarceration. “‘We don’t want to spend the time and effort to get the guy to plead out to the burglary that he just did, but we do have this drug test violation that we can use to get him into prison anyway.’”
That way of handling parole raises still more constitutional questions, others say.
“We’re supposed to send people to prison not just based on a preponderance of the evidence, but beyond all reasonable doubt,” said Adam Gelb, director of the public safety performance project for The Pew Charitable Trusts and an expert on prison population statistics. “States are sending thousands of people to prison for technical violations... and the justification is that they maybe also committed a crime.”Bulgaria’s Parliament has adopted on second and final reading the Electronic Identification Bill which enables individuals to identify themselves through digital records and receive electronic services in sectors of state governance such as finance, health care, and social activities.
The electronic identifier will differentiate one person from another in the virtual environment in order to provide access to information systems, the MPs decided.
Bulgarian citizens and foreign nationals aged 14+ and having a Bulgarian-issued ID card with a national identification number will be entitled to obtaining a digital identification certificate.
The digital identification certificates will be issued by the Minister of the Interior on the basis of an application submitted in writing by individuals. An application can also be submitted through a registered digital identification administrator or a Bulgarian diplomatic mission.
The electronic identification certificate will be issued for a maximum term of five years.
The Electronic Identification Bill will enter into force six months after its publication in the State Gazette.Last month the Pentagon sent a tough signal to its fastest-growing rival in Asia when a U.S. Navy warship sailed close by an artificial Chinese island in the contested waters of the South China Sea.
The message: The U.S. will stand by its allies as they confront China's increasingly muscular military.
This month, the Defense Department picked Joint Base Lewis-McChord for a friendlier exchange between the two world powers.
The Army is opening up the South Sound base for a weeklong exercise with its Chinese counterpart, the People's Liberation Army.
It's fairly small compared with some of the standard engagements that pull JBLM soldiers all over the Pacific. Only 80 Chinese soldiers are expected to visit JBLM.
But it's significant because it will be the first time ground-level Chinese soldiers visit an Army base in the continental U.S. for a military-to-military exercise.
"It's a big deal," said Timothy Heath, a China expert at the Rand Corp. "It's a sign of an improving security relationship that needs more stability. This is a good sign. We need exercises like this to promote stability."
For the Puget Sound area, the exercises come at a time of increased relationship-building with China. President Xi Jinping visited the region, including Tacoma's Lincoln High School, in September. Chinese investors have proposed building a high-rise hotel next to Tacoma's convention center downtown. And China remains Washington state's largest export market.
The U.S. and Chinese militaries aren't ready to play war games together and they won't practice offensive maneuvers that could be used against American allies on JBLM training grounds. That's something the Army offers to its closest allies in the Pacific, such as Japan, and most recently, India, during joint exercises in Washington state.
Instead, American and Chinese troops will try to find common ground in their preparations for natural disasters in a weeklong exercise Monday through Nov. 21 that will unfold both in Seattle and at JBLM, said Lt. Col. Jason Shelton, who is coordinating the exercise as a planner on the I Corps staff.
The event is one in a series of 11 annual exercises that have joined the two armies for discussions on how they might respond to humanitarian crises. The others have taken place in Washington, D.C., Hawaii and in different parts of China.
"Despite our differences with China, we can still work together and come together to work on common challenges, such as natural disasters and humanitarian crises," Shelton said.
In this case, they're gaming out how they could collaborate to help civilians in a severe earthquake.
It's a worry that both countries share, with China preparing for disasters in the Himalayas and Northwest military leaders drawing up plans for a catastrophe on the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the coasts of Washington and Oregon.
Ideally, Washington National Guard Commander Maj. Gen. Bret Daugherty said, both countries could partner to respond powerfully in a crisis, such as a typhoon or tsunami.
He gave a presentation at Camp Murray in May to a visiting Chinese general on local earthquake preparations. He's also sensitive to the relationship between the two countries because he has family ties to the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, a U.S. territory in the South Pacific where Chinese and American interests sometimes clash.
"We need to figure out how to work with them and there could be good news that comes out of that partnership, especially along the lines of disaster relief," Daugherty said.
Normally, JBLM hosts contingents from foreign militaries that have competing interests with China. Those exchanges have accelerated since JBLM's I Corps headquarters returned from its last deployment to Afghanistan in 2012 and the Army turned JBLM into a central player in its "Pacific pivot."
The Japan Self Defense Force sends a battalion every year to train at JBLM's Yakima Training Center. That country is boosting its defense budget to pace itself with China's growth and preparing for conflicts on islands that both it and China claim.
On its latest exercise in Yakima, Japanese forces practiced helicopter assaults with troops from JBLM's 7th Infantry Division.
South Korea, likewise, has an officer assigned to JBLM's I Corps and has sent large numbers of soldiers to training events with JBLM troops in California. It, too, has an island dispute with China.
Other militaries that fall within China's orbit -- such as Australia, Taiwan and Singapore -- also regularly connect with JBLM's leaders.
But Heath of the Rand Corp. said those nations probably support the U.S. Army's welcome to the People's Liberation Army because they believe every side would suffer if a war breaks out in the region.
"Our allies and partners want a strong defense relationship with the U.S., but they also want to see stable relationship between U.S. and China," said Heath, a former adviser to the Pentagon's Pacific Command in Hawaii, where he focused on China issues. "They do not want to see the U.S. and China go to war over something reckless."
U.S. Pacific Command participates every year in more than 40 military exercises with Chinese forces, said PACOM spokesman Maj. Dave Eastburn.
Those exercises take place despite the sometimes harsh words the countries exchange.
Late last month, the U.S. Navy prodded China on a patrol through the South China Sea, where China has reclaimed thousands of acres of land to expand what appear to be military bases in waters widely considered as international trade routes. Those islands have exacerbated conflicts with neighbors such as Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
U.S. Rep. Denny Heck, D-Olympia, says the new defense budget includes a provision requiring the Pentagon to study how it would send ground troops to island conflicts in the South China Sea.
"There's no question this is an existential threat to the geopolitical order, and therefore, there's no question JBLM will be involved" in addressing the conflict, Heck said at a local forum Thursday.
Defense experts, however, say Chinese and American ground forces are unlikely to face off against each other; most conflicts, they say, center on potential battles at sea, in the air or even in cyberspace.
"Traditionally, in my time when I worked at (Pacific Command) it seemed like the Army had an easier time connecting with their Chinese counterparts, and I think this exercise reflects that," Heath said.
Army leaders say each year's joint disaster exercises have grown increasingly complex. A lot of the work this time is expected to take place in a mock headquarters and at "tabletop" exercises for a major earthquake.
On the ground, some drills are scheduled linking medics and supply experts from both countries. They'll practice emergency relief in the field, and they may come away with good memories of one another.
"They really laid out the red carpet for us in China," said Sgt. Maj. Mark Swart, who supervised soldiers in China's Guangzhou Military Region in the last disaster exercise.This week in Quito as many as 45,000 people have gathered for Habitat III, the global UN summit which, every 20 years, resets the world’s urban agenda.
Why should we care? Well, to start with, in the next 20 years, we will witness more than two billion more people moving to cities. Depending on what we do to accommodate them, this could be good – or very bad – news.
It’s good news because people are demonstrably better off in cities than outside them. For the poor, cities are efficient vehicles to satisfy basic needs. Having people in a concentrated space makes the implementation of public policies more effective (think of access to sanitation, and the consequences for reducing child mortality and epidemic disease).
For the middle class, meanwhile, cities are a concentration of opportunities for jobs, education, healthcare and even recreation. They offer the promise of social mobility. And for a certain elite, cities are a powerful vehicle to create wealth; their critical mass generates the appropriate environment for knowledge creation and prosperity in the broadest sense of the word.
In short, cities are like magnets, with the potential to take care of everything from the most basic needs to the most intangible desires.
Now for the bad news, which we could call the “3S menace”. The scale and speed of this global urbanisation, and the scarcity of means with which we must respond to it, has no precedents in human history.
Of the three billion urban dwellers today, one billion live below the poverty line. In two decades’ time, five billion people will be in cities, with two billion of them below the poverty line.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A ‘half house’ by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena. They are exactly that – houses that leave one side for residents to complete themselves. Photograph: Cristobal Palma
To accommodate such growth humanely, we would need to build a city of one million people every week, spending no more than $10,000 per family. If we don’t solve this equation, it’s not that people will stop coming to cities; they will still come, but they will live in awful conditions.
What’s at stake here is not just poverty but inequality too. Cities express in a very concrete and direct way the distance between the haves and have-nots.
Urban inequalities are often reflected in brutal ways – from the distance people must travel to work every day, to the lack of quality public spaces, urban amenities and civic services. No wonder so much anger and resentment is accumulated in the peripheries.
Of course, this is problem is not exclusive to developing countries. Rich countries, despite having solved all their basic needs, experience a similar accumulation of social pressure as if it was a ticking time bomb.
A way to grow
To add one more level of complexity to the phenomenon of urbanisation, even if we do eventually find a way to build for that extra million people each week, we will go into environmental crisis, such is the carbon footprint of today’s construction process.
This would not only be a “green” problem, but a major security threat too. According to a report by the US defence department, the next conflicts, wars and terrorist threats will be triggered by climate change.
There is a one-to-one correlation between zones of military conflict and a global map of water drought. This not only creates problems in the afflicted countries but also migrations towards less-affected areas, adding to the social pressure in the countries of destination too.
These are the kind of challenges that needed to be addressed at Habitat III. Fortunately, an appeal by Dr Joan Clos, the executive director of UN Habitat appointed by Ban Ki Moon to guide the event, already carries a promising approach.
Clos’s framing of the problem can be synthesised like this: we need to invert the way we view the relationship between economic development and good cities.
The current approach is: first a country creates wealth. Once that is achieved, good cities will follow automatically, becoming a kind of passive outcome of economic development.
Clos’s task has instead been to convince the world’s mayors (and development experts, and ministers of finance) that good cities can be a source of development, rather than the other way around. This reframing, and what results from it, can be summarised as follows …
Lesson 1: good cities may be the source, instead of the passive outcome, of economic development
For this inversion of the paradigm to take place, however, you need three things: the right rule of law, the right financial plan and the right design. Imagine the mayor of City X in a rather poor country ( |
identify their function or association (QA, Dev, Prod, etc) you’ll be able to quickly know which environments are incurring the highest costs and which business unit is exceeding their AWS cost allocations. This can be a particularly effective way to monitor – and control – costs.
5. Analyse AWS billing reports
AWS provides monthly billing reports that highlight the costs incurred by individual AWS services, and the number of hours used in a month. But some times this isn’t enough when, for instance, you also want to see a forecast of your future expenses or when you’d like to share figures with a customer.
To get this kind of clarity, you can export your billing reports in CSV format or even build a custom application with its own analytics. You could also enable programmatic access to your AWS account and specify an S3 bucket into which you want your billing data copied. AWS will then generate estimated monthly bills several times a day and save them to your bucket. You can also use the S3 bucket data as input for your application.As marriage equality takes root as the legal norm in much of the country, opponents of equal-marriage rights have adopted a new set of tactics. Whereas it was common a decade ago to see Republicans pushing anti-gay constitutional amendments – at the state and federal level – right-to-discriminate measures have clearly become the new weapon of choice.
Arizona generated national attention last year with its foray into this area, but a gubernatorial veto quickly ended the fight. This year, Indiana created a firestorm with its discrimination statute, which policymakers were soon after willing to “fix.” Arkansas scaled back its far-right drive in this area soon after.
But msnbc’s Jane C. Timm reported yesterday that Louisiana Republicans are plowing ahead with a related bill of their own.
HB 707 – the “Marriage and Conscience Act” – says the state can’t take “adverse action” against someone for opposing same-sex marriage for religious reasons; sponsor Rep. Mike Johnson told msnbc he’s hoping the bill will come up for a vote in the next few weeks. If passed, this law would likely ensure, for example, that the state couldn’t punish a state worker who refuses to process paperwork on a name change following a gay marriage in another state, or a police officer who didn’t want to police a same-sex wedding ceremony. “This Louisiana bill really does what people accused the Indiana law of doing,” leading religious freedom expert and University of Virginia law professor Doug Laycock told msnbc. While Indiana’s law offered up individuals accused of discrimination a legal defense that a judge could then weigh, Laycock explained, this law gives religious individuals absolute protection from state action, without balancing interests of – for instance – whether a gay individual’s right to services outweighs the religious individual’s freedoms.
Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), not surprisingly, told msnbc the proposal is “not about discriminating against anyone,” so much as it’s about “religious freedom.”
There’s ample evidence to the contrary.
In fact, this is a rather classic example of how one official’s personal ambitions can do real harm to a lot of people. Jindal wants to be president; the far-right governor is looking for a way to get attention for himself; he’s eager to curry favor with social conservatives in his party’s base; so he’s pushing a right-to-discriminate proposal – not because it’s necessary, but because it might improve his candidacy’s odds.
Indeed, in Iowa last week, the Republican governor told GOP activists, “Look, we’ve all been paying attention to what’s happening in Arkansas and Indiana. There is an assault on our religious liberties here in America.”
Even Jindal probably doesn’t believe this rhetoric, but he apparently feels the need to say it anyway.
Indiana, of course, faced widespread condemnations and a private-sector backlash when it pursued it’s “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” and the hope among civil-rights proponents was that the uproar would discourage other states from pursuing a similar policy. But those hopes arguably had it backwards – Louisiana’s governor would very likely welcome an ugly and divisive culture-war fight. Jindal wants to put himself at the center of the storm, valiantly fighting back against the forces of liberalism, tolerance, and respect.Out of the billion or so desktops and PCs currently hooked up to the internet, an estimated 50 gigabytes of unused storage is languishing on each of those machines. That's about 250,000 petabytes of unused storage space. To put that into context, Google is thought to store about 8000 petabytes. This enormous untapped resource far eclipses anything in any company that exists today.
However, almost all our personal data is centrally stored today, controlled by large companies, many of whom choose to sell it on at a profit, or on request provide it to governments without our knowledge.
Not only is this unpalatable to most people, it's inherently insecure; an entire industry exists dealing in stolen credit card details, passwords and the like.
MaidSafe is leveraging unused computing capacity to rebuild the internet in a secure, decentralised manner: what it calls the SAFE Network (Secure Access For Everyone). Network users are incentivised to share their unused storage space by being rewarded with safecoins, MaidSafe's native currency.
Thanks to its focus on decentralisation, MaidSafe is often categorised within the blockchain space, when in fact the company was established in 2006 and predates the intense interest in distributed ledger technology which has come about since Bitcoin went mainstream around 2013.
Riding this wave of interest to some extent, MaidSafe is announcing an equity fund raising on Simon Dixon's BnkToTheFuture platform. BnkToTheFuture provides qualifying investors with protected investment vehicles that provide due diligence and exposure to cutting edge technology. The minimum investment on the platform is £1000.
MaidSafe's funding begins on 12th September and runs for 30 days. The target is £1.75m-£2m which will be received in sterling and bitcoin. Nick Lambert, chief operating officer, MaidSafe told IBTimes UK: "This is a raise for equity as opposed to a coin sale. It's most certainly not crowdfunding.
"It's a funding platform for sophisticated investors, which are self-certified on the platform, having fulfilled the criteria required to invest."
Lambert said the platform's structure, using a special purpose vehicle (SPV), allows investors to partake from any jurisdiction, adding that there are about 20,000 signed up investors on BnkToTheFuture.
MaidSafe is taking a radical approach to the problem of centralisation – and as such are early proponents of a growing cause célèbre, now being championed by the likes of Ethereum-based Swarm, and Juan Bennet's IPFS system.
Lambert said: "The network is using all the hardware and networking layers of the existing internet, but replaces everything above, essentially it replaces all web services.
"There are seven layers to the internet and we are replacing three of them. Other projects working on similar objectives have taken less radical approaches".
MaidSafe proposes replacing data centres and servers with the spare computing resources of all of its users, who can download the alpha version which enables users to create SAFE websites, store private data, host websites and share public data.
"They can start to add data to the network and in time they will be able to create websites and basically any type of web service that exists today. This could be social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or it could be cryptocurrency exchanges like Poloniex or maybe a more secure Bitfinex."
Instead of using a blockchain design, where the entire network must agree on state, MaidSafe polls a subset of nodes, a unique system it calls "close group consensus". This allows the network to agree pretty much instantly that a user based in London confirms they have 45 gig of data, for example.
"Having transactions confirming at speed is essential when you are operating a data network," said Lambert. "Imagine you were trying to get up a vital piece of data and you have got to wait 60 mins for the network to agree that you can actually access that data; it's obviously unacceptable. We need to be able to confirm network states in seconds rather than in minutes and hours."
MaidSafe uses distributed hash tables (DHT) to secure the system, including the issuance of safecoins used to incentivise users. Michael Jackson, the former COO of Skype has helped in advising MaidSafe about encouraging participation in the network.
Lambert said: "We talked a lot about Skype which had a kind of supernode model. They tried to have people run hardware at home and on their behalf, but they provided no incentive for people to do that and ultimately that supernode thing didn't really work.
"Our belief at least is that you need to incentivise people to do this, because providing your resource to the network is not entirely free. Even if you have unused computing resource, you still need to pay for the electricity, and if you have got an internet cap where you live then you have got bandwidth considerations as well.
"If people run their computers at home and data is stored in these encrypted chunks and then taken off their computer, they are rewarded by the network in these safecoins.
"People can either spend those coins by using services on the network or they can take them to an exchange and exchange them into bitcoin or into cash.
"It's very akin to bitcoin mining. The major difference being that the SAFE Network uses proof of resource (POR) as opposed to proof of work. POR ensures all resource provided is meaningful and avoids many of the environmental issues that surround the proof of work model.Associated Press
EDDYVILLE, Ky. — Police say a corrections officer shot and wounded an inmate who had escaped from a Kentucky prison.
Police said in a statement that they found the inmate Friday morning after receiving a call about a car crash involving a possible escapee from the Kentucky State Penitentiary. Police say a prison corrections officer fired his gun after the crash and wounded the inmate, who was taken to a hospital.
Police say two other people in the vehicle — a woman and a young child — were treated at a hospital for crash injuries and released.
The inmate was on work detail outside the maximum security portion of the prison when he escaped.
Officials didn't release the any details on the inmate, the woman and child, or the corrections officer.A 14-year-old boy charged last month during an investigation into a series of abductions and robberies is facing more charges, according to Ottawa police.
At about 11:20 p.m. near March Road on Aug. 2, a man was restrained, searched and his wallet was stolen by four to five male suspects.
The 14-year-old surrendered himself to police on Sept. 20.
He is being charged with robbery and breach of probation related to the Aug. 2 incident.
The teen's other charges relate to a robbery and kidnapping incident on July 22, a convenience store robbery on Aug. 3 and a robbery on Aug. 8 near a baseball diamond along Lorry Greenberg Drive.
Another suspect, a 16-year-old boy, has also been charged in the July 22 and Aug. 3 incidents. Both teens cannot be identified due to their ages.
Shopping mall abduction
On July 22, a boy under the age of 18 had arranged to meet someone at the South Keys Shopping Centre, police said, when he encountered four males instead of one.
They told the boy to get inside their car, a silver Honda Accord, and then drove around the shopping centre and to various places in Ottawa's south end. He was robbed of his phone and cash and was "repeatedly assaulted," police said.
The boy suffered minor injuries and was eventually dropped off "in a secluded commercial area off Rideau Road," police said. He managed to flag down a passing motorist for help.
Convenience store robbery
The convenience store robbery occurred at the Quickie on the 1000 block of Pleasant Park Road, near St. Laurent Boulevard.
Shortly after midnight, police said, a lone boy armed with a knife had swiped cash and cigarettes from the convenience store and fled to a waiting car — also a silver Honda Accord.
As officers investigated, the robbery suspect called police, claiming he'd been compelled to commit the robbery by three males inside the car.
The occupants took the cash and cigarettes, then dropped the boy off on Hawthorne Road. He had suffered minor cuts after being attacked with a knife, police said, and was not charged.
Police still investigating
Ottawa police continue to look for a last suspect in the spate of robberies this summer.
Police said last week there was only one suspect left to be identified in the three cases: a young man, approximately 18 years old, who was allegedly involved in an Aug. 8 assault near a baseball diamond on Lorry Greenberg Drive.
That morning, police said, a boy encountered three males parked in a silver Honda Accord near the diamond.
The males "left the area" with the boy, who was assaulted, choked and stabbed in the leg with a knife, police said. He was also robbed of his phone.
The boy was then dropped off on Bank Street near Queensdale Avenue, and he went to hospital to have his stab wound treated.
Police say the lone remaining suspect had dark hair, some facial growth, and was wearing large black-framed prescription glasses.
Anyone with information can call the robbery unit at 613-236-1222, ext. 5116, or Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).Well I delayed to speak, but now I will speak I love your arts your Nandini drawing and especially the human Tamatoa. When I first saw one of the drawings if I do not remember it was Tamatoa I said "my god, what an incredible drawing you look at these details" then I started to follow you on tumblr, I do not know you personally mind but I feel you are a great Person and is a great artist for me. 😊
~ @yasminmarianodemelo Oh myyyy thanks sooo much for your sweet message??! ♥ I had very difficult weeks those days and it really means so much to me ;; w ;; ♥ I’m so sorry I would love to answer to you with a little drawing but I can’t draw digitally tonight, so I’m replying with some words instead, hope you don’t mind! ♥ I can’t wait to be back with more art on my Tumblr, especially Tama, because I have a lot of things in my Sketchbook I have to draw and share!
Thanks again for your support and your sweet words ♥ I’m so happy!!Sapphire becomes the first manufacturer to release a full photo set of its custom RX 480 graphics cards.
Sapphire Radeon RX 480 NITRO
The new pictures reveal two things, the fancy black and silver backplate and.. mysterious button. According to the picture, this button is responsible for switching LED illumination into different modes. It’s unclear if it changes the color, frequency of pulsation or switching from temperature to GPU load mode indicators. However, I’m quite certain that it does have a complete OFF state, as it was revealed during Sapphire Nation podcast.
As for the NITRO itself, more information was revealed over the past few days. The card will operate at 1325 to 1350 MHz frequency as revealed by OCUK employee, it was also go on sale for 249 GP in UK.
The interesting feature of this card are removable fans. This is actually nothing new, but other solutions were often only used for the purpose of easier cleaning. Sapphire’s idea is to remove the whole fan with the motor. This way if anything goes wrong with the fan, they will just ship you a replacement.
Source: OCUK
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Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Boom! You have reached 7. Welcome to the mission editor! Niantic lets you create up to 100 missions that can then be played by other agents in the field. Now the question is, how are you going to use those 100 opportunities, what will you add to the game?
If you have decided to invest your time to join the ranks of mission creators, you probably want to make missions that get played and liked. To achieve this goal it is useful to recall the various ways in which missions enrich the game. First, but perhaps not foremost, missions have added another stat that can be pushed and another medal that can be won. For many agents this seems to provide a strong incentive to increase the mission stat as fast as possible. Those agents will be primarily interested in missions that can be completed quickly.
Second, a mission badge can act as a memento to an accomplishment: Climbing a mountain, visiting a remote island, travelling to other cities and countries, or attending events such as anomalies. In this case the mission is not essential; in all likelihood the agents had set their sights on the target anyway. Thus, the mission badge is just the cherry on top of an achievement that was otherwise motivated.
Finally, there is a third and rarer type of mission, which I think of as “epic missions”. These are missions that agents play because they enjoy the actual mission. Here the mission takes centre stage. The fun is in the mission itself, and not merely in its completion. These missions add to the game by creating goals that would otherwise not exist.
Creating missions of the first type is easy and can be done in 5 minutes. Agents who seek this type of mission will generally like it if it can be completed quickly and conveniently. Hacking 6 nearby portals in any order probably does the trick. Nothing to be proud of, but that was not the goal.
Creating missions of the second type is also relatively easy. Inevitably, this type of mission will be as good as the achievement it builds on. As the mission serves as a memento, a well-designed mission badge is important. Also, well-written custom portal descriptions, which provide interesting background information about the place or event, certainly add value to this type of mission. But, make no mistake, in these missions the agent’s attention will be elsewhere: farming keys, capturing a strategic island or summit, participating in the event, passing through an airport on a work trip, or just seeing the place. The mission is a nice bonus as long as it does not interfere with these deeper goals. Thus also missions of the second type tend to be short hack-only missions.
Creating missions of the third type is a real challenge. These missions seek to entertain the agent, and thus must contain a compelling narrative. Successful examples of these missions are akin to novellas in which the agent takes an active role. Creating these epic missions involves overcoming many of the same obstacles an author faces when writing a play or short story. Even then there is a very real risk that the mission does not engage agents in the way intended.
This text is about some of the obstacles encountered in creating epic missions and some ideas for overcoming them.
PERSUE MORE DATA
An important ingredient in an epic mission is a compelling theme or story. Fortunately, once you start digging you will find fascinating stories everywhere. Some of the best epic missions focus on historical events. My hometown, Bristol, is known for its riots, also a fierce battle was fought here in the civil war, it had episodes of plague and piracy, and its share of religious unrest, new religions being founded and the odd witch burning – each of them a gripping tale. American cities tend to have shorter histories, but in all major towns you will still find enough events and occurrences to fill many missions. An easy starting point is often provided by Wikipedia, but a much richer resource are local history groups, or just old folks who love to tell a tale.
So let’s say we make a mission about a civil war battle. There is a risk that your carefully crafted custom portal descriptions end up like this: “Here stood an Inn that burned down in the war. Here, stood a church that also burned down. And here …” What makes the difference between dull historical material and a fascinating story is the personal angle. So, why not write your portal descriptions from the perspective of a soldier caught up in the fight: “When I rounded the corner I saw that the battle had reached high street. The Miller’s Inn was ablaze, and flames started spreading to the neighbouring church of St. John. I gathered some men to fight the flames. But, alas the Royalists regrouped. We had to abandon our efforts, and left St. John to his fate.”
Especially when talking to local experts you will discover many little episodes that add colour to the events. When I read up on Bristol’s Queen Square riot, I discovered that one of the special constables that were recruited to quell the riots was IK Brunel, the great Victorian engineer, then aged 23. He ended up being part of a small group that rescued the major from his burning and besieged mansion, in a daring rooftop flight. They hid in a nearby stable, and later disguised themselves as servants and made their way through the crowds of rioters.
PEOPLE MAKE GOOD STORIES
People like Brunel provide plenty of mission material. Their lives are fascinating stories in their own right. However, a common problem is that those lives often involve much travel. A mission about the life of Charles Darwin that required a trip from London to Galapagos, would not be very popular. The solution to this problem is to ignore it: Darwin can very well tell the story of his voyage on the Beagle while accompanying the agent on a leisurely stroll around his later place of work in Cambridge.
Sometimes less widely known people have even better tales to tell than the very famous. While searching for mission material, I encountered for instance Thomas Chatterton, a literary genius of the 18th century. As a boy Chatterton started to write poems in medieval language. Because he felt that his texts would not be appreciated if published under his own name he wrote under the pseudonym of a medieval monk and claimed to have stolen the manuscripts from the nearby church of St. Mary Redcliffe. Chatterton’s story is a gripping drama of ambition, talent, and prejudice. He dies, under mysterious circumstances, already at the age of 17. Nevertheless, his life, work, and death inspired the Romantic movement in British literature, and he is mentioned in the works Byron, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and others.
Stories can be made more engaging by telling them in second person. Using the magical word ‘you’ the agent can be teleported into the role of the protagonist. But as all magical words it has to be used with caution. I used a second person narration for my mission on Brunel: “When you arrive here in 1829, the harbour is slowly silting up, something needs to be done. You design …”. However, for Chatterton’s story I used a third person narration, as the story is tragic, and the third person makes it easier to retell the events following his death.
OR MAKE IT ALL UP
In case that real life does not have the right story to offer, we have to make one up. This does not necessarily mean composing a great work of fiction. Often adding a little colour is enough. Suppose you wanted to make a mission that visits the bars or pubs in your city. Such a mission may be too long for stat-pushers and medal-hunters, and few agents will consider a pub crawl such a great achievement that they require a mission badge as memento. Can we turn it into an epic mission? If you live in the UK like me, chances are that your pubs are so historic that there are enough entertaining stories to fill your portal descriptions with a crazy life of their own. But failing this, we can make up a story that does the job. Why not write portal descriptions from the point of view of a fictional narrator who gets progressively more drunk with every bar he visits. Perhaps he has an agenda, such as locating his car keys that were lost on just such a tour the previous night. It probably won’t earn you the Pulitzer Prize, but it will keep agents entertained as they make their way through the city.
FITTING IT IN THE SCANNER
The author of a typical novel can spend 80 pages carefully introducing the characters and setting. The typical audio guide, which is perhaps more closely related to an Ingress mission, has at least an hour of text read by professional speakers. By contrast the Ingress mission editor gives you 500 characters per portal, which the agents have to read on a potentially tiny screen, and which often disappear all too quickly, due to the so-called compulsive-hack-syndrome. One cannot deny that Ingress missions are one of the more challenging literary formats. But challenges spark creativity and it is possible to tell fascinating tales in a mission if we take the scanner’s capabilities and limitations into account.
500 chars per portal is not much if you have few portals to work with. But in many places the portal density has become high, and not every portal in the mission has to be related to the mission’s topic. So why not include more portals; epic missions can be long. If agents truly enjoy the mission (instead of just the badge) a longer missions will be appreciated.
Some epic missions don’t even need long explanations to evoke this special feeling that you are caught up in a bigger story. This is possible if missions are built on existing knowledge of the agent. An example is London’s Skyfall mission, which visits some of the locations of the James Bond movie of the same name. This mission is monster that takes you back and forth across the British capital while following its hideously hard clues. I had to abort my first attempt at this mission after 5 hours because I had to catch a train. But I look forward to trying it again, in fact, I loved every minute of it. If you have seen the movie then the locations are instantly familiar, and weaving your way through London’s ancient streets, you immediately start feeling as if you were James Bond.
HIDDEN WAYPOINTS
Instead of focusing on a single movie, a mission can also build on conventions that exist in a certain literary genre. One genre that has strong conventions is crime fiction, and the Ingress is well-suited to capture the legwork aspect that features prominently in detective stories. Hidden-waypoint missions allow you to create tasks that require exploring, with location clues like “The park is busy, you wonder if somebody has seen something. You decide that it can’t hurt to have a look around and talk to some people.” Naturally one of the portals in the park will be the next waypoint. A detective story provides plenty of opportunities for such tasks: find evidence, check the local bars, find the victim’s car that is parked somewhere in this neighbourhood? Such a mission can turn even a visit to the less-than-pretty parts of town into a glorious adventure. This type of mission can also work well as a team-play mission. It can be played together with another agent and real value is added by having the other agent around who can occasionally search for clues in a different direction. Taking this one step further, I am presently working on a pair of missions that can be played “back-to-back” by two agents working taking the roles of the inspector and her sidekick, a concept that goes well with the rules of the genre.
Certainly, hidden-waypoint missions are the masterpieces of mission creation. No other mission type needs such careful design, and no other offers quite the thrill. In the right setting the hidden-waypoint format can provide fascination even without an underlying narrative. For example another ongoing project of mine is to make a mission that explores the Bristol’s underground. While the agents remain above ground, the mission guides them along major underground features such as ancient cellars, caves, a subterranean river and a coal mine, 800m below. In regions with dense portals the agent can discover the course of a tunnel just by exploring to find the next portal that lights up. Thus the scanner becomes a detector for underground features.
In cities where less tunnels have been dug, similar missions could follow the course of the former city wall or the route of a tram line that has long been closed, or the even the route of a notable march or demonstration.
HACK OR CAPTURE
A feature that distinguishes the scanner from an audio guide is the integration of Ingress in-game actions. Challenging the agent to capture, mod, link, or field a given portal can be a source of both great enjoyment and great frustration. For every in-game action (excluding passphrase and field trip, which have their own problems) there can be situations where the action cannot be completed except by using a virus. However, the chance of this happening is clearly much smaller for hacking than for any other action. I have played some missions where non-hack actions were thrown in indiscriminately because hack-only was felt to be too boring. Forcing me to waste a virus and potentially alienate local agents, indeed eliminates boredom, but does not replace it with happy feelings. Building on a narrative is usually a better way to make a mission interesting. The in-game actions have the potential to add to this narrative, but they certainly should not get in its way. If you have to stop following a fascinating story that runs through a mission, because you need to go and find a portal to link to, then something is wrong. However, if used discerningly the in-game actions can add flavour to the story or even make up its backbone. In several cities I have seen missions that consist of capture-or-upgrade on a large number of portals, say 100. Here the capture actions are not randomly thrown in. They are what makes this type of mission a glorious battle.
Sometimes there are good reasons to make missions hack-only. For Chatterton I felt that interaction with modern technology ruined the delicate 18th century feel of the mission. The mission is therefore hack-only to minimise interaction with scanner. By contrast, my Brunel mission uses some linking actions to rebuild Brunel’s engineering masterpieces in fields. Thus the agent, put into the place of Brunel by second person narration, gets to rebuild Temple Meads Railway Station, the SS Great Britain, and the Clifton Suspension Bridge by fielding over them. In particular the bridge, a long narrow field spanning the Avon river, provides a striking conclusion to both the mission and Brunel’s work.
SPEAK FRIEND, AND ENTER
Like hidden waypoints, passcode actions focus the agents’ attention and force them to engage more actively with the mission. But, passcodes also have their pitfalls. Clearly, we need to make sure that the passcode works, which means not only avoiding typos, but also ensuring that the question has a unique answer. The reason that most quiz shows on TV use multiple choice questions is that there may otherwise be too many right answers. For the same reason it may be worthwhile to make passcode questions in Ingress multiple-choice. A more subtle risk of passcodes, and one that is particularly large in multiple-choice questions, is that they turn the mission into a quiz. There is nothing wrong with this, if this is the desired theme of the mission — in this case an all-passcode mission, using the numerical or multiple-choice answers may be what is needed. However, a delicate historical mission that seeks to transport the agent into a long-gone century can be ruined by a careless passcode question. In particular, multiple-choice questions can turn a mission that starts out as walk through a long-lost world into a history class, and a gripping crime thriller into a pub quiz. But, these risks may be avoided if the passphrase is carefully woven into the storyline: “The door opens an inch and the smell of dust and decay wafts out into the street. In the semi-darkness, a deep voice rumbles: Who sent you?”
Another interesting feature of the scanner is the navigate function. Using navigate, enables the agent to measure the distance from a portal. In a pirate-themed hidden-waypoint mission, that I created together with @bluegenes, we urge the agent to activate navigate on the last portal they visited, and then provide location clues such as ‘Set course to North-North-West for 610 meters’. The mission thus captures the theme of the pirate treasure hunt, where instructions are given in terms of steps from a landmark. Incidentally, this theme was popularized by Louis Stevenson’s novel treasure Islands, which was written in one of the pubs that the mission visits, and that features the pub’s former owner in the role of the notorious pirate Long John Silver.
In missions in general, but in particular in missions with non-hack actions, it is essential to manage expectations. Tell the agents what will be expected of them. Because the space in the mission description is very limited I often put this meta-information into the description of the first portal. If the information is essential it can be useful to use the “capture-or-upgrade” action on that portal, to ensure that the text does not vanish too quickly, due to a careless hack.
PUTTING REALITY IN AUGMENTED REALITY
Finally, a powerful strategy for bringing missions to life is to link them to physical reality. To some extent the portals already provide this link, but you can do better. For historical missions ask yourself which features of the city were already around at the time and point these out to the agents. For instance the Queen Square riot mission mentions the statue of William III that stood in the middle of the square and still stands there. Caught up in the riot was the artist William Muller, who made a number of charcoal sketches. As the Mission badge I used a detail from one Muller’s sketches, a drunken rioter climbing the statue of William III. The Chatterton mission takes the agent not only to the Redcliffe church, alleged source of Chatterton’s manuscripts, but also to a medieval brass, on which Chatterton discovered the name that would become his most famous pseudonym: Thomas Rowley.
Many historical people have written great texts, now mostly copyright free, that we can incorporate in portal descriptions to let the characters speak for themselves. For instance to escape from his indenture Chatterton wrote a fake will and suicide letter. Because he owned few possessions he gives away some other things:
I give all my vigour and fire of youth to Mr. George Calcott, being sensible he is most want of it. I give and bequeath unto the Reverent Mr. Camplin senior, all my humility. To Mr. Burgum all my prosody and grammar, — likewise one moiety of my modesty; the other moiety to any young lady who can prove without blushing that she wants that valuable commodity. To Bristol, all my spirit and disinterestedness, parcels of goods, unknown on her quay since Canning and Rowley!
It is not always the big things that provide good links between the scanner and reality. In my detective mission a dustbin features prominently. Although it is just an old and dirty bin, seeing it described on the scanner while standing beside it creates an odd sense of connection. Of course you narrate other impressions as well. Portal descriptions can mention the smell or even feel of a place, and even the agent’s sore feet. My Brunel mission involves a climb up a steep hill, and naturally the description of the next waypoint comments on that.
Local experts will be able to point out many connections that can be used in missions: Suddenly, a street name such as Pipe Lane starts to make sense when you learn that a thousand year-old water pipe runs beneath it. The riots have left quite a few bullet holes in Bristol’s walls that wait to be discovered. Signal masts remain of former tram lines whose rails have been torn up 90 years ago. I learned which unremarkable doors hide the entrance to extensive cave systems and which fence posts are actually guns from the civil war. Researching these details takes effort, but it is time well spent. For me, making and playing missions has profoundly altered the way in which I see my city, and thus has truly augmented my reality.Holy mackerel! Toppled lorry dumps thousands of fish in farmer's field BelfastTelegraph.co.uk This is the Biblical scene that met Northern Ireland farmer Gordon Flinn after a lorry overturned into his field, spilling tonnes of fish. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/holy-mackerel-toppled-lorry-dumps-thousands-of-fish-in-farmers-field-28708049.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/migration_catalog/article25820621.ece/e8316/AUTOCROP/h342/Fish%20field
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This is the Biblical scene that met Northern Ireland farmer Gordon Flinn after a lorry overturned into his field, spilling tonnes of fish.
The ‘fish farm’ accident caused an overnight internet sensation this week, as this photo taken by Mr Flinn’s daughter Louise went viral.
“It was like a catastrophe, as though the fish had fallen out of the sky,” the civil servant said today.
“We really couldn’t believe it until we saw it.
“It really was like something out of the Bible.”
The 27-year-old — who doesn’t like fish — said that the family was taking it all in their stride, as a bit of fun — although it could have been a very different situation had the driver been hurt. The man was initially taken to hospital, but seems to have had a lucky escape and later returned to the scene uninjured, said Louise’s father Gordon (71).
Mr Flinn said the bulk lorry was travelling on the Comber Road towards Ardglass when it appears to have caught the verge before ploughing through a hedge and falling around 8ft into his field.
The sheep and cattle farmer said the fish were piled up to two feet deep in places.
“It was some scene!” said the Killyleagh, Co Down man.
“My wife took a call from the police, and when we went and saw the field, I found it hard to take in at first.
“It’s an accident black spot, so we’re used to hearing about crashes — but you usually don’t get fish delivered.
“It was a big surprise — there was a whole area of the field that was silver. Incredible.”
The lorry appears to have demolished around 20-30 yards of hedge, before falling through into the field.
The trailer which contained the mackerel was removed from the field last night at about 9.30pm, and the road has been re-opened since.
Belfast TelegraphThere's one more baby filling up news feeds on Facebook. Meet Maxima Chan Zuckerberg.
Mark Zuckerberg's wife Dr. Priscilla Chan gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter, early last week.
"Max, we love you and feel a great responsibility to leave the world a better place for you and all children," Zuckerberg and Chan said in letter to their daughter, which they posted on Facebook Tuesday. "We wish you a life filled with the same love, hope and joy you give us. We can't wait to see what you bring to this world."
In announcing their daughter's birth, the couple also pledged to donate 99% of their Facebook stock -- worth about $45 billion -- "during our lives" to promote equality and the human potential.
Priscilla |
some extra income from these stocks. And German taxpayers pay for it.
A cache of confidential documents obtained by ProPublica and analyzed in collaboration with The Washington Post, German broadcaster ARD and the Handelsblatt newspaper in Düsseldorf details how Wall Street puts together complex stock-lending deals that drain an estimated $1 billion a year from the German treasury.
Similar deals extend beyond Germany, siphoning revenue from at least 20 other countries across four continents, according to the documents, which show how “dividend-arbitrage” transactions — known in the trade as “div-arb” — are structured and marketed as tax-avoidance vehicles.
German lawmaker Gerhard Schick, deputy chairman of the Parliament’s finance committee, said: “Personally as a taxpayer, I feel as if somebody was pulling my leg when I found out banks that we rescued do trades at our expense.” (Maurizio Gambarini/AP Images)
The trove of transaction logs, emails, marketing materials, chat messages and other communications among deal participants involves a who’s who of the world’s big banks and institutional investors.
In deals like these, some of America’s largest money managers briefly lend out some of their German holdings each year. Those shares are temporarily held by German investment funds and banks that by law pay no tax on German dividends or can claim refunds for tax withheld. The borrowed shares are returned shortly after the dividend is paid.
The banks or funds that borrowed the shares receive the dividends tax-free and then transfer that money to the stocks’ original owner, minus fees for middlemen. The foreign investors typically end up with added income equivalent to about half the dividend tax that would have been owed. Some firms, like BlackRock, run their own security lending programs, while others lend through big global banks that package the deals.
Vanguard, BlackRock and Fidelity said their securities lending follows applicable laws and is designed to help investors. Mike McNamee, a spokesman for the Investment Company Institute, which represents large money managers, said “funds have an obligation to maximize returns for shareholders.”
Div-arb has been an open secret on Wall Street for years. It faces new scrutiny in Germany amid questions about its legality and a government push to end it.
The practice — sometimes called “dividend washing,” “dividend stripping” or “yield enhancement” — is the latest version of a long-running game in which creative bankers exploit gaps and inconsistencies in foreign tax systems to benefit wealthy clients. As with corporate inversions and schemes to hide money in offshore accounts, governments lose billions and the tax burden shifts to others.
Some say governments have no one but themselves to blame. “Unless governments are going to get serious about harmonizing and standardizing tax rates, then governments leave themselves open to this loophole,” said Josh Galper, managing principal of Finadium, a financial consulting firm in Concord, Mass.
Legal experts who reviewed trades detailed in the documents said they might cross the line because German law forbids transactions whose sole purpose is to avoid taxes — a standard that is extremely difficult to meet. Germany’s highest tax court recently invalidated one div-arb transaction that it called an “empty shell.”
In the United States, Congress put an end to div-arb in 2010 after a scathing report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations two years earlier.
Shown some of the German transactions in the cache, Reuven Avi-Yonah, a University of Michigan Law School professor who helped Senate investigators in 2008, said he believes they were “pretty clearly tax-motivated.”
“Regardless of whether you have an obligation to your shareholders, that does not extend to things that you know have no motivation other than reducing taxes,” Avi-Yonah said. “That’s illegal under current German law.”
In one email exchange, a manager of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund wrote to intermediaries to confirm his understanding of a lending transaction. The purpose of the loan, he wrote, was to “avoid” a 15 percent withholding tax on shares of international companies by agreeing to a 50-50 split of the taxes saved.
“We do not necessarily know the motivation for borrowing, or who the end user is, but are aware that tax considerations are one of several drivers for pricing these transactions,” a spokesman for the fund said in an email.
Sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Singapore also lend shares for div-arb deals, the documents show. So do other investment managers in the United States, including Franklin Templeton and T. Rowe Price, both of which declined to comment.
Banks playing a role in such trades include Barclays, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and Swedish bank SEB, among others, the documents show.
All the banks declined to comment except for Deutsche Bank and SEB, which said their transactions abide by all applicable laws and regulations.
In Germany, the most prominent participant is Commerzbank, which was bailed out by German taxpayers during the financial crisis and is still 15 percent owned by the government. Commerzbank declined multiple requests for comment.
For German lawmaker Gerhard Schick, deputy chairman of the Parliament’s finance committee, the irony stings. “Personally as a taxpayer, I feel as if somebody was pulling my leg when I found out banks that we rescued do trades at our expense,” he said.
“This is a no-go.”
Carefully timed trades
Div-arb is a big deal in Germany. A ProPublica analysis of five years of stock lending data for companies on the DAX 30 — the German equivalent of the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average — shows that the number of borrowed shares typically climbed 800 percent in the 20 days preceding the dividend record date. That’s when companies identify shareholders who will get paid dividends.
Twenty days after the record date, borrowings returned to prior levels, according to share lending volume from S&P Global Market Intelligence, which provided the data for ProPublica’s analysis.
The annual spikes in borrowing are as regular as blips on a heart monitor. By contrast, the number of borrowed shares of the Dow Industrials barely budges around dividend record dates.
There are no official statistics about the tax impact of div-arb. To estimate the annual loss to the German treasury, ProPublica calculated dividends paid by each DAX 30 company on the increased volume.
That amount comes to about $6 billion a year. Other German stocks pay an additional $600 million or so. Based on a typical tax rate of 15 percent for foreign owners, the combined loss is $1 billion for the German treasury.
A key feature of the div-arb transactions is the absence of risk for borrowers and lenders. The terms are hedged and arranged months in advance, documents show. Lenders know when their shares will be loaned out, at what prices, and when they’ll come back. Collateral backs the loans in case borrowers run into financial problems.
Here is how it worked for one trade on May 7, 2014.
In a deal brokered by Morgan Stanley, which found tax-exempt borrowers, Vanguard loaned out 95,000 shares of Adidas, which was due to pay a 1.5 euro-per-share ($2.19 a share) dividend two days later — a total of 142,500 euros, or about $196,000 at the currency conversion rate at the time.
Had Vanguard held the shares on the record date, it would have had $29,400 withheld for tax. But by shuffling the shares to a tax-exempt party in Germany, Vanguard was able to get an extra $12,700 for its investors; the remaining $16,700 was shared with Morgan Stanley and other players.
The Adidas shares came back five days later, netting an annualized yield of 9 percent on the loan for Vanguard’s investors, ProPublica calculated.
To turn thousands of such small, riskless trades into more substantial profits, bankers package them into billion-dollar baskets.
The Adidas transaction was one of hundreds of such loans made by Vanguard mutual funds totaling more than $1 billion across several dozen stocks. Most were German; the remainder included companies from Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland.
The companies paid $31 million of dividends on Vanguard’s holdings in May, June and July of 2014. Trade logs show that the Vanguard funds would have netted an average of 81 percent of those dividends had taxes been withheld. Instead, Vanguard got 90 percent, or $3 million more.
Vanguard declined to discuss any individual trades. “Securities lending is a widely accepted practice that we prudently employ to augment fund returns to the benefit of our clients,” company spokesman John Woerth wrote in an email.
Woerth said any “insinuation that this is a tax dodge is incorrect” because stock borrowers are responsible for paying local taxes. “We are not privy to information about the end securities’ borrowers, their tax situation in Germany, and what, if any, type of profit they may earn as a result of borrowing over a dividend record date,” he said.
Woerth said, Vanguard receives a “securities lending fee” from the deals, along with a “dividend equivalent payment.”
The banks involved in the various Vanguard share loans, besides Morgan Stanley, were Goldman Sachs, Barclays, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup. The banks all declined to comment.
For the div-arb deals to work, shares must be loaned to a German fund or bank that doesn’t face withholding taxes or can file for a refund if they are withheld. The trading logs don’t identify those entities. But in the Adidas deal, share ownership data from BaFin, Germany’s securities regulator, offers a clue about Commerzbank’s possible role.
The bank normally isn’t a large holder of Adidas stock. But on May 7, it reported to BaFin that it owned 4.32 percent of Adidas — about 9 million shares — that made it a top Adidas shareholder in line for $18,792,000 in dividends.
Assuming that a 15 percent tax would otherwise have been paid, the German treasury lost $2.8 million.
By May 20, post-dividend, Commerzbank’s holdings of Adidas were back to zero. The swing was not an isolated case. From 2013 and 2015, BaFin records show nearly 250 similar spikes in Commerzbank holdings of individual stocks. About 80 percent of the swings occurred at the time of dividend record dates, an ARD analysis found.
Commerzbank is identified in email exchanges as a provider of “end user” funds where loaned German shares can be placed without being taxed.
Commerzbank declined to comment on its role in the deals. Chief executive Martin Blessing was asked about div-arb at the bank’s recent annual meeting. Blessing, whose contract expired May 1, said the bank handles more than 100,000 transactions a day with thousands of participants.
While acknowledging that some transactions occur around dividend dates, he said the bank’s auditors ensure that “all transactions are in compliance with the law.”
For investors who ‘suffer’ taxes
Investment firms say they lend shares to benefit their clients and won’t discuss why demand spikes around dividend times, but the documents offer some explanation.
Marketing materials from one bank identify the trades as a “risk-controlled” way for investors who “suffer” taxes to “recapture” dividends that are withheld.
Another bank prepared an explainer for clients that says, “We’re not going to pretend to be tax experts, but it goes something like this.” The explainer then details how investors can avoid taxes by lending shares over dividend dates.
In one set of messages, a senior securities lending executive at Vanguard gave an intermediary permission to lend out shares of an international stock for “the dividend yield enhancement trade.”
In another case, Commerzbank emailed another party in one deal asking to renegotiate after learning that a portion of the dividend would be tax-exempt. That would reduce the tax benefit of the transaction.
Accounts of meetings show that at least some firms backed off trades. One document describes Goldman Sachs bankers saying their traders abandoned certain deals in 2013 because of increased internal scrutiny of div-arb. Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
In another document, a senior banker cites “reputational concern” as a reason for flagging demand for div-arb trades. Despite the concern, the banker said traders on his team continued to be “proactive” and “push” out baskets of loans over dividend record dates.
Reputational concerns appear to have motivated some German banks to stay away from div-arb. Nord/LB, for one, said its policies forbid div-arb deals.
[On Tuesday afternoon after publication of this story online, Commerzbank said it would stop participating in these transactions without waiting for the government to ban them.]
Trying to shut it down
New attention to div-arb by German regulators and lawmakers is the byproduct of a recent scandal involving trades in which participants had been claiming duplicate refunds of dividend taxes.
Those deals, known as “cum/ex” trades, were outlawed by Germany in 2012. Regulators are now moving to claw back the refunds from German banks. But the law didn’t address deals like Vanguard’s loan of Adidas shares, called “cum/cum.”
Last August, Germany’s Federal Fiscal Court — the equivalent of the U.S. Tax Court — struck down a div-arb deal involving an unidentified British financial institution and a German company. The court found that there was no transfer of economic ownership because, among other things, the borrower bore no risk.
A tax official in one state, Baden-Württemberg, has said the court ruling implies that similar deals may not hold. Reporters contacted officials in each of Germany’s 16 states to ask if they were investigating div-arb; four said they had found evidence of questionable transactions but declined to elaborate.
Now, the government is trying to shut down div-arb for good. Pending legislation would force temporary share owners to hold a stock for at least 45 days and to have at least 30 percent of a stock’s value at risk, restrictions that would make the deals uneconomical. Australia adopted a similar change to halt the practice there.
In the United States, it took the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2010 and aggressive rules from the IRS to halt div-arb, which had existed in a variety of forms since at least 1991.
Elise Bean, who as subcommittee chief counsel helped lead the Senate’s investigation in 2008, said other countries have their work cut out for them.
Documents in the cache indicate that bankers book div-arb trades in France, Canada, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, Israel, Hungary, Singapore, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Portugal, Spain and South Africa. They are also on the lookout for new markets.
“Everybody and their brother was doing it in the U.S.,” Bean said. “And I guess now everybody and their brother is doing it abroad.”
ProPublica, www.propublica.org, is a nonprofit news organization in New York. Pia Dangelmayer, Wolfgang Kerler and Arne Meyer-Fünffinger, special to BR Recherche, part of German public broadcaster ARD, contributed to this report.Third-year University of Otago student Mikayla Cahill, who was walking with a group of friends when they were harassed by a drunk man near the Dunedin Botanic Garden on Saturday night. Photo by Peter McIntosh.
Harassment in the student quarter has reached breaking point, and the University of Otago and students' association need to do something about it, a group of Dunedin residents says.
Otago bioethics PhD candidate Emma Tumilty co-signed a letter with 10 other people who live and work in the area, calling on university vice-chancellor Prof Harlene Hayne to act.
"This is not another letter about couch burning or broken glass, or piles of vomit in the street,'' the letter, sent yesterday, reads.
"I'm afraid it is much more serious.''
The problem, the letter says, is an "unacceptable and insidious'' level of harassment in the student quarter, including "racist speech/slurs, street harassment towards women and trans and homophobia''.
Not all students contributed to the problem, the letter writers acknowledged, but the problem was real.
"Aside from physical destruction,'' Mrs Tumilty said yesterday, "what upsets us most was this aggression towards others, [towards] women, or people who are slightly different - hurling bottles and abuse at people as they pass.''
Former Otago student Jessie-Lee Robertson said she had suffered verbal abuse - including an incident last week.
She was in her car with her dog in Albany St when a van of young people pulled up next to her.
"The van... pulled up next to me, opened the sliding door of their van, and [an occupant] said, ‘If that dog wasn't in your car, I'd rape you'.''
She had already begun avoiding the main streets of "student- ville'' for fear of abuse, but did not expect that kind of abuse on the road.
Mikayla Cahill, a third-year student, had also been harassed in the student quarter on several occasions.
The most recent was while walking home from the last gig of O Week, near the Dunedin Botanic Garden.
"We walked past there; there was a group of 12-13 people, and they were all crowding around one of their friends, and he was swearing,'' she said.
The man started started yelling misogynistic slurs and said he wanted to fight, Ms Cahill said.
She recalled several other incidents where she had been targeted by aggressive people in the student area, including having bottles thrown at her in Castle St.
The harassment and abuse affected her and if she heard a group of more than two men walking behind her, "my heart will skip a beat if I hear them walk faster''.
Detective Senior Sergeant Kallum Croudis acknowledged there was a constant stream of "complaints about criminal behaviour of a sexual nature'' in Dunedin, and a "small spike'' during O Week.
Police took the complaints seriously, especially after learning "some very poignant lessons about sexual violence''.
"We haven't always got it right... and now, our position is let's get in and have a look at it in every case, before we put it to the side.''
He knew not all incidents were reported to police, and acknowledged the issue of harassment needed to be talked about more.
"I applaud anyone that's bringing sexual violence out into places that people talk about it.''
Reacting to yesterday's letter, Prof Hayne acknowledged the importance of educating students about harassment.
She responded to Mrs Tumilty in a matter of hours, saying she had "no tolerance whatsoever for this kind of behaviour''.
The university, she wrote, was working on developing "two educational programmes for Otago students'' - one for students in residential colleges that would begin next semester, and another that would start next year, as part of the Orientation education programme.
Prof Hayne also suggested Mrs Tumilty get in touch with Otago University Students' Association president Laura Harris, "an extremely smart and thoughtful young woman, who shares many of your concerns''.
Ms Harris said OUSA was taking the issue seriously and one of its "focal points'' this year was on sexual harassment education and prevention.
Last week, OUSA held a campus launch of Thursdays in Black - "a worldwide sexual assault campaign being relaunched this year with a tertiary focus''.
OUSA was also planning its own "comprehensive education programme about sexual harassment, the importance of consent, and personal safety, to pilot in university colleges... in parallel with the university's proposed initiatives at the beginning of the year''.
Mrs Tumilty welcomed news that OUSA and the university had plans for education programmes in the works.
The university and police saying they were taking the issue seriously was nothing new.
They said that every year, she said.
To make a change, respect "needs to be modelled throughout the university, [it] needs to be systemic, [and] it has to be ongoing throughout the year''.
"At a very minimum, [the university needs] to be producing people who understand their own entitlement, power, and privilege and understand how to be responsible, respectful people in society.''
Until that happened, she said, nothing would change.
carla.green@odt.co.nzHe's also a member of the Islamic State, the vicious group of Sunni extremists now at war with a US-led coalition of more than 60 countries. Over scalding coffee and chocolate doughnuts in a nearby fast-food restaurant, he explains why he joined.
Ahmed* waits for me in a parking lot at the northern edge of Gothenburg, Sweden. It's a dreary November morning in his hometown, and he's standing on a patch of grass in an expanse of damp concrete and gray sky. He's likable, a shy but friendly 25-year-old who greets me with an earnest handshake and expresses himself clearly and politely in English.
UPDATE: According to reports in January 2016, Ahmed — real name Yasser Sadek — was killed in an airstrike on Raqqa in 2015. He was wanted by Swedish police after appearing in an Islamic State propaganda video filming an apparent execution in northern Syria.
Read more
UPDATE: According to reports in January 2016, Ahmed — real name Yasser Sadek — was killed in an airstrike on Raqqa in 2015. He was wanted by Swedish police after appearing in an Islamic State propaganda video filming an apparent execution in northern Syria.
This article originally appeared in VICE Magazine.
Ahmed* waits for me in a parking lot at the northern edge of Gothenburg, Sweden. It's a dreary November morning in his hometown, and he's standing on a patch of grass in an expanse of damp concrete and gray sky. He's likable, a shy but friendly 25-year-old who greets me with an earnest handshake and expresses himself clearly and politely in English.
He's also a member of the Islamic State, the vicious group of Sunni extremists now at war with a US-led coalition of more than 60 countries. Over scalding coffee and chocolate doughnuts in a nearby fast-food restaurant, he explains why he joined.
The Islamic State controls large parts of Syria and Iraq in a self-declared "caliphate" where militants enforce a fanatical interpretation of Islamic law and have committed widely publicized atrocities.
Ahmed does look vaguely like a fighter away from the front lines, with a full beard (no mustache) under a camouflage cap and a short, solid frame clad in a thick jacket to combat the approaching winter. But his facial hair is neatly trimmed, he smiles amiably, and he keeps a pack of quintessentially Scandinavian snus lodged behind his upper lip as he speaks.
He's back in Sweden after a year and a half of fighting in Syria. Despite the comforts of his current surroundings, he's eager to return and seek his death in a violent armed struggle against those he sees as enemies of his religion.
"A martyr is the best thing to be in Islam. It is an honor," he says calmly, adding that in a family of several children born to strictly religious Middle East-born parents, it was an aspiration. "I always thought about jihad. I didn't know there were Muslims who didn't want that."
Muslim leaders across the world condemn the Islamic State and its violent excesses, but Ahmed's interpretation of Islam is anything but peaceful. Instead, he believes that all believers should make jihad to bring about the end of days prophesied in Islamic eschatology. "Now, my biggest intention is to have Allah satisfied," he declares. "His word is highest, and the kuffar's [unbelievers'] is lowest."
At first he planned to join an armed group in his parents' homeland, but then he decided that national allegiances conflicted with his religious ones. When he began to see images of the war in Syria, he traveled there to do battle.
Many of his countrymen have made the same journey. Fredrik Milder, a press officer for the Swedish Security Service, told me that at least 130 "al Qaeda-inspired individuals" are known to have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight with extremist groups including the Islamic State, and that unconfirmed information put the real number at anywhere between 250 and 300. Up to 30 are thought to be dead, and around 40 have returned to Sweden, Milder added.
The Islamic State's Syrian arm is made up mostly of non-natives and regularly fights against local rebel brigades battling government troops in the country, including the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The group's foreign recruits have enthusiastically participated in some of its worst atrocities, many of which—crucifix- ions, stonings, mass executions—they have documented in gruesome propaganda videos. A militant with an English accent has played a prominent role in propaganda footage showing the beheading of a number of foreign journalists and aid workers.
The extremists have also slaughtered members of minority religious groups and enslaved women, rights organizations say.
Ahmed describes Islamic State-held territory as a paradise where one can easily practice Islam. "Everyone knows there are bombs overhead, but people are happy," he says, claiming that the group is helping free the devout from Syrian President Bashar al Assad's regime and even the Western-backed FSA, which he accuses of war crimes.
He denies some of the Islamic State's worst atrocities and says that the media misrepresent the group. "You [journalists] like to make us look crazy and say we kill innocents and rape. We didn't leave our whole world to rape women and to kill." He admits, however, that the Islamic State has executed those who violated its strict moral code.
To him, the brutal videotaped killings of hostages are welcome, a necessary weapon of war against America and its coalition allies as they launch airstrikes on the extremist organization. "It's good. They [the Islamic State] are doing the same things the US and the UK are doing... [The hostages] weren't killed because they are journalists; they were killed because they're kuffar and we want the US to stop [bombing us]. America is killing civilians, not just mujahideen... When they take one American, the whole world riots, but we [Muslims] are cheap."
Despite his claims of traveling to Syria in order to help its people, he later admits that many don't want to live under the Islamic State. "They say to our faces, 'Go away, you make problems for us.'" But Syrians, he says, are not entitled to lands the Islamic State views as part of the caliphate. "The majority of Syrians don't like us; everyone doesn't like us. But this is not their country. It's Islam's, and they have no right to it."
In many ways, Ahmed fits the standard profile of a Swede joining the Islamic State or an ideologically similar group. Most recruits are men between the ages of 18 and 30 from Malmo, Gothenburg, or Stockholm, according to the Security Service. A disproportionately large number have come from Gothenburg in particular.
Swedish journalist Per Gudmundson, who has written extensively on Islamic extremism, conducted a 2013 study of 18 Swedish citizens fighting for jihadist groups in Syria. He told me that all were first- or second-generation immigrants from countries including Iraq, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Philippines. Half, however, came from two adjacent Gothenburg neighborhoods.
Ulf Bostrom, a police officer of 37 years who has spent the past decade as a member of the city's integration unit (a three-person team that works with different religious groups to minimize conflicts and radicalism), describes the area as Sweden's "epicenter" of extremist ideology.
The causes are partly social, he says. More than 20 percent of Gothenburg's 540,000 residents are immigrants. But 80 percent of them live in the northeast neighborhoods of Backa and Biskopsgarden, segregated from the rest of the city amid widespread unemployment, poor academic results, and high rates of crime. "In some ways, we [the Swedish authorities] have helped to create this problem with our integration policies, because we didn't know how to go about it properly," Bostrom admits. "Now, the soil here is best for growing terror."
Bostrom's assessment is similar to that of Gudmundson, all of whose subjects went at least partway through the Swedish school system, came from low-income families, had little you are at the bottom and someone opens his arms to you and talks nicely with respect, offers food or some money and speaks about religion in the finest way, you might see that as the only door to your future," Bostrom says, noting recruiters often portray fighting with the Islamic State as a chance for a new life.
A smaller contingent of those joining extremist militant groups are better educated, according to Mohammad Fazlhashemi, a professor of Islamic theology and philosophy at Sweden's Uppsala University. Instead of longed-for acceptance,income themselves, and often had a record of petty crime. Bostrom says that many Swedes who have fought in Syria feel they have no future in the country of their birth. He depicts a typical recruit as a disenfranchised male youth who's been bullied, tried and failed at criminal activity, or dabbled in drug abuse—someone, he suggests, who is keenly aware of his family's disapproval and is isolated as a result.
This makes such young men easy targets for extremists looking to radicalize recruits. When he told me, recruiters often seduce them with religious theories that seem to legitimize the Islamic State's actions.
In Gothenburg, Bostrom says, the network of recruiters is long-established and active in mosques, both with and without the imams' knowledge, as well as smaller places of worship in basements and garages. Initial contact is often made online.
Ahmed denied that he had been radicalized by an outside party, instead characterizing it as his own decision. Unlike those from more moderate backgrounds, he said he had told his parents before he left for Syria. They backed his decision and even asked him to take along a relative, who died in the fighting in early 2014. But Ahmed doesn't regret bringing him, telling me that he's happy a family member attained martyrdom.
Many of Ahmed's associates have far less radical backgrounds. Friends of his who have also joined the Islamic State did so in secret, knowing that their families would try to stop them. "If we all did as our parents said, there would be no one making jihad!" he laughs.
Back in Sweden, Ahmed isn't waging war. He's stuck. He first entered Syria illegally through Turkey's easily permeable border, and he tried to take the same route again after returning to Sweden for a few months in 2014. This time, though, he was caught by Turkish border police, then deported and banned.
He's desperate to go back, both to fight and to see his Syrian wife and a newborn daughter he hasn't met. Leaving them, he says, was the biggest mistake of his life.
In a series of texts sent via a mobile messaging app, he repeatedly asked for help getting into Syria, naively unsure of how to make the journey himself and unable to reach senior Islamic State commanders who could smuggle him in through established routes. "They don't have time to help me; they have much to do... Or maybe they do have time, but I don't know who to ask," he wrote. Neither, he added, did other Swedish fighters or even British ones.
Men like Ahmed, not provably guilty of a crime but strongly suspected of joining jihadist groups, are a major concern for authorities. According to Milder, the Security Service focuses much of its efforts on these men, interviewing them as they return to Sweden and gathering intelligence on whether they might be planning attacks on home soil or "actively supporting terrorism" in some capacity.
Ahmed describes being questioned by the authorities when he returned and says that their main fear was whether he planned to launch an attack back home. He tells me that he is still under close observation. "They are spying on me all the time, following me," he says, adding with a smirk that anyone watching him must be bored, since he spends most of his days at home.
He insists, however, that he would never attack his birth country, which has been good to him. "I like Sweden. Gothenburg feels like home," he says, gesturing around him. But he warns that others may feel differently. "I think security should let those who want to travel to Syria do so. Those who can't go might commit jihad here instead."
*Name has been changed.
Follow John Beck on Twitter: @JM_BeckJackfruit Kimchi Fried Rice. Although I am not an expert on Asian food, I do appreciate the cuisine, and readily admit that this is not something I learned to cook from my mother. With that said, I saw a mesmerizing video on Facebook by Chef Deuki Hong where he prepared Kimchi Fried Rice containing traditional ingredients like bacon and butter. It looked so delicious, I really want to make something similar, with great spicy flavor. Here is an adapted version… vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and dairy free, inspired by him. Ready in 30 minutes.
5 from 1 vote Print Jackfruit Kimchi Fried Rice Vegan version of jackfruit kimchi fried rice. Delicious, spicy and flavorful Prep Time 15 minutes Cook Time 15 minutes Total Time 30 minutes Servings 4 -6 servings Calories 277 kcal Author greenschemetv Ingredients 1 can 14 oz organic jackfruit. (I use Native Forest as it has only salt and lime juice added)
2 cups kimchi I used Trader Joe's(if you are strictly vegan, please read the Kimchi label as some contain fish sauce).
2 cups cooked white rice
1/2 onion minced
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp granulated garlic
1 tsp smoked paprika Instructions Stirfry jackfruit, salt, garlic, paprika and onions until tender, approximately 5 minutes. Add kimchi and cooked white rice and stir until heated throughly. Serve with fried egg for vegetarian option or no egg for vegan option. Top with minced green onions and sprinkled smoked paprika. Nutrition Facts Jackfruit Kimchi Fried Rice Amount Per Serving (1 g) Calories 277 * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
More recipes like Jackfruit Kimchi Fried Rice that you might enjoy:
Creamy Almond Coconut TofuPhoto
When you do it once, it’s just a victory. When you do it twice, it’s a realignment.
The coalition that Barack Obama put together to win the presidency handily in 2008 looked a lot like the emerging Democratic majority that optimistic liberals had been discerning on the political horizon since the 1990s. It was the late George McGovern’s losing coalition from 1972 finally come of age: Young voters, the unmarried, African-Americans, Hispanics, the liberal professional class – and then more than enough of the party’s old blue collar base to hold the Rust Belt for the Democrats.
But 2008 was also a unique political moment, when George W. Bush’s immense unpopularity was compounded by a financial collapse, and when the possibility of electing the country’s first black president fired the imagination of the nation (and the nation’s press corps). So it was still possible to regard the Obama majority of ’08 as more flukish than transformative – or at the very least, to see it as a fragile thing, easily shattered by poor choices and adverse developments.
Related in Opinion Campaign Stops: E-Day
There were plenty of both during the president’s first term. The Obama White House underestimated the depth of the recession, it overreached politically on the health care bill and the failed push for cap and trade and it reaped a backlash at the polls in 2010. The Republican Party, left for dead after 2008, revived itself, and at many points across the 2012 campaign season Obama’s majority coalition looked vulnerable. Its policy victories seemed to teeter on the edge.
And the Obama coalition was vulnerable. I believed that at the beginning of the campaign season; I believed it in mid-October, when I thought Mitt Romney might just pull the election out; and I believe it even now that the president has won a narrow (in the popular vote) but electorally decisive victory.
But the lesson of the election is that the Obama coalition was truly vulnerable only to a Republican Party that took Obama seriously as an opponent – that understood how his majority had been built, why voters had joined it and why the conservative majority of the Reagan and Bush eras had unraveled.
Such understanding eluded the Republicans this year. In part, that failure can be blamed on their standard-bearer, Mitt Romney, who mostly ran as a kind of vanilla Republican instead of showing the imagination necessary to reinvent his party for a new era. Romney’s final month of campaigning was nearly flawless, though. His debate performances were the best by any Republican since Reagan and he will go down in history as one of the few losing challengers to claim a late lead in the polls. A weak nominee in many ways, he was ultimately defeated less by his own limitations as a leader, and more by the fact that his party didn’t particularly want to be reinvented, preferring to believe that the rhetoric and positioning of 1980 and 1984 could win again in the America of 2012.
You could see this belief at work in the confidence with which many conservatives insisted that the Obama presidency was not only embattled but self-evidently disastrous, in the way so many voices on the right sought to raise the ideological stakes at every opportunity, in the widespread conviction that the starker conservatives made the choice between left and right, the more votes they would win.
You could also see this conviction shaping the punditry and predictions that issued from conservatives in the days leading up this election. It was remarkable how many analysts not normally known for their boosterism (I’m thinking of Michael Barone and George Will in particular) were willing to predict that Romney would not only win but win sweepingly, capturing states that haven’t gone Republican since Reagan. But even less starry-eyed conservatives — like, well, myself — were willing to embrace models of the electorate that overstated the Republican base of support and downplayed the Democrats’ mounting demographic advantage.
Those models were wrong about 2012, and they aren’t likely to be right about 2016 or 2020. Republicans can console themselves that they came close in the popular vote. They can look ahead to a favorable Senate map in 2014 and they do still have their House majority to fall back on.
But Tuesday’s result ratifies much of the leftward shift in public policy that President Obama achieved during his first term. It paves the way for the White House to raise at least some of the tax revenue required to pay for a more activist government and it means that the Republicans let a golden chance to claim a governing coalition of their own slip away.
In this sense, just as Reagan Republicanism dominated the 1980s even though the Democrats |
the future of Earth. A little corny in places (Dr. Cochran says to the Enterprise crew members from the future: “You’re like astronauts… on some sort of star trek!”) but overall, the script is good and the action exciting.
14 Men in Black 1997
Men in Black was a surprise 1990s monster hit, based on the comic of the same name. It’s pure popcorn, but ragingly good popcorn. Agents K (Tommy Lee Jones) and J (Will Smith) of the Men in Black maintain earth as a “Casablanca without the Nazis” until a bug with a bad attitude (Vincent D’Onofrio in a terrific performance) arrives and starts some stuff. More “fi” than “sci,” of course, but it’s still one of the best fun sci-fi flicks of all time. Best line: When J puts on his black suit and shades for the first time, he tells K: “The difference between you and me is I make this look good.”
13 Jurassic Park 1993
Michael Crichton’s tale of dinosaurs come alive through cloning introduced the world at large (outside of certain scientific circles, of course) to one of the greatest killing machines ever: the velociraptor. With a gorgeous John Williams soundtrack, believable f/x and a typically—wonderfully—nerdy scientist performance by Jeff Goldblum (Ian Malcolm) Jurassic Park was and still is a terrific ride. By necessity, the movie is thinner than the novel—and trying to figure out the landscape of the T-Rex attack scene will make your head spin. (Where did that cliff come from that the heroes climb down?) Best line: Hammond tells Malcolm that “All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked.” Malcolm replies, “Yeah, but John, if the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists.”
12 Edward Scissorhands 1990
One of the more imaginable sci-fi films in a long time, this fun fairy tale features Johnny Depp as a scientific experiment accidentally left unfinished when his creator (the late great Vincent Price) dies. An Avon lady (delightfully played by Dianne Wiest) discovers the abandoned Edward, who still has several blades and scissors for hands and fingers. Sort of an update of the Frankenstein story.
11 La Cité des enfants perdus The City of Lost Children, 1994
Quite a different movie than the others on this list, this French film depicts a dystopian society where a scientist kidnaps children to steal their dreams. If you’ve seen the director’s weird post-apocalyptic “Delicatessen,” you kind of know what you’re in for. Somewhat grotesque, it’s definitely not a run-of-the mill sci-fi psychological thriller.
10 Twelve Monkeys 1995
Bruce Willis stars as a convict sent back in time to help unravel the mystery of a super virus that ravaged earth in the mid-1990s. His search centered upon a group of radical animal rights fanatics led by Brad Pitt—but is he on the right track? This well-received post-apocalyptic flick is based on 1962’s La Jetee. (See my list on great sci-fi films of the 1960s.) What I like about this film — other than the lovely Madeleine Stowe — is the fact that noting is quite as it seems.
9 Galaxy Quest 1999
This hilarious send-up of Star Trek is actually a fantastic adventures-in-space movie in its own right. It’s also a better Star Trek movie than most of the Star Trek movies. Tim Allen plays the William-Shatner-like star of a defunct TV series called Galaxy Quest (heh). He and his former cast-mates spend time slumming at sci-fi conventions. That is, until they’re kidnapped by aliens who think the show was the real deal. Totally rips/plays up great sci-fi and Trek stereotypes, such as Sigorney Weaver’s character, who starred on Galaxy Quest as pure eye candy.
8 Gattaca 1997
Gattaca is a rare modern sci-fi movie that relies on thinking and serious themes instead of f/x and explosions. Ethan Hawke stars as Vincent, who is born without the aid of genetic manipulation, and therefore becomes an instant outcast in a future society that values genetic manipulation before birth. A “god-child” or “faith-birth” by purely natural means like Vincent is considered greatly inferior to “valids.” “Imperfect” Vincent ends up trading places with “perfect” Jerome, the former getting to become an astronaut and the latter actually getting to dream at night. Well worth the time to watch.
7 Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade 1999
If you’ve followed my lists of sci-fi films of each decade, you’ll recognize that I favor films that depict a dystopian future. Jin-Roh is my favorite such flick, and one of my all-time favorites of any genre. Loosely based on a manga series, Jin-Roh is set in an alternate history of post-war Japan, where an elite force, called the Kerberos Panzer Cops, is an above-the-law paramilitary unit that combats domestic terrorism. The protagonist, Kazuki Fuse, freezes when he confronts a “red riding hood,” a bomb courier for the terrorists. The girl detonates the bomb, causing widespread damage; a friend saves the frozen Kazuki from certain death. Kazuki, ordered back to training, starts a tortured relationship with dead girl’s twin sister. Jin-Roh is beautifully made film—entirely hand-drawn!—and is heavy with symbolism. Panzer Cops are equipped like WWII German soldiers, right down to their helmets and MP-42 heavy machine guns. The wider story skillfully draws from the tale of Little Red Riding Hood — not the kid-friendly Grimm Brothers version, but the much darker original tale. All-in-all, Jin-Roh is just superb.
6? (or: Pi) 1998
This well-received movie—a Sundance winner and somewhat obscure for popular audiences—is more psychological thriller than pure sc-fi. And I’d be on crack if I claimed I understood all of the theories and mathematics presented in this film. Nevertheless, Pi (?) deftly explores how the life of a paranoid and recluse mathematical theorist goes out of control when he stumbles upon a formula for predicting the stock market. Contains a gruesome climax.
5 The Matrix 1999
While the second and third installments were such convoluted disappointments, the first Matrix movie was a mind-blowing trip. Programmer/hacker Neo goes searching for The Matrix—but in the fine tradition of “beware of what you wish for; you may get it,” Neo discovers that his reality is actually a construct of machines who use docile humans as a power source. Neo comes to learn that he is “the One” who will end the machines’ dominance once and for all. Highly influential with its f/x.
4 Dark City 1998
A man wakes up in a hotel with no memory of who he is or what he’s doing there. He’s soon on the run from beings called “the Strangers” and comes to realize he has psychokinetic powers. The Strangers, who can alter reality, time and memory, are actually parasitic aliens who are experimenting the nature versus nurture aspects of humanity. (Is a person’s natural state more important to what makes a human who and what he is, or is nurturing—life experiences—more important?) Some have dubbed Dark City “the thinking man’s Matrix.” Roger Ebert declared Dark City the best movie of 1998.
3 Open Your Eyes 1997
This Spanish sci-fi thriller was well-received and celebrated when it was released. A man, Cesar, is horribly disfigured in an accident and begins to have many disorienting experiences. After he murders a woman he thinks is his ex-lover, Cesar learns that after the accident he was cryogenically frozen — with some seriously disturbing implications. Open Your Eyes was remade in 2001 as Vanilla Sky — with both versions starring Penelope Cruz — but the original is better. Ranked #84 on the wide-ranging Online Film Critics Society’s Top 100 Sci-Fi Films list.
2 Ghost in the Shell 1995
If Akira was the anime triumph of the 1980s, Ghost in the Shell takes props for the 1990s. In fact, this cyberpunk sci-fi film is such a mind-trip that its influence is hard to underestimate. Like most great anime, Ghost in the Shell takes its inspiration from the manga of the same name. And like the best of all sci-fi, Ghost in the Shell seriously explores what it means to be human in a time of super-science. Motoko Kusanagi and her partner, Batou, are cyborgs who fight high-tech criminals. She chases after the elusive “puppet master” in her quest for existential meaning. Absolutely not to be missed. And yes, it’s violent in places, but quite deep. Originally, this was #1 on my list, but I moved it to number 2 at the last moment.
1 Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1991
This is one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, and it’s #1 for two reasons: First, T2 is a rare sequel that improves upon the original, and second, T2 actually goes beyond the explosions and gee-whiz to make you think. In T2, Arnie’s T-800 terminator goes back in time to protect John Connor, not kill him. The antagonist is the T-1000, made of liquid metal, ably played by Robert Patrick. What actually makes this movie great is not the action or the fun lines—although they are fantastic—but its exploration of humanity. Pay attention to Sarah Connor’s thoughts in the middle, where she says that the machine proves to be a good “father” to John. And Linda Hamilton’s second turn as Sarah Connor is not a one-dimensional, wilted-flower-makes-good type of character she was in the first film. Here, she is moody, brooding and full of horrible visions of the future that lead her to the brink of savagery. Her reaction immediately after shooting up the scientist’s home is just a great piece of film-making. And who can forget the horrifying nuclear war dream segment?
Follow us on Facebook or subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter so you don't miss out on our latest lists.Gorillaz’ forthcoming LP Humanz is stacked with guests—Grace Jones, Danny Brown, and Mavis Staples among them—but not everyone answered the cartoon band’s call, their new interview with Q magazine reveals. Among those who turned down guest spots are Sade and, after a “month long email exchange,” Morrissey. Dionne Warwick also said no because the lyrics conflicted with her religious beliefs, according to Q. (“I don’t take rejection personally,” Damon Albarn joked.) Elsewhere in the interview, Jamie Hewlett revealed that a 10-episode Gorillaz TV show is in the works, and that an animated Gorillaz movie for DreamWorks—related to the long-rumored Celebrity Harvest—never came to fruition, because “it was too dark to spend a couple of hundred million dollars on.” The article also alludes to a Chicago installment of the band’s festival, Demon Dayz.
Albarn, meanwhile, said The Good, the Bad & the Queen have been working on a new LP for three years, with Brexit providing renewed inspiration. He also spoke about how Humanz, as Pusha T suggested, was envisaged as a response to the prospective Trump presidency: “I told everyone to imagine you’re in America after the inauguration,” Albarn told Q, “and it’s the worst-case scenario: how would you feel that night? Let’s make a party record about the world going fucking nuts.” Hewlett added, “Humanz is not a political statement about Trump—it’s about a world in which he could get elected. Where are we as a race? Why haven’t we grown out of this? Putting the Z on the end is not a hip-hop statement, it’s more like an android Z. Are we human beings or just humanz? What the fuck is wrong with us?”
Also discussed is a lengthy “fallow period” in Albarn and Hewlett’s relationship. “He basically left and I felt upset by that,” Albarn said. “I’ve had the same experience with Graham [Coxon] over the years. I get the sense that sometimes people quite like getting off my steamroller and doing their own thing for a while and then joining me further down the road.” (Hewlett agrees that there was “a little bit of a disagreement.”) The pair didn’t speak for three years, according to Q, before drunkenly pledging to revive the group after a Blur concert in 2015.
Q’s Gorillaz cover story arrives on newsstands tomorrow. Humanz is out April 28.The first proceeding in the murder trial of an undocumented Mexican citizen who allegedly killed San Francisco resident Kathryn Steinle on Pier 14 more than two years ago is set to start on Friday.
Steinle, 32, was fatally shot on July 1, 2015, allegedly by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, 54, who was arrested that same day and has since been charged with murder.
Lopez-Sanchez, who has pleaded not guilty, is set to make his first appearance in his trial proceedings on Friday before Judge Garrett Wong in Department 22 of San Francisco Superior Court.
While the trial’s start date has been officially set for Friday, the hearing may be held over or assigned to another judge. Jury selection can take days or weeks, so the opening statements may be far off, said Tamara Aparton, a spokesperson for the Public Defender’s Office.
The much-anticipated case has garnered national attention due to its links with San Francisco’s controversial sanctuary city policy, which bar city officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in most cases.
One example of it’s national import was last month’s action in the House of Representatives, which passed “Kate’s Law,” which would expand sentences for foreigners who try to re-enter the country after deportation.
Steinle was walking on Pier 14 with her father when a stolen gun that Lopez-Sanchez was holding went off, according to both prosecutors and Lopez-Sanchez’s defense attorney. A single shot from the pistol struck her in the upper back, and she died from her injuries soon after.
Lopez-Sanchez, who is from Guanajuato, Mexico, had been released from San Francisco County Jail several months before the shooting. Never convicted of any violent felonies, Lopez-Sanchez was transported to The City from a federal prison on a years-old marijuana possession warrant.
The charges in that case were dropped once he returned to The City. Law enforcement did not alert U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, per sanctuary city policies, and Lopez-Sanchez was released.
Before his release, ICE had asked for a notification, but the request was not honored by the Sheriff’s Department because of The City’s Due Process Ordinance.
The actions of the Sheriff’s Department came under fire, but then-Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi said city law and federal court decisions prevented his department from releasing anyone to ICE if no court order has been produced.
Chief Deputy Public Defender Matt Gonzalez, Lopez-Sanchez’s lawyer, has said Lopez-Sanchez accidentally fired the pistol that killed Steinle. The gun had been stolen from the car of an agent with the Bureau of Land Management.
Read more criminal justice news on the Crime Ink page in print. Follow us on Twitter: @sfcrimeink
Click here or scroll down to commentI’m short. There’s no way around this fact. If I wanted to round up I could pass for being five feet, one inch tall.
While I stopped growing when I was twelve, the fascination other people seem to have with short people seems to continue to heighten. The curiosity and wonderment seemed only to amplify once I started college. People loved that their little brothers, sisters, and cousins were taller than me, going out of their way to say that a 10-year-old dwarfed me.
The truth is, I poke fun at myself for my height (or lack thereof), and I go to sleep at night feeling pretty good about myself (most nights). But, I’m destined (or doomed) to live with these bones in this skin until I eventually grow old and shrink even more. This gives me an excuse to make jokes about any insecurities or just plain truths surrounding my shortness. The average human being doesn’t necessarily have these same pain points, and therefore should act a little more civilized in the presence of their shorter peers. In hopes of saving the general public from violence or humiliation (we short people have the advantage of being closer in kicking distance to your knees, shins and groins) I’ve come up with a few guidelines that should help you with your inevitable future interactions with those who are five feet, four inches and under:
1. When you meet someone who is shorter than you, treat the introduction as you would with someone who is your same height – at least for the first few lines of introductory small talk. Instead of, “Hi, you’re so small and cute, just like my younger cousin Darci,” you could simply introduce yourself and make a normal comment like, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I understand this may take some getting used to, but I promise people react better when they are treated like human beings and not American Girl dolls. I’m also fairly certain shorter guys still feel completely emasculated when they are gawked at and reassured they are shorter than the average male.
2. Unless a short person asks you to, please don’t pick him or her up. For example, during my first weekend in college this enormous human/ogre whom I’d never met before picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, calling me “Pixie.” Granted, this whole evening was driven by alcohol, but this guy went above and beyond by both totally violating my personal space and addressing me as a tiny, magical woodland creature. The only thing that could make the experience better would be if he started yelling, “I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!” When you wish upon a star … right?
3. It isn’t polite to pull and prod. While it isn’t as invasive as picking someone up, touching someone and tugging at her clothing just because you think it’s cute that she had to hem her pants in order to wear them with heels (yes, I have to do this, and yes, even when hemmed my pants are too long) is still invasive. Short people shop at the same stores as tall people, even if they sometimes shop in the kid’s section because the clothes are cheaper and, thanks to childhood obesity, the sizes in the children’s department continue to get larger. Anyway, I don’t touch tall people’s clothing just because I wish I could wear maxi dresses and long tunics without being completely drowned in yards of fabric – that would just be rude.
4. Making a big deal out of short people not being able to reach things on top shelves just makes the situation worse. I already feel frustrated about not being able to reach the paper or sugar or drinking glasses without you coming over and telling me how funny it is to see me standing on my tip-toes, struggling with my fingers hyper-extended, trying to grab that same damn item I’ve been working to obtain for the last 10 minutes. Yes, it’s hilarious.
5. If you work somewhere serving alcohol, please just ask for my ID even if you have a huge urge to say I look like I’m 14. I know I will be carded for at least another 12 years, but it’s a little humiliating when I go to get lunch with a friend and have to wear a lime green wristband with “Over 21″ stamped on it in order to drink a beer. The cashier in this example seemed so smug about his decision to put this scarlet letter of sorts on me at noon so passerby wouldn’t jump to conclusions about a pizza joint serving a visiting high school student a beer in a college town (note: I had graduated from this college six months earlier). As he’s clasping the bracelet together, the cashier starts to flirt with me, which could have been flattering if he hadn’t just embarrassed me in front of the entire restaurant. Nice try, man, but this short chick (and I’m assuming most other short chicks and dudes) don’t find being patronized super sexy. Essentially I’m trying to say that it isn’t nice to loudly and insensitively rattle someone who just wanted to drink her damn beer just because she could pass as a high school sophomore.
6. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe short people don’t like being your personal armrest just because we happen to conveniently be equal height with your elbows? What about our armrests? Oh, come on, you know parents don’t take well to strangers resting their arms on their toddlers! How dare you suggest that!
7. Don’t call me your “mini-me.” Besides the fact that I’m miniature in size, what makes you think I want to be mini anything, especially a mini you? Your attempt at self-flattery is offensive, and it’s only warranted if I say I wish I were exactly like you.
8. When taking group photos, I will automatically go towards the front. I know that I’m shorter than you – let’s not test either my patience or the patience of the poor photographer who is waiting while you make an ordeal about how I absolutely need to get in the front of the group.
9. If we go to a movie or to a concert, kindly think about where we are going to sit. I’ve had to endure a number of shows either on my tip-toes or craning my neck to the side because an enormous individual is blocking my view. I know you love sitting or standing in the middle of the fifth row, but you invited me here, and I’d also like to enjoy the performance. In addition, unless I ask you to pick me up so I can see better, please don’t. Refer to #2 if you have any questions.
10. Ask me about my hobbies and interests before suggesting I try something just because of my height. I’ve been told I could be a jocky, that I should start gymnastics again, and have been asked to join the rowing team because of my size. I actually had both the women’s and men’s collegiate rowing team fight over me to be the coxswain on their teams without even asking me if I liked rowing. It was funny for a few minutes, and then I started feeling uncomfortable as I tried to escape. I’m open to suggestions for fun things to do, but let’s get to know each other’s names before we start making decisions for one another.
I could continue with should’s and should not’s, but I’ll spare you the pages of lists and will let you ponder your past and future interactions with little people. In short, act normally around those people who are shorter than you are, because at the end of the day we’re the ones who have to be eye-level with your crotches.An intriguing mini-drama has emerged from backstage at the WikiLeaks theatre.
Julian Assange has fallen out with the two senior Guardian journalists who have been central figures in the global publishing of classified US military and diplomatic documents this year. Arguably, he's not a man who can afford to lose friends at the moment.
The Guardian's partnership with WikiLeaks was founded by Nick Davies, a special correspondent and veteran investigative reporter, otherwise best known for his recent work on voicemail hacking at the News of the World. In June he contacted Assange in Brussels and suggested that professional reporters should comb the gigabytes of data WikiLeaks had obtained for stories.
The site's previous practice had been to dump raw material on its own website and hope it would be picked up by journalists. It was only moderately successful.
Davies' approach, however, also led to WikiLeaks sharing the Afghanistan, Iraq and embassy files with the New York Times, Der Spiegel and other media organisations that have provided the resources to turn data into news. As a side-effect, they have also turned Julian Assange into a celebrity, with attending celebrity friends.
The pact was agreed before Assange's Swedish adventure in August. It's the Australian's response to two women's claims of sexual assault that has riled Davies to today accuse his former partner-in-leaking of "misleading the world".
Specifically, Assange's conspiratorial reaction, suggesting the women's allegations are part of a "dirty tricks" and "smear" campaign by unseen dark forces, and that he will fight extradition in part because he and his lawyers had been denied access to any documentation on the case. This prompted Davies, an experienced policing digger, to investigate.
On Friday, the Guardian published the result, an article which presented the allegations against Assange in unprecedented detail. Davies' report was based on police documents to which he said Assange's legal team had also been granted access.
The Assange camp reacted with fury, denouncing those who had leaked the documents to Davies, while denying any double standards.
This morning, as the BBC and the Times ran interviews with Assange from under house arrest in East Anglia, Davies wrote on Twitter: "Assange finally admits 'no evidence of honeytrap' on Swedish sex claims but does not apologise for misleading the world."
The other Guardian old hand at the centre of the WikiLeaks partnership has been David Leigh, the paper's investigations editor. He has marshalled teams of reporters to trawl all three set of files – allegedly exfiltrated from a intelligence base near Baghdad by Private Bradley Manning, the forgotten man of the whole affair – for news stories.
He also criticised Assange via Twitter this morning, referring to the Times' interview and suggesting the Wikileaks founder had cut ties with the Guardian because of Davies' story on the sex allegations.
"The Guardian published too many leaks for Assange's liking, it seems," he wrote.
"So now he's signed up 'exclusively' with Murdoch's Times. Gosh."
The Times denies any exclusive deal, and has been one of WikiLeaks' and Assange's most vociferous UK critics since the Afghanistan war logs were published. He apparently overlooked that in his interview with the paper however, in which he instead rounded on his former partners at the Guardian.
"The leak of the police report to the Guardian was clearly designed to undermine my bail application," he claimed.
Assange's intolerance of any questioning of his decisions is well documented, so the Guardian can hardly be surprised at its former friend's reaction. Several WikiLeakers, including German spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg, left the organisation earlier this year to set up a new transparency project with a flatter power structure, after comparing Assange's behaviour to that of "some kind of emperor". ®
Bootnote
I sat next to Assange at a hacks' dinner in London this July*, shortly before his fateful trip to Sweden. Nothing of note emerged on which to report, but I did think the leeks were a touch overdone.
*trueMost of the Android mods we talk about are strictly at the software level. Users hack device firmware and put together custom ROMs, root handsets and slap said ROMs onto them. But one industrious owner of the Samsung Epic 4G wasn’t satisfied simply with hacking the heck out of their software. They obviously had no use for the original QWERTY keyboard, one of the major selling points of the Epic, either. Instead Cary Golomb got a bit destructive and created his own ultimate game pad for his Android device.
You can read more about the history of the project and the motivations behind it over at this blog post, but you probably just want to see the thing in action. For that I present to you the following video:
Pretty neat, but definitely not for everyone. After dropping the cash on a handset prized for it’s keyboard we doubt too many people will take the plunge. To each their own, I suppose.Chapter 23 - Love Letters
For Anna, the days without Elsa passed in a strange mix of speed and lethargy, punctuated with loneliness, longing, and even despair. At dusk the night before Nils' funeral, Anna walked about the grounds with Kristoff and Olaf, relating as much of the events at the chalet as she deemed prudent. She included the tale of the huntsman, Isolde's dream of prophecy regarding Elsa, and, most importantly, the change in their relationship from sisters to cousins.
The tale of her fight against men and wolves was an ember on her tongue, and she spoke of it as well. She figured she had to; she would not take Elsa's sword from her waist, and her arm was in a plaster cast. The words detailing this fight came out as hot and stark as firebrands. Anna could feel the weight of the lives she had ended, and it was nearly impossible to stay dry-eyed as she spoke. She wiped away each rebellious tear that threatened to topple her composure, and counted it as good practice for the funeral tomorrow.
Her friends had been both astonished and rather aghast at her dire tale. Kristoff, in particular, had little to say. He ran his hands through his hair and tried to say anything that would make Anna feel better. In the end, he barely said anything at all, though he asked Anna to thank Elsa for making the arrangements for his room at the Queen's Blessing. He and Sven had made it their second home.
Everything came back to Elsa.
Neither did the little snowman have much to say to Anna, other than a heartfelt (yet still awkward) statement that Anna must feel better about loving Elsa now that they were cousins instead of sisters. Once again the snowman was able to say what other people only thought of, and Anna both appreciated and despised his candor. She looked sideways at Kristoff as Olaf said this, still feeling the rivened ghost of a future relationship with the young man hanging between them. How often did he recall their one kiss, there on the docks with the new sled before them? It was obvious that he was still in love with her.
Or still hoping that Anna would come to her senses.
Anna had been rather shy in asking if Kristoff could take her to see the trolls. She wanted to ask Grand Pabbie about the huntsman, and about magic. Kristoff cleared his throat and readily agreed to take her the day after the state funeral. She absently wondered how the trolls would treat her now, knowing that she and Kristoff would never be together.
She also wondered what Grand Pabbie might say to her now that she knew the truth about her lost memories. Should she ask to have them back? Was such a thing even possible? Where did lost or stolen memories even go? And why did he have to take them in the first place?
Part of the anger at her father also spilled onto her thoughts of the patriarch of the trolls, and she told herself, not for the first time, to keep her temper when she met him.
For Anna had a cast on her arm and a stormcloud of regret and anger over her heart. She carried Elsa's return letter in her pocket and kept touching it, as if a talisman. It was the first love letter she had ever received, and though it was not in Elsa's handwriting, she knew they were Elsa's thoughts and words. She had already memorized the words therein and often called them to her mind.
That night she didn't even bother trying to sleep in her own room. She went to Elsa's bedchamber without even thinking about it. She needed to surround herself with Elsa's things, with the perfume of her clothes, and with all the memories that resided here as well.
It was after she climbed into Elsa's bed that she read Elsa's letter again, as she had a dozen times since receiving it by courier late that afternoon.
"My Anna," the letter started. Gerda's writing was simple and easy to read, rather plainer than Elsa's more flowery script.
"Know this, and know this well. I love you. I love you more than you can imagine. My heart sings with the joy you have brought into my life. My love for you will be as eternal as the mountains and the fjords. No huntsman and no apocalypse of wolves can ever come between us.
"I owe my life to you. This is the third time that you have saved me, my dearest Anna. You saved me on the fjord, protecting me from Hans. You saved me on the bell tower, when my heart was blackened with nightmares. And you saved me yet again, just a few nights ago.
"You saved me, Anna. Against two men and five wolves you saved my life. Let there be no more talk of forgiveness, no more shame or guilt. You are my beloved one, you are the light of my soul and love of my heart. My dearest lutefisk, do you remember the words you once told me, words that scorched my soul yet brought me so much understanding and light? You do not owe me guilt or shame, sweetheart. You owe me nothing at all, except maybe happiness.
"Come back to me, pet. We'll face the future together. Whatever it may hold. For I am now, and forever,
"Yours."
Elsa had signed it herself; Anna had seen Elsa's signature a thousand times or more over the years, but never with this shaky, almost unreal quality.
She held the letter against her heart and let its goodness seep into her soul, erasing the bitter memories of blood and men and wolves.
And after a time, when sleep still would not come, and the summer night was hot and sticky around her, the room all dark and cluttered with memories bitter and sweet, Anna got up and strode over to Elsa's little writing table in the corner of her room. She lit a lamp, took a piece of stationery and awkwardly picked up the pen. It wouldn't sit correctly with the strip of plaster cast covering her lower palm and circling over her thumb, but if she held it carefully, she could still write.
"Dearest Elsa,
"Thank you for your letter. I've read it at least twenty times since receiving it earlier today. I'm glad that the couriers can make the journey to the chalet in only a few hours, because I want to send this letter to you in the morning, and I would love to receive anything else you are able to send back.
"I felt better after reading it, I admit. I don't know where my head is these days - all my life I've been cursed with thoughts that scamper all willy-nilly through my mind, often stampeding right out my mouth as well - but I've never felt as confused and conflicted as I have lately. There is just so much to adjust to. Losing you as my sister has uprooted my entire identity. And gaining you as my cousin and my lover is now the only thing keeping me sane.
"I feel like I'm going to vibrate apart, Elsa. That old proverb says that the truth will make us free, but I don't feel free. I feel fear, Elsa - and fear has been a rarity for me. I've been too impulsive for fear. Then again, I've also been too sheltered for fear as well. In my search to find you after the freeze, I was too exhilarated in my sudden freedom to be afraid. Even in my sword training I was not afraid. Pain was always temporary.
"But now I see the consequences of my actions in a whole new light. I see them not only in my broken wrist, but in your bandages and your pain. I see them in the marks on your face, in the hole over your heart. I see these consequences in my dreams and my nightmares. You say that you love me and forgive me, but I need to continue to forgive myself.
"It's strange, but I found something that actually helps. I force myself to imagine the worst. I force myself to imagine that you could be dead instead of injured, and then I'm able to rationalize what I've done. I think of five wolves, an entire pack of wolves, and two men, and I remember what the Captain of the Guard told me. He said that not even seasoned fighters would always win against such odds. Yes, it could have been worse, much worse. It could be your funeral I would attend tomorrow.
"And the thought of losing you, my dearest heart, my precious one, is more than I can bear. This is my greatest fear of all. Losing the light you have brought into my life. Losing the love, the laughter, and the future that we are daring to create day by day.
"I think I'm growing up, Elsa. Because in hours like this one, where I miss you so terribly, and the fear has its black claws in my heart, I'm trying to look inside my fear.
"When I dare to look inside my fear, when I dare to step within the range of its black claws, I find something amazing, Elsa. It is love. So much love. I never knew I could love anyone as much as I love you.
"I will try to be strong for you. Strong enough to forgive not only my father, who deceived us for so many years in the name of duty, and not only the men who tried to kill us at the chalet, but also to forgive myself.
"Tomorrow will be a hard day, Elsa. Nils' funeral is tomorrow. I will have to stand there alone, I will have to speak the words of his valour and his sacrifice. But though my body is here, my heart is with you.
"Rest now, sweetheart. Write to me if you can. I'll see you again soon.
"Your,
"Anna."
As soon as she finished the letter, she sealed it with Elsa's personal seal. She then stirred from her room long enough to press it into the hand of the guard outside her door, giving instruction to have it couriered to the chalet with the coming of the dawn.
And then she slept, and once again she slept in peace, not knowing that Elsa's silence and serenity could radiate even this far; a sacred connection forged by blood yet consecrated by love, a filament connecting them through the broken heart of the earth. Anna had pledged her lifeblood and her health without knowing that Elsa had pledged her peace and her eternal loyalty.
And the heart of the earth itself, broken as it was by an ancient rite, grew stronger.
...
"Dear Anna,
"Sera has allowed me to sit up for a while today, so I am able to write this in my own hand. Thank you for your letter, and for sharing your thoughts so openly with me. I love knowing what you are thinking and feeling; it helps me feel so much more connected with you, and part of the burdens you must bear.
"I'm not sure if anything I say can influence or change how you will adapt to all the truth we have been told. For myself, I can feel the truth settling deep inside me, touching some deep and perhaps hidden core that always knew that there was something wrong. I |
people and others in need.
“I feel kind of defeated on some level,” said the pastor, W.J. Rideout III of All God’s People Church on French Road. “It feels like I’m back to square one.”
Rideout got a call at around 4:30 p.m. Monday telling him that the homes were on fire. Firefighters battled the flames for about four hours; he said the two structures were completely destroyed.
He bought the homes, which are next to his church, two years ago. He invested his own money in a water heater, washer, dryer and other basic furniture. He said he was planning more renovations.
The three-bedroom homes were housing six people altogether. Now, he said, he doesn’t know where they’ll go.
“It feels very bad,” he said. “These families are out on the streets.”
He also said that because the homes weren’t insured, “We get nothing, I don’t gain anything — I lost.”
Contact Ann Zaniewski: 313-222-6594, azaniewski@freepress.com or on Twitter @AnnZaniewski.
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/298lx7QOn a recent morning, the actress Jackie Hoffman sprawled on a bed costing thousands of dollars. She was at a Hästens showroom in the Flatiron district, lounging on a mattress covered in a tasteful checked throw that clashed apologetically with her bright pink puffer jacket and flowered socks. “There’s nothing like expensive,” she sighed. “Makes you want to sink right in.”
But she didn’t sink right in, and she didn’t look especially comfortable. Ms. Hoffman, who has a deliciously acerbic stage presence and a scalding sense of humor, doesn’t really do comfortable.
These days, she is typically found tossing and turning on far less luxurious cushions. Ms. Hoffman stars as the plucky if insomniac Princess Winnifred, the heroine of “Once Upon a Mattress,” the 1959 Mary Rodgers musical based on the story “The Princess and the Pea.” Now in previews in a revival by the Transport Group, it opens on Dec. 13 at the Abrons Arts Center.
Though Ms. Hoffman has enjoyed several eventful decades in theater, television and film, Winnifred is her first lead role. And she’ll be the first to tell you that she’s way too old for it. Not that she’s about to let it go anytime soon.Video: California Democrats Kill Bill To Outlaw Sex-Selection Abortions
Supervisor David Chiu wants San Francisco to become the first American city to oppose any ban on sex-selection abortions. It apparently has not occurred to him why no other city has chosen to do so.
Journalist Mara Hvistendahl, author of “Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men,” estimates that sex-selection abortions have “claimed over 160 million potential women and girls — in Asia alone.” Thus it is rather disturbing to watch one of the most liberal politicians in liberal San Francisco grandstand in defense of a practice that devalues — destroys, actually — girls.
In other communities, people think it is immoral for a woman to abort a fetus because of her — or his — gender. You can support the right to abortion, yet still cringe at the thought that some women choose to abort a girl because they want a boy.
Somehow self-styled feminists have twisted support for abortion rights so that it trumps women’s very right to exist. Chiu’s bill has four female co-authors — supervisors Jane Kim, Katy Tang, London Breed and Malia Cohen. Mayor Ed Lee is supposed to be the adult in City Hall. According to his office, he expects to sign the measure. Sometimes San Francisco can be so liberal that it’s illiberal.
Where does this resolution even come from?
Supervisor David Chiu wants San Francisco to become the first American city to oppose any ban on sex-selection abortions. Supervisor David Chiu wants San Francisco to become the first American city to oppose any ban on sex-selection abortions. Photo: Michael Macor, Staff / The Chronicle Photo: Michael Macor, Staff / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close San Francisco feminism: It’s OK to abort girls 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
“A coalition of Asian American and reproductive rights, health and justice organizations has formed to educate the public about the stereotyping inherent in sex-selective abortion bans, to condemn the rhetoric of ban advocates as deeply offensive and organize to defeat such discriminatory policies,” quoth the resolution. Activists contend that bans on sex-selection abortion, which have been passed in eight states, are designed to limit access to abortion, not gender-based feticide.
In a press release issued by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, Chiu said, “The rhetoric used by legislators advocating these measures is perpetuating racial stereotypes, is deeply offensive and can lead to the denial of health care services to women. No woman should ever be scrutinized by her doctor based on her racial or ethnic background, but that is exactly what a sex-selective abortion ban encourages.”
When we talked on the phone Thursday, Chiu told me, “There is no evidence that sex-selective abortions are happening in the United States. The legislative bans are based on racial stereotypes. We shouldn’t be passing laws that could potentially cause doctors to not provide care or consider turning women in to authorities for these laws.”
No evidence? In 2011, Sunita Puri, then a UCSF medical resident, published a study on sex-selection abortion; 65 Indian immigrant women participated in the study, and 24 said they had sought abortions because they were carrying girls. Common sense tells you it is happening among native and immigrant families, and among all ethnicities.
Read Full ArticleDONETSK, Ukraine — As he sobered up through the long, strange night, the captive man grew more and more afraid.
He recalled the previous hours through a blur of alcohol and pain: drunkenly insulting a group of pro-Russia men, being clubbed and dragged to a makeshift base; and then the raised stakes when they found out who he was. He remembered an injection — maybe a truth serum, he thought, or something for the pain — and a videotaped confession, where he admitted to recruiting men to fight the separatists overrunning eastern Ukraine. Now he was in their nerve center, an 11-story government building in the regional capital of Donetsk ringed by razor wire and barricades. He was handcuffed to a chair in a busy hallway beneath fluorescent lights. Some of the armed men passing by bent down and threatened to kill him.
The man, a pro-Kiev activist, had found himself in the heart of a shadow war fueled by hostage taking and a rush to militarize. New captives are brought to the Donetsk building nightly, separatists say — adding that the pro-Kiev side targets them right back. While some of the captors interrogated the man, pushing for information about weapons caches, others broke into his home and stole his hard drive. Then they set him free.
After two nights in the building, walking out into the sunlight on Saturday felt wonderful, remembered the man, who was afraid to use his name. He looked around to see if he was being followed. Then he headed to a nearby McDonald's, where he'd arranged to meet the powerful friend who'd been trying to secure his release: Nikolai Yacubovich, the head of a local civil defense force and a key rival to the pro-Russia militants in the city.
As he watched the burly Yacubovich approach, the man realized that he'd been used as bait — three assailants suddenly appeared, attacking Yacubovich in the street. The just-freed man turned to flee, but someone grabbed him. He heard gunshots as he was pushed into a minivan.
Bleeding from a bullet wound in his leg, Yacubovich, a former police officer, was surprised by the skill of his attackers. On this murky front of the conflict, he realized, the enemy was effective and organized. He was brought into the occupied government building, where a makeshift operating room waited on the second floor. A surgeon in blue scrubs provided a local anesthesia and skillfully cleaned and bandaged his leg.
Then Yacubovich was brought to the floor that had taken on an air of notoriety and intrigue even among the activists and militants who worked elsewhere in the building: No. 6. It was said to be a hub for special operations, from which high-priority kidnappings, interrogations and other missions were carried out. In this way it was also a window into the dark forces the conflict had already unleashed — even as Russian President Vladimir Putin signals an easing of his aggressive stance on eastern Ukraine and the region braces for the uncertain aftermath of a contested referendum held on Sunday.
Inside a drab conference room, Yacubovich was forced to do a video interview in which he was "strongly urged" by the Russian journalist filming it, he said later, to call on the government to halt a military campaign against the separatists that has brought new casualties almost by the day. To open the video, a man wearing a black ski mask and bulletproof vest addressed the camera: "Now our faces are covered, but soon they will be revealed."
The masked man described himself as a leader of a little-known group that called itself the Russian Orthodox Army — and whose appearance has raised concerns that the uprising might be spiraling beyond anyone's control. In a recent interview just six floors above the conference room, Alexander Kishinets, the "war commissioner" for the shadow government operating out of the building, called it another sign that "some people who are getting power and arms are becoming like Napoleon or Stalin, and just trying to get more power."
"There is not good coordination," Kishinets added.
After the video was recorded, Yacubovich was interrogated by his captors. They carried themselves like professionals, he thought — and he took them for local men with strong military backgrounds. "The guys who caught me were well-trained," he said later. "And the guys who held me were even better trained." Yet Yacubovich also saw evidence of internal discord among the militants: Competing groups argued heatedly, and his captors appeared to be protecting him from others who wanted to do him more harm.
Yacubovich and his friend were eventually moved to another building for their own protection. They were released last Monday alongside three other pro-Ukraine hostages after negotiations between the captors and Ukrainian authorities; Yacubovich said he wasn't sure what kind of deal had been reached.
The shadow war inside the occupied government building, meanwhile, kept churning. That same afternoon, a Western journalist climbing past the fifth floor in the stairwell saw three blindfolded men dragged at gunpoint through its guarded entrance by militants who shouted angrily that there was nothing to see, and then slammed the door.
On Wednesday afternoon, sitting in the same conference room where days earlier Yacubovich had recorded his hostage video, a militant commander who gave the nickname Veren said the pro-Russia forces on the fifth floor had been taking captives "more and more often" of late — another sign of the escalating conflict. He wore a black ski mask atop his head like a skullcap and had tattoos stretching past the sleeves of his T-shirt and up his neck.
Veren said he led a group of about 40 men who focused on "special operations" and "rapid reaction." He added that the fifth floor had acquired its mysterious reputation — "there's a lot of gossip" — because of the unusual skill of the men who operated there. While he had no military experience himself, he said, most of his men did. "Captives come to other floors as well, but the people on the fifth floor are more military and more professional," he said.
Veren said his group had taken part in the capture of Yacubovich and his friend, claiming that the two had been paying criminals to fight the pro-Russians. "I am sure they are fascists," he said. He refused to call any of his captives "prisoners," saying they tended to be released within a few days, sometimes a few hours. He often tried to negotiate prisoner exchanges, he added — he'd also been offered $500,000 for Yacubovich, he said — but his most important task was getting information.
Not far beneath the surface, eastern Ukraine has an ugly history of internecine violence — and many of the region's business and political figures are said to have visited extreme cruelty on their rivals as they jockeyed for power. Now those demons seemed to have been awakened anew. Veren spoke of myriad and murky threats from his rivals, mentioning one example of two pro-Russians who he said had recently surfaced in a river with their stomachs opened up.
In this context, information was an increasingly valuable commodity: Veren also claimed that dangerous irregular forces were fighting in concert with the Ukrainian authorities. "We cannot distinguish who is who," he said.
Both Yacubovich and his friend said they were treated well once in custody, and according to Veren, most captives sustained any injuries during their capture. But he also appeared to suggest that harsh measures were sometimes employed to get people talking.
Asked if his men ever tortured their captives, he replied: "What is your definition of torture?" Pressed further, he said in English: "No comment."
"History has to be written, even with all of its black pages," he added.UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday regretted the fact that the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) was unable to fully function in held Kashmir due to India’s non-cooperation.
The UN’s military mission is only able to operate on the Pakistani controlled side of the LoC, as India refuses to accept its functioning on the other side and opposes its expansion, said the UN secretary general.
Pakistan's Permanent Representative to UN Dr Maleeha Lodhi, in the meeting with the top diplomat, asked the UN secretary general to ensure that UNMOGIP is able to report facts independently regarding the situation in held Kashmir to the UN Security Council.
Lodhi said during the meeting that Pakistan has exercised maximum restraint but would respond forcefully to any acts of aggression and provocation.
She added that the responsibility for the escalating crisis rests entirely with India.
The UN secretary general urged both Pakistan and India to de-escalate tensions and offered the organisation’s assistance in the matter. He also conveyed condolences on the deaths of two Pakistan Army soldiers.
Ambassador Lodhi said India has, by its declarations and actions, created conditions that pose an imminent threat to regional and International peace and security.
She added that while India’s claim of carrying out a surgical strike across the Line of Control (LoC) was false, India had by its own admission, committed open aggression against Pakistan.
“The international community, and especially the United Nations, should not ignore this grave threat to international peace and security with possibly catastrophic consequences for the entire region,” said Lodhi.
She urged the world’s top diplomat to intervene "boldly and unequivocally by calling on India to halt its aggressive actions and provocations, lest these lead to an even more dangerous situation".
“India has provoked this crisis to divert international attention away from the indigenous Kashmiri uprising against Indian occupation.”
Lodhi also asked Moon to play a role in bringing an end to the human rights violations committed by Indian security forces in held Kashmir.
“If India did not heed this call, the UN's relevant mechanisms, including the Security Council, must be advised of this imminent threat to international peace and security, as required under the UN Charter,” said Pakistan’s permanent representative during the meeting.
Moon also conveyed his dismay at the postponement of the Saarc summit, and said “it could have been a good opportunity for dialogue”.
Earlier, Lodhi met president of the UN Security Council, Gerard van Bohemen of New Zealand, and urged him to informally brief the 15-member body on her country's dangerous escalation in tensions resulting from unprovoked firing by Indian troops across the LoC.
Urgent steps were needed to avert a full-blown crisis, she said.
Soaring tensions
In one of the worst episodes of cross-border firing along the Line of Control, at least two Pakistan Army soldiers were killed as Indian troops opened fire on the first line of defence.
India also claimed to have performed a surgical strike by crossing the disputed boundary. The Indian claims were rubbished by Pakistan Army.
Also read: India steps up drive against Pakistan
Later it emerged that an Indian soldier was captured by the Pakistan army, while Indian soldiers were also killed in the episode of firing across the LoC.
An Indian army official based in New Delhi said, “It is confirmed one soldier from 37 Rashtriya Rifles with weapons has inadvertently crossed over to the Pakistan side of the Line of Control”.Four men were being questioned tonight in connection with a mob attack of a crowd of people in Lakeview early this morning that left one man with a broken jaw and was videotaped by someone who was with the attackers, authorities said.
The attacks happened about 1:10 a.m. at Clark Street and Cornelia Avenue, just south of Wrigley Field, when between 8 and 10 people jumped out of a white stretch limousine, police said.
Several people from the limousine started punching and hitting another group of people, and someone who was with them began recording the attack on video, said Chicago News Affairs Officer Daniel O'Brien.
Following the attacks, a 27-year-old man was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center with head injuries, including a broken jaw, police said. Two other men, 22 and 27, also were injured and spoke to police, but were not taken to a hospital.
The most seriously injured man told police that three people came up to him and began punching him in the face, sending him to the ground, police said. The 22-year-old also was punched in the head by three men, he told police. The other 27-year-old was punched in the head and chest, also by three people.
Officers arrived on scene near 3500 N. Sheffield Ave. soon after and were flagged down by witnesses, who pointed out some of the attackers, including one man who was not wearing a shirt, police said. Officers were able to arrest four men, two age 32, two age 31, identified by victims, police said, adding that two of the four are on parole.
One officer suffered a knee injury when one of those identified as an attacker swung at the officer and struggled with the officer, O’Brien said.
The person captured the attack on video was with the attackers, but was not arrested. Police said the other attackers either fled in the limousine or on foot.
The four arrested could face felony charges of mob action, resisting arrest and aggravated battery, police said, but no charges have been filed against them as the investigation continued Sunday night by Area North detectives.
jgorner@tribune.com, lford@tribune.comReports of China Banning Bitcoin Are Greatly Exaggerated
On November 3 the Bitcoin price took a dive from a high of US$745 to a low of $675 with news of China circling the internet. A so-called report from the publication Bloomberg had other media outlets assume that China was planning on curbing Bitcoin use in the near future. However, the reports have remained unconfirmed, and many believe the headline was fictitious.
Also read: China to Play a ‘Leading Role’ in Bitcoin’s Future
Rumors of China Curbing Bitcoin Use Goes Viral
The stories that surround China and Bitcoin are quite vast. From “secret” mining operations, to “free” electricity, to a large portion of Bitcoin transactions being traded for yuan the list goes on forever. The fact is news from China plays a significant role in a lot of people’s speculation. The November 3rd fiasco is no different as the news spread through the market and the community went wild.
Early in the morning the publication ZeroHedge published the article “China Prepares To Impose Curbs, “Capital Controls” On Bitcoin.” The news outlet is well known for writing stories regarding the global economy and subjects like gold and Bitcoin. At times the publication writes editorials predicting the cryptocurrency’s value will pump. Many of these articles are very popular throughout the Bitcoin community.
The November 3rd article was also quite popular, and some believe it made a difference in the market. The anonymous reporter Tyler Durden states within the article, “According to Bloomberg sources, Chinese officials are considering policies including restricting domestic bitcoin exchanges from moving the cryptocurrency to platforms outside the nation and imposing quotas on the amount of bitcoins that can be sent abroad.” However, the Bloomberg report cannot be confirmed as legitimate, and the article in question does not appear on their website.
Reports Are Unconfirmed and Remain Rumors
What’s interesting is that many people within the Bitcoin industry have claimed the reports are false. For instance, the CEO of Vaultoro explains that the recent Chinese headline may be false. The Vaultoro founder says while speaking with a friend who works for the Chinese Bitcoin company BitBank he was told the reports are misleading.
The BitBank representative says that if anyone wants to know how Chinese authorities feel about Bitcoin to read this editorial. The article written by Bitcoin.com’s Jon Southurst detailed a blockchain conference hosted by the Chinese government. Within the editorial, it explains that Chinese officials had no problem discussing Bitcoin. In fact, Ji Xiaonan, of China’s State-Owned Asset Supervision and Administration Commission said some positive words towards Bitcoin stating it was “the only mature blockchain technology today.”
Questionable Sources Push Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
Another interesting aspect of the story is the controversial Bloomberg article has similarities to another published piece this past May. The headline for November 3rds article read “China Said to Mull Curbing Outflows Via Bitcoin on Yuan Drop.” This title and the paragraphs that follow it are very much the same as this article published in May by the Bloomberg news outlet. The story called “China to Mull Curbs on Domestic Backdoor Listing Valuations” has almost identical wording as the alleged Bitcoin article with certain words replaced throughout.
Furthermore historically when the price of Bitcoin rises stories of China and other countries banning Bitcoin have appeared in great number. When Bitcoin was on a tear in 2013 reaching close to $1150 per BTC, these stories came out often. Publications like Bloomberg reported on China cracking down on Bitcoin as well as Forbes, the New York Times, and many others. Typically when these reports published, the price took a dive, but government officials banning Bitcoin never materialized.
The price of Bitcoin has managed to regain its upward push slightly below the $700 range. Reports of China curbing Bitcoin outflows seems to be just another rumor that shook up the market. Many wonder if these headlines will affect the value of BTC again in the future. Moreover, the question is how much does China’s stake in Bitcoin really matter when it comes to this industry?
What do you think about the unconfirmed reports concerning China and Bitcoin? Let us know in the comments below.
Header Image courtesy of Crypto-graphics.com, and other images via Pixabay.
There are no bigger Bitcoin believers than the Bitcoin.com team. That’s why this site is a one-stop-shop for everything you need to get into bitcoin life. A Bitcoin store? Check. Earning bitcoin? Check. Forum discussions?Check. A casino? Yep, we have that too. Prices and statistics? Also here.10-hour school day on the way to boost grades (and Saturday mornings too!)
Children could go to school for ten hours a day and on Saturday mornings under a radical shake-up of secondary education.
Education Minister Michael Gove wants school days to run from 7.30am to 5.30pm to improve pupils’ performance and enable them to study vocational courses alongside core academic subjects.
He also wants sites to open on Saturdays and to increase terms by two weeks, to a total of 40 weeks a year.
Changes: Education Secretary Michael Gove said the measures would not be compulsory, but strongly advised
It would mean youngsters gaining more than an extra year of teaching over a five-year period.
Longer days in the state system would bring them in line with many private schools, giving disadvantaged youngsters more time in class to catch up with more privileged peers.
They would also be popular with working parents who struggle to fit 3pm school finishing times in with their jobs.
Mr Gove said the measures – which would mirror exemplary Far Eastern schools such as in Singapore – would not be compulsory but strongly advised.
The teachers’ union criticised the plans, arguing that staff already have a punishing workload and that children need time to rest.
Mr Gove unveiled the plans yesterday alongside the findings of an independent review into vocational education.
Critical: Professor Alison Wolf's review attacked the 'immoral' pressures of school league tables
Led by Professor Alison Wolf, it found a third of non-academic GCSE-equivalent courses are pointless or even harm career prospects. One, the certificate in Personal Effectiveness, taught pupils, among other things, how to claim benefits.
Mr Gove said youngsters aged 14 to 16 should focus on core subjects of his English Baccalaureate – English, maths, a science, a humanity and a foreign language.
He said vocational courses should be taught alongside the core and occupy up to 20 per cent of the school timetable.
If schools can manage to get all their pupils up to scratch during a short school day then they should stick to it, he said. But if pupils are failing to pass maths and English GCSEs, as more than half do, they must lengthen the school day.
Mr Gove said it was up to individual schools to decide whether to adopt the measures, but added: ‘I personally believe that people should be learning for longer.
‘Lots of schools have found having an extended school day – sometimes weekend education, or longer terms – helps.’
Mr Gove said he would not prescribe the longer hours, but has ‘lifted the bureaucratic requirement on schools to give us notice about varying the school day’.
‘The opportunity is now there for schools to offer students more,’ he said.
Academies, ‘free’ schools and faith schools are able to vary their hours, provided they teach for a minimum of 190 days a year. Comprehensives must seek permission from their local authority.
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of education union ATL, criticised the plans. She said: ‘Longer hours in school do not neatly equate into higher achievement by pupils.
‘The reasons why some fail to achieve as well as they could are complex and varied. Being born into a disadvantaged family is the most significant.
‘Young people need to spend time with families and friends and to organise their own activities, or rest.
‘Teachers in the English state schools already work an average of 50 hours a week – 18 of them teaching and the rest marking and preparing students’ work, in parents’ meetings, staff meetings, and training. They need a life outside school too.’
Professor Wolf’s review attacked as ‘immoral’ the pressures of school league tables which have caused a move away from a core curriculum.
She said it was ‘absolutely scandalous’ that half of all 16-year-olds are leaving school without good GCSEs – a C grade or higher – in English and maths.A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III is a 2012 American comedy film directed, written and produced by Roman Coppola. It stars Charlie Sheen, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Katheryn Winnick and Patricia Arquette.
It premiered at the 2012 Rome Film Festival and had a limited release on February 8, 2013 in the United States, being the first release under the independent distributor, A24. Since release, it has garnered largely negative reviews.
Plot [ edit ]
In the 1970s, successful graphic designer and ladies' man Charles Swan III (Sheen) is dumped by his girlfriend Ivana (Winnick), and it throws his life into a tailspin.[1] He does not know whether he loves her or hates her or wants her back or never wants to see her again.[2] Along with his best friend, Kirby (Schwartzman) and his manager, Saul (Murray), Charles starts to suffer from nightmares, fever dreams of past relationships and hits rock bottom as he tries to recover from the recent breakup and tries to turn his life around.[3]
Cast [ edit ]
Production [ edit ]
If you've ever been through a bad break-up, all you want to do is think about it and process. That's kind of what the project is. A character study of a guy in this state of mind with Charlie as a very dynamic and imaginative character, so there's a lot of fantasy sequences and crazy shit. —Roman Coppola[3]
Filmed on location in Santa Clarita and Los Angeles, California.
Music [ edit ]
"It was surreal," says the Chicago composer and performer Liam Hayes, about appearing in the Roman Coppola film A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III. "I haven't played many gigs on a beach with a Hammond organ, you know?" Hayes, who has made music under the name Plush since the early 1990s, was contacted by Coppola after the director became a huge fan. "I just got so absorbed by his music," Coppola told GQ (UK) about Hayes and Plush.
The result of this appreciation was Hayes and Coppola making a soundtrack out of Hayes' music. "It evolved," says Hayes. "When we met to discuss the project we talked about possible songs. We talked some more, added a few more songs, and I ended up doing the score." Hayes also appears in the film performing the tune "So Much Music". It is not his first time onscreen: In 2000 he appeared in High Fidelity performing his song "Soaring and Boring".
Release [ edit ]
On January 8, 2013, the film was released through video on demand and was released in a limited release in the United States on February 8, 2013.
Home media [ edit ]
It was released on Blu-ray on May 14, 2013.[5]
Reception [ edit ]
Critical response [ edit ]
A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III received an overwhelmingly negative response from critics. Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club gave the movie an F, saying that "it isn't a movie so much as a feature-length perfume commercial for a Charlie Sheen signature cologne with gorgeous packaging and absolutely nothing inside."[6] The Dallas Observer said that the film "might generously be described as cut-and-paste – or more accurately as 'throw stuff to the wall and see what sticks'" and it was "a clunker".[7] The New York Daily News gave Charles Swan III one star out of five, saying that "you want to swat it away" and that "maybe with this out of his [Coppola's] system, he'll think up something better."[8] TIME said that the film "does not lead to a deeper understanding of Charlie Sheen. It does, however, demonstrate his compulsion for poor judgment and bad choices. But weren't we already convinced of that?"[9]
Lisa Schwarzbaum, reviewer for Entertainment Weekly, gave the film a C and a milder response, writing, "The idea of this home-movie-with-higher-production-values directed by Roman Coppola is no less sweet for being unoriginal... The execution, on the other hand, is perilously self-absorbed, a private party involving friends, family, too many fantasy sequences, and an abundance of costume and set design to create a notion of a stylized L.A. spritzed with eau de Playboy."[10]
The film holds a 15% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 53 reviews.[11] Metacritic gave the film a 28/100 "generally unfavorable" approval rating based on 21 reviews.[12]
Box office [ edit ]
The film opened at #64 with US$12,000 in its limited release at two theaters the week of February 8.[13] The following weekend, the weekend of February 15, Charles Swan III expanded to 18 theaters and gained an 81.6% increase.[13] As of July 11, 2013, the domestic total of A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III is US$45,350, and in Russia the film has grossed $134,473, with an additional $26,999 in Mexico.[13]By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –
A new Pew poll finds that 58% of Republicans now say that colleges and universities have a negative impact on the United States.
But this finding is a very recent development. In 2015, 54% of Republicans held that colleges and universities have a positive influence on the US.
What changed?
Trump became the GOP standard bearer and began attacking the news media and the findings of university scientists concerning climate change.
Trump’s new budget, by the way, dramatically cuts cost sharing for university research, i.e. it offloads office and other costs off onto the universities, which will have a negative impact on the US in the area of scientific discovery. Personally, I can’t imagine that people don’t know that American universities are incubators of important findings that improve people’s health, cure their diseases, and improve their lives.
Aside from the marked dumbing-down of the Republican Party since he began running for president, the other way you can tell that this is a Trump effect is that 72% of Democrats say colleges are a positive, and this statistic is unchanged in recent years.
The good news is that this new bout of anti-intellectualism is almost certainly a flash in the pan.
Thinking poorly of universities and colleges is the sign of someone who wants to pull the wool over people’s eyes. A college education teaches people to think analytically and to question the stories we are fed.
You can tell a reality-based political leader such as Thomas Jefferson, since he founded the University of Virginia and thought that schooling for critical thinking was essential to producing democratic citizens.
As I wrote in Truthdig a few years ago, in an essay that looks more and more prescient,
“In 1786, Jefferson wrote from Europe to a friend: “Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [of tyranny], and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.” That is, Jefferson believed that the alternative to publicly funded education was the rise of an oppressive oligarchy that would manipulate the ignorant majority… Not only is a more rigid class structure implied by the decline of public support for state universities, but more fixed race boundaries are, as well. State universities are the most important vehicle for minority students in attaining a degree. While 800,000 minority students attend public universities, fewer than 200,000 can be found on private campuses. If the state universities become as expensive as the privates, the impact on minorities could be severe.
——
Related video:
The Young Turks: “Republicans: College Is Ruining America”LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) - Another former Liberty University football player has filed a lawsuit against the school over false accusations.
Kyle Carrington is one of two former LU football players accused of.
He is suing Liberty University, Len Stevens, and the alleged sexual assault victim for defamation and Title IX violations.
Karrington Defamation Lawsuit by WSET on Scribd
The suit alleges a woman falsely accused Carrington of sexual assault in the summer of 2015.
According to the lawsuit, Carrington and the woman both attended a house party in August of that year with a lot of other Liberty University students.
The lawsuit says Carrington and another player accused, Cameron Jackson, met the woman on the side of the house when she offered to perform oral sex on them.
The suit claims that act did happen, but was interrupted by the sound of party-goers headed that direction.
Defamation, Title IX cases move forward against LU LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) - New developments in a lawsuit against Liberty University and some of it"s employees. A federal judge in Lynchburg allowed former LU football player Cameron Jackson"s defamation and Title IX cases against LU, Sarah Browning, and Len Stevens to move forward. The matter is scheduled for a jury trial next summer.
The suit alleges the woman approached several other LU football players and offered to perform the same sex act on them.
The woman was not "stumbling, slurring speech, or otherwise showing visible signs of intoxication," according to the lawsuit.
It says the alleged victim did not report anything to Lynchburg Police when they stopped by for a noise complaint later that evening.
During the fall semester of 2015, rumors of a LU swimmer being gang-raped by members of the football team began to circulate, according to the lawsuit.
The suit alleges the university became aware of the woman's alleged illegal drug use, a violation of the Liberty Way, the school's code of conduct, and eventually the alleged drug use caused the university to withdraw the woman, who then moved home.
According to the lawsuit, the alleged victim and Carrington began a "non-exclusive sexual relationship," but the alleged victim contacted the university to make a report about the incident in July 2016, a year after the incident happened.
The woman claimed the incident "was not consensual."
The lawsuit says the woman was inconsistent about how many football players were involved in the alleged sexual assault, with initially accusing eight football players, then six, then three.
The woman did not report the incident to Lynchburg Police, the Lynchburg Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, Virginia State Police, or other agencies about the LU investigation.
According to the lawsuit, the university's Title IX policies at the time "did not include any requirements to notify the accused of the right to review evidence."
The university released a press release on September 12, 2016, which got to local media.
Two LU Football players investigated for alleged sexual assault LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) - An investigation of reported sexual assault involving Liberty University has led to two current students and one former student responsible of violating university policies. Back in July, the university received a report of an alleged sexual assault that happened off-campus in August 2015.
The lawsuit alleges the appeal process for Carrington was flawed, saying the University did not meet some requirements.
Former football player files $102 million defamation lawsuit against Liberty University LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) -- A former Liberty University student is suing the university. According to documents, the student is seeking over $102 million for defamation. The defendant, Cameron Jackson, says that a press release sent out by Liberty University last September violated his Title IX rights.
According to the lawsuit, Liberty University released the press release "to |
city was to close off the surrounding sidewalks as about 40 workers begin running a large spool of wire — three-quarters-of-an-inch thick, or about the size of a nickel — along the bridge at Dearborn Street down Wacker Drive. About three hours later, the city will shut down Wacker Drive to traffic as workers, positioned on top of the buildings, use capstan winches to hoist the steel wire up the side of the buildings.
They expect to work through most of the night, according to Troffer, making sure the wire does not touch or damage the buildings.
Once the wire is brought to the top of the buildings, the workers will tie it down to standing structures already on the roof using a braided nylon sling. On the west Marina City tower, the wire will be tied to a tall concrete tube that formerly held communications antennas. On the east tower, they plan to bolt big steel plates in pre-existing holes. And on the roof of the Leo Burnett Building, the wire will be wrapped around a large structural beam.
The tightrope was designed by Wallenda's uncle, Mike Troffer, the chief engineer who works closely with his brother to make sure the integrity of the tightrope isn't compromised.
Terry Troffer, Nik Wallenda's father, speaks about their preparations for Wallenda to walk a tightrope between downtown Chicago buildings. (Brian Cassellla/ Chicago Tribune) Terry Troffer, Nik Wallenda's father, speaks about their preparations for Wallenda to walk a tightrope between downtown Chicago buildings. (Brian Cassellla/ Chicago Tribune) SEE MORE VIDEOS
Months before, Mike Troffer, a mechanical engineer, runs all the numbers to determine exactly what cable wire should be used for the tightrope and how much tension should be placed on it. Dynamometers will be attached to the cable to make sure the exact amount of tension is reached.
Guy wires will be attached to concrete barriers on the ground to prevent the tightrope from swinging too wildly.
"A lot of engineering goes into place with this," said Troffer, who married into the Wallenda family. "Every walk is different, and there are lots of challenges being in a downtown metropolis. There are lots of obstacles to be aware of and we have to do our part to make sure it's safe."
On Friday, workers will install about 100 feet of wire for the second trek, from the east to west towers of Marina City.
City officials asked the Wallendas to install the bigger tightrope Thursday night rather than waiting until Friday, when the downtown area will likely be busy with Halloween revelers. The Wallendas have security in place to ensure that no one tampers with the wire once it's installed.
CAPTION Nik Wallenda put on a show for Chicagoans and out-of-state visitors on Sunday night during his tightrope act. Nik Wallenda put on a show for Chicagoans and out-of-state visitors on Sunday night during his tightrope act. CAPTION Nik Wallenda put on a show for Chicagoans and out-of-state visitors on Sunday night during his tightrope act. Nik Wallenda put on a show for Chicagoans and out-of-state visitors on Sunday night during his tightrope act. CAPTION A timelapse of Nik Wallenda completing his walk from the Marina City west tower to the Leo Burnett Building, which set the world record for steepest incline for tightrope walking between two buildings. (Brian Cassella, Chicago Tribune) A timelapse of Nik Wallenda completing his walk from the Marina City west tower to the Leo Burnett Building, which set the world record for steepest incline for tightrope walking between two buildings. (Brian Cassella, Chicago Tribune) CAPTION Raw video of the moment when Nik Wallenda completed his tightrope walk between the Marina City towers. Raw video of the moment when Nik Wallenda completed his tightrope walk between the Marina City towers. CAPTION Spectator Fred Pezel of Monon, Ind. and his two sons, Damon and Devon, wait for Nik Wallenda's tightrope act. Spectator Fred Pezel of Monon, Ind. and his two sons, Damon and Devon, wait for Nik Wallenda's tightrope act. CAPTION The daredevil who will walk a high wire Sunday in Chicago spent the day doing touristy things. CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports. The daredevil who will walk a high wire Sunday in Chicago spent the day doing touristy things. CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports.
There's little chance the wire will break under the pressure of Wallenda's weight. The first wire can hold up to 70,000 pounds and the second one, up to 42,000 pounds.
If all goes as planned, Wallenda will complete the first walk, take the elevator down, cross the river and head to the top of the east Marina City tower to begin his second walk.
The event will be broadcast live by the Discovery Channel. Viewers also can watch at SkyscraperLive.com.
Wallenda will have a rare opportunity to view Chicago's stunning skyline up close. Now, thanks to the Discovery Channel, thrill-seekers can take a virtual tour of what Wallenda will see up there before he steps onto the rope.
For the narrated virtual tour of the tightrope, go to skyscraperlive.com to get a 360-degree view from Wallenda's vantage point.
dglanton@tribune.comMikkel Juul Jensen/Science Photo Library
The inky black of the outer solar system just got a little brighter. A speck of light spotted in October 2015 is a rocky world more than 3 times more distant than Pluto – the farthest body in our solar system ever seen.
“We don’t know anything about its orbit,” says Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institute of Washington, whose team discovered the new addition. “We just know it’s the most distant object known.”
Sheppard announced the new object, called V774104, on 10 November at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences, held in National Harbor, Maryland.
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From how it shifted in the sky as the Earth moved over a few hours, Sheppard’s team calculates that V774104 is about 103 astronomical units (AU) away from the sun, where one AU is the distance from Earth to the sun. That’s about as far away as the twin Pioneer probes, which have been traveling since 1972 and 1973.
To be as bright as it is at that distance, the object needs to be between 500 and 1000 kilometres in diameter, less than half the size of Pluto.
And it’s not alone. The same deep sky survey, conducted with the Subaru telescope in Hawaii and the Dark Energy Survey Camera in Chile, has also turned up about a dozen other objects around 80 to 90 AU from the sun. Since these distant bodies move around the sky slowly, it will take about a year of follow up observations to understand their orbits – and their origins.
If it turns out their paths will take them inward near Neptune’s orbit, they were probably kicked out of the inner solar system after a brush with Neptune. But Sheppard hopes that some will turn out to belong to a class of true weirdos: the inner Oort Cloud.
Dark planet
Only two other known objects are thought to be members of this exclusive club: Sedna, discovered in 2003, and 2012 VP113, found in 2012. Neither of them ever comes closer to the sun than 50 AU. The rest of the Oort Cloud, which is thought to be a storage lot for long-period comets, extends out a hundred or even a thousand times farther than these objects.
“Sedna and VP113 are the only object in the known solar system whose orbits cannot be explained by things in the known solar system,” says Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology. They are far enough away from the giant planets to avoid gravitational tweaks to their orbits, and close enough to the sun that they don’t respond to other passing stars.
One explanation for the strange orbits is the pull of a massive but very dark rocky planet. “Something might be shepherding the objects,” Sheppard says.
But the more likely explanation, according to Sheppard and Brown, is that the inner Oort Cloud preserves signs of an era at the very start of the solar system, when the sun and planets were born in an interstellar nursery packed tightly with nearby stars.
Over the next year, monitoring the new candidate objects may uncover a rare few that never venture into the inner solar system. If so, their orbits, added to Sedna and VP 113, should help us understand what influences such far-out worlds. Meanwhile, we have to wait to see what becomes of V774104.
“You don’t know whether it’s just a gee-whiz record holder or something super cool,” Brown says. “I’ve got my fingers crossed for super cool.”If you’re worried about where the human race will live in the future, then fear no more. An urban design concept including an ocean colony for “climate change refugees”, has been created. The colony is called Aequorea, it will consist of multi-use oceanscrapers.
The design was conceived by Belgian architect and visionary Vincent Callebaut. His plan includes using recycled materials taken from the ocean’s floating garbage patches. This material would then be 3D printed to form buildings and whole cities in the sea.
Callebaut describes the project as “an oceanscraper printed in 3D from the seventh continent’s garbage.” It’s aim is to provide a sustainable habitat with 10,000 housing units, office and work space, sea farms, gardens, community orchards and much more, while fostering marine life.
The best part about this is that Callebaut’s plans could actually come into existence at some point in the future! His futuristic and fictional city is called Aequorea and will be placed just off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.
Callebaut has even created a fictional timeline of future events that led to its creation. The story of Aequorea, which is called “An Open Letter to the People of the Land” tells the story of Oceanie. This fictional letter was written by the 15 year old citizen of Aequorea on the 24th of December 2065. Oceanie begins by describing the habitat: “Bio-inspired, the farm draws its name from a bioluminescent, light-emitting jellyfish characterized by its articulated, webbed tentacles. These tentacles enable it to swim and ensure its stability, while producing its own energy.”
This is not the first environmentally sustainable conceptual project created by Callebaut. Other recent ideas have included a seaweed powered transport system, as well as “farmscrapers” – buildings covered in plants.
Aequorea is supposed to emphasize just how important the earth’s oceans are, and it gives us a way to begin using them constructively – rather than destructively – all with the help of 3D printing technology.
The letter ends with an important message to all of us: “Never forget this: oceans produce 50% of our planet’s oxygen. They are its most active lung! It was really worth cleaning them, and fighting their acidification, thus re-enchanting our living together — don’t you think?”
If you want to read this letter in full, then visit Vincent Callebaut Architectures.Eric Zuesse
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/25143
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8597
[message from Lynn Forester de Rothschild (who controls many corporations and whose husband Sir Evelyn de Rothschild allegedly owns $20 billion), to Hillary Clinton, via Cheryl Mills, on how “to craft the economic message for Hillary” and warning Hillary’s campaign-staff that Elizabeth Warren deceives voters. It’s signed affectionately “Xoxo Lynn.” Lady Rothschild attacks Elizabeth Warren’s having criticized America’s rigged-by-and-for-the-rich system. Rothschild implicitly praises Bill & Hillary as heroes championing the system, and she says — using the ‘reporting’ by the Wall Street Journal instead of her own words (since she can’t supply analysis of her own) — that Elizabeth Warren is deceiving voters in order to run for the White House against Hillary. This is Lady Rothschild trying to help her friend Queen Clinton, even while having nothing really to say, other than to paste in ‘reporting’ by Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, demeaning Warren as, in effect, a dishonest demagog.]
———- Forwarded message —————
From: Lynn Forester de Rothschild
<lynn@elrothschild.com<mailto:lynn@elrothschild.com>>
Date: Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 7:15 PM
Subject: FW: Elizabeth Warren To: “Cheryl Mills (cheryl.mills@gmail.com<mailto:cheryl.mills@gmail.com>)”
<cheryl.mills@gmail.com<mailto:cheryl.mills@gmail.com>>
I think this blog overstates what Warren was doing, but we need to craft the economic message for Hillary so that Warren’s common inaccurate conclusions are addressed.
Xoxo Lynn
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/01/07/warren-throws-four-punchs-at-the-clintons/
[http://web.archive.org/web/20150107203730/http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/01/07/warren-throws-four-punchs-at-the-clintons/] [Rothschild is simply pasting in excerpts from that WSJ article here:]
Sen. Elizabeth Warren professes that she is not running for president, but her Wednesday speech to a major labor conference is loaded with not-terribly-veiled references to Hillary Clinton and attacks on Bill Clinton’s record as president. The Massachusetts Democrat’s prepared remarks to the AFL-CIO’s National Summit on Wages in Washington are a lesson in progressive economic theory. In this retelling, landmark free trade deals and banking deregulation boost the fortunes of the wealthy at the expense of the poor and middle class [this being the WSJ’s characterization of what Warren’s message to voters is]. Criticism of the Clintons is threaded throughout Ms. Warren’s remarks. Most comes in the form of a liberal critique of Mr. Clinton’s economic record, but there is one significant shot at Mrs. Clinton as well. Of course, Ms. Warren has insisted she isn’t running for president but has couched it in the present tense, most recently last month when she refused to rule out a run during an interview with NPR
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/12/15/elizabeth-warren-again-i-am-not-running-for-president/>.
[http://web.archive.org/web/20150101033356/http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/12/15/elizabeth-warren-again-i-am-not-running-for-president/]
Washington Wire found at least four instances in Ms. Warren’s Wednesday speech in which she takes political shots at the Clintons. The Wal-Mart
<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=WMT> WMT +1.48%
<http://blogs.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=WMT?mod=inlineTicker>
dog-whistle [the WSJ report here, again pasting in from Rothschild’s first-linked-to article, is characterizing Warren as a hate-monger who uses ‘dog-whistle’ messages to stir hatred against the rich, and de Rothschild simply is pasting that in as representing the way that Hillary should characterize Warren to be — a demagog]:
“Corporate profits and GDP are up. But if you work at Wal-Mart, and you are paid so little that you still need food stamps to put groceries on the table, what does more money in stockholders’ pockets and an uptick in GDP do for you?” [That Warren statement is bigotry, according to WSJ, and de Rothschild obviously views it that way too.]
Wal-Mart is a regular bogeyman for Big Labor, but it is also a particularly tough attack for Mrs. Clinton to echo, since she served on the retailer’s board of directors for six years when her husband was the Arkansas governor. The tie was regularly brought up by supporters of Mrs. Clinton’s opponents during the 2008 presidential primary campaign and remains well remembered in Iowa, where several Democrats raised it unprompted during interviews last week
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/top-iowa-democrats-slow-to-rally-around-hillary-clinton-1420418121>.
[http://web.archive.org/web/20150106183400/http://www.wsj.com/articles/top-iowa-democrats-slow-to-rally-around-hillary-clinton-1420418121]
[but then, right after presenting that URL, Rothschild inexplicably pastes in actually yet another passage from her first-linked-to WSJ article:]
“Even though they don’t exist anymore, her connections to Wal-Mart, those don’t sit well,” said Jennifer Herrington, the Democratic Party chairwoman in Page County. “People still talk about it. The sense is that not much has really changed.” Bill Clinton was just as bad as the Republicans: “Pretty much the whole Republican Party – and, if we’re going to be honest, too many Democrats – talked about the evils of ‘big government’ and called for deregulation. It sounded good, but it was really about tying the hands of regulators and turning loose big banks and giant international corporations to do whatever they wanted to do.” Part of the Hillary Clinton argument is that her husband’s presidency presided over the economic growth of the 1990s. But here Ms. Warren takes direct aim at Mr. Clinton’s record on deregulation and harkens back to his 1996 State of the Union address and its signature line
<http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=53091>,
“The era of big government is over.”
[De Rothschild now quotes yet again from her first-linked-to WSJ article, where it quotes from Warren’s speech to the AFL-CIO on 7 January 2015: https://www.warren.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=696:]
NAFTA was a bad deal: “Look at the choices Washington has made, the choices that have left America’s middle class in a deep hole… The choice to sign trade pacts and tax deals that let subsidized manufacturers around the globe sell here in America while good American jobs get shipped overseas.” Labor has long been sour on free-trade agreements, and Mr. Obama during the 2008 campaign said he would renegotiate it, though that never happened. Mrs. Clinton at the time also said she would seek a better NAFTA deal with Canada and Mexico
<http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB120459602445109371?mod=rss_Politics_And_Policy&mg=reno64-wsj>,
[that article, which she links to, is also here: http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/wsj_clintonnaftamemo_03042008.pdf]
[and now, Rothschild picks up yet again quoting from the first-linked-to WSJ article:]
but it becomes politically difficult for her to offer substantive critiques of her husband’s White House record. Mr. Clinton wasn’t good for the middle class:
“So who got the increase in income over the last 32 years? One hundred percent of it went to the top 1%. All of the new money earned in this economy over the past generation — all that growth in the GDP — went to the top. All of it.”
Here Ms. Warren makes a potent argument that Mr. Clinton – and by association, Mrs. Clinton – had the same results for the middle class as Republican presidents. By tying the records of the Reagan, Clinton, Obama and two Bush administrations together, Ms. Warren paints herself as the outside-the-system crusader her supporters want her to be.
[All of that was actually clipped from the first-linked-to WSJ article, which reported about Warren’s speech to the AFL-CIO, both of which documents were dated 7 January 2015. None of the other URLs that Rothschild pasted into her email were actually quoted-from in her email. This email was actually obsessed with that one article, which attacked Warren’s 7 January 2015 speech to the AFL-CIO. Lynn de Forest Rothschild is apparently rabid against labor unions. This email closes with the WSJ’s snide derogation of Warren as being “someone who paints herself as the outside-the-system crusader,” and the subordinate theme is implicit there, that Warren’s supporters are the kind of people who “want her to be” that way. The WSJ drips with its monied elitism. And Rothschild’s entire email quotes only from that article, though it also provides other URLs, all of which are likewise from that one far-right, pro-aristocracy, newspaper. Rothschild thus comes across as the very personification and negative sterotype of the aristocracy.]
—
That’s all of the email. Here, then, is some of its context:
The New York Times reported on 22 March 2015 that Chelsea Clinton’s husband started in 2011 a hedge fund Eaglevale Partners whose “investors include hedge fund managers like Marc Lasry and James Leitner; an overseas money management firm connected to the Rothschild family; and people from Goldman Sachs, including the chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein. Some of the investors in Eaglevale have contributed campaign money to the former president and Mrs. Clinton, who is widely expected to run for president again in 2016. Some have also contributed to the family’s foundation. … In 2012, Eaglevale raised $15 million from an investment vehicle in the domain of Jacob Rothschild, who with members of his far-flung family has donated to the Clinton Foundation. The investment, financial records show, came before President Clinton spoke at a conference in Oxford that was sponsored by the Rothschild Foundation, of which Mr. Rothschild is chairman.”
Furthermore, Harper’s Bazaar’s 12 May 2014 “Portrait of a Lady: Lynn Forester de Rothschild” makes clear that Lynn and Hillary are very close, and that “Lynn’s commitment to her friend is so absolute that when Hillary dropped out of her own race for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, Lynn jumped ship to support the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain of Arizona,” rather than to support someone (Obama) who had campaigned against Hillary. Clearly, Lynn loves Hillary not only because of shared values, but because of a personal; and even a familial, bonding. And, by the same token, it is understandable that Elizabeth Warren (and Bernie Sanders, and anyone else who would encourage the public to resist the system, which so advantages people such as themselves) would be loathsome to them.
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.If you’re one of the many fans gearing up for events at Comic-Con, Otakon, Dragon Con or any of the other many cosplay-heavy conventions this summer, you might be struggling to come up with an original costume.
If that’s you, then take some inspiration from this fabulously iconoclastic cosplay from Russian deviantART user nomoretribbles, a.k.a. Ellen, who’s just done a gorgeous photoshoot in full cosplay as… WikiLeaks. Yes, WikiLeaks, the website.
As avant-garde as it is clever, nomoretribbles’ design isn’t the first cosplay we’ve seen based off of a website, but it is possibly the most intense:
In addition to the intricate details of the dress and all its tech-inspired accessories, the use of the VR headset to play off of the idea of blind justice is particularly clever:
Anonymous also gets its due:
Among those who appreciate Ellen’s efforts is the official WikiLeaks Twitter account.
(Sorry, this embed was not found.)
Who knew government takedowns could look this good?
Photo via nomoretribbles/deviantARTWar! What Is It Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots, by Ian Morris, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 495 pages, $30
Is war good for anything? In the long run, the Stanford historian Ian Morris argues, it's good for almost everything. In War! What Is It Good For?, Morris makes the case that war has played an essential role in mankind's development and in the growth of human well-being. The book endorses not just strong government but imperialism; as applied to recent history, this translates into strong support for the historic role of the British Empire and the current global policies of the United States.
Morris isn't one to shy away from big, sweeping theses. In Why the West Rules—For Now (2010), he took on the much-studied subject of why modernity first appeared in northwestern Europe and has been dominated by that part of the world and its offshoots. Its sequel, The Measure of Civilization (2013), proposed a metric for assessing how "developed" any particular historical culture was.
His new book's argument is rich and subtle. That is not to say it is convincing. It has a number of crucial ambiguities and at least one central thesis that is very controversial and, like all good theses in history, subject to empirical disproof. The story also has an important missing element, one that makes sense of things the author otherwise has difficulty fitting into his argument. Adding that missing element—the way that resource constraints limited human options until innovation took off in the 17th century—gives us a different, more accurate picture.
The book's thesis is Hobbesian, as Morris explicitly lays out. Human beings, he writes, are naturally territorial and aggressive; Lord of the Flies is a better portrait of our nature than Coming of Age in Samoa. Consequently, the default setting for human society is one with little or no large-scale, organized conflict but lots of persistent small-scale violence, such as fights, brawls, and raids.
The result is a very high rate of violent death, amounting to as much as 20 percent of all deaths in hunter-gatherer societies. (This claim is disputed, as Morris notes, but he is correct that the evidence supports this reading of the Stone Age past.) In this, human beings are like one of our two closest biological relatives (chimpanzees) but unlike the other (bonobos). The amount of chronic interpersonal violence means that complex social institutions and trade do not develop—not among chimps, and not among humans for most of our history as a species.
Unlike chimpanzees, Morris continues, human beings have the ability to evolve socially as well as biologically. Our ancestors invented agriculture in those parts of the world (the "lucky latitudes") whose flora and fauna were particularly suited to domestication. This led to a rise in human numbers, to more division of labor, and to greater pressure on resources. The initial response to that pressure was migration into empty lands. Meanwhile, high levels of violent death remained the norm. Eventually, Morris argues, population pressure changed the incentives and led to a major innovation: war.
The obvious immediate result of war is a sharp rise in the number of violent deaths as the scale of killing increases. But war also creates bandit groups that control the means of violence and use it to organize people. The incentives facing these predatory groups initially encourage them to plunder and kill others, but soon it becomes clear that the longer-term incentive is to conquer them (often brutally) and incorporate them into an expanded social unit. Once this is done, the roving bandits become stationary bandits: a polity's ruling class.
This Leviathan then reduces the level of chronic violence in society, Morris writes, by punishing violent conduct and getting the predatory groups to change their behavior, so they become cultured gentlemen rather than coarse warriors. All of this leads to a rise in population and a marked growth in wealth and trade and the division of labor. The consequences include technological development, the emergence of cities, and higher levels of comfort and consumption. Although the number of people killed in the wars that create the Leviathan is high, the rates of death per capita decline, because of both the change in people's behavior and the resulting growth in numbers.
Morris thinks that war is essential for this good result and that it is the primary motor, with the other social phenomena consequences. The Leviathans created by war (such as the Roman Empire, which stands as a proxy for Leviathan states in general in the early part of the book) tend to expand their territory until they reach a point (determined by the interplay of geography, technology, and military organization) where the costs of expansion are greater than the benefits. In the modern world, this is the entire planet, and so we see the development of a global hegemon, initially the British Empire and more recently the United States, that while not directly controlling the entire world provides a legal order for it as a "globocop."
Clearly this is a direct challenge to many cherished libertarian ideals and ideas. If Morris' argument is true, order is not spontaneous but something that can exist at a tolerable level only after powerful states have been created by war; empires are in general a force for good; and human flourishing, innovation, and prosperity depend on a strong, active government. In terms of current policy disputes, it means that the United States should enhance its global role rather than pulling back.
Yet the argument's clarity lays bare several ambiguities that in turn reveal its weaknesses. The major problem that Morris faces is explaining what was going on from roughly the 2nd century A.D. through the 15th century. Up until that point, his long-term story was one of wars leading to ever larger and more settled empires, with a corresponding growth in human development and decline in interpersonal violence. (There was in fact a major intermission of several hundred years at the end of the Bronze Age, but he glosses over this.) In the Middle Ages, this long-term trend stalled. There were still empires and powerful states, but these regularly collapsed completely or, more often, saw a decline in strong central power and the growth of a decentralized, usually feudal social order. The new long-term trend was for the size of effective political units to shrink.
Morris sees all of this in dark terms. He argues that there was a revival of personal violence (although not a complete return to the pre-state level), and he uses the term "feudal anarchy" to describe the society of medieval Europe, as though England during the reign of Stephen were the typical case.
We may leave aside the question of whether this dark picture is an accurate one. As Morris says, this is an empirical question, and more research must be done before it is settled. His difficulty is how to address it in a model where war is the ultimate explanatory factor. His answer is to say there are actually two kinds of war, "productive" and "unproductive," with the second kind dominant between the 2nd and 15th centuries.
It is not clear how we are to distinguish between these two kinds of war and what the criterion is for making this distinction. Much of the time, it seems simply to be about result: Productive wars result in stable and effective states while unproductive wars undermine or destroy them. But this threatens the entire thesis, because it makes the beneficial effects of war either purely contingent or dependent on some other variable factor, which would mean that war would lose its position as the sole root enabler of social development.
His solution is to imply that the distinction rests on the form of military organization and technology. Morris comes very close to saying that cavalry-based warfare is intrinsically unproductive while infantry-based and naval warfare are productive. The horsemen of the steppes, he claims, were the destructive force that repeatedly brought about episodes of unproductive war and so stalled the process described in the first part of the book.
This is highly problematic, to put it mildly. In terms of Morris' own argument, it is never made clear exactly why steppe nomads were not subject to the same incentives as other roving bandits and did not themselves create stable polities after they conquered large areas. The argument appears to be that they would themselves be overthrown in turn by further waves of nomads. Yet settled civilizations did repeatedly defeat nomads and showed they could exploit the nomads' great weakness, their fragmented and tribal social order.
There are also simple concrete objections to this story. For it to work it has to apply right across Eurasia's "lucky latitudes" for the whole of this period, and it simply doesn't. It applies in the Middle East and India, but in Europe there was no major nomad incursion following the defeat of the Magyars at the Lechfeld in 955 until the Mongols briefly invaded eastern and central Europe in 1240. The following year they withdrew and never returned. The Vikings (who do not fit this narrative anyway) also stopped being mobile bandits in the 10th century and followed the pattern of settling down and becoming stationary bandits. Given this, Morris' model would lead you to expect medieval Europe to see the growth of a single large empire. In fact the tendency was toward more fragmentation, not least in Germany and Italy.
It also does not work at the other end of Eurasia. In China, the period saw two classic Leviathans of the earlier kind, the Tang and Song dynasties. Morris claims that these were "zombie" empires that in some sense did not compare to the earlier Han and Roman examples. Yet given the length of time they lasted and the degree of social development they saw (particularly in the case of the Song), this simply does not make sense. In Japan a similar process of weakening and ultimate collapse of central power took place under the Ashikaga Shogunate after the 14th century, but Japan as an archipelago was not substantially affected by events on the Eurasian landmass. There has to be some other factor that explains what was happening, even within Morris' own narrative.
The second ambiguity casts more light on this problem. Morris gives innovation and the human capacity for it a central part in his account. He also explicitly argues that the kinds of innovation that lead to economic growth and social development can happen only after productive war has created a Leviathan. But it is our capacity for innovation that led to the development of war itself. Clearly, innovation is an independent variable and not a simple dependent one. The story of the interplay between governance and war on the one hand, and innovation, exchange, and voluntary cooperation on the other, is complex, with causal arrows running in both directions. Both domains of human conduct are autonomous, and neither is only a consequence of the other.
Moreover, it is obviously not the case that Leviathans are the only kind of political order that emerges from this interplay between conflict and innovation. Repeatedly we see an alternative: a self-sustaining network (sometimes an actual federation) of small political units, particularly city-states. The largest-scale instance of this is in Southeast Asia from the 7th to 15th centuries, but the ancient world and medieval Europe also saw many examples. The evidence of the Hellenistic era between Alexander and Actium shows that this kind of political order is actually associated with high levels of innovation. Morris would argue that it also saw an unacceptable level of chronic small-scale warfare. But how destructive that actually was is an empirical question where the jury is still out.
This brings us to the book's third ambiguity, which becomes apparent in its account of the 500 years since the medieval period ended. For Morris, humanity escaped the trap of the Middle Ages with the military revolution of the 15th through the 17th centuries. In most of the world, this led to a rerun of the ancient Mediterranean or Warring States China, with one state establishing a large empire (Russia, the Ottomans, Safavid Iran, Ming and then Qing China, Mughal India). But in Europe, for largely contingent reasons, no hegemon emerged. Instead of an empire, we got the Westphalian system of sovereign territorial states.
Morris misses a trick here because of his focus on war and relegation of innovation. He concentrates on what he calls the Five Hundred Years' War, in which Europeans (who had pushed the military revolution further because of internal competition) expanded their political control to the rest of the planet and created a world order dominated by Britain. But of course it was not only in warfare that Europeans became more innovative.
Seeing innovation as an independent variable makes events more clear. States' ruling elites have an interest in trade and innovation, because they create wealth that can be taxed. But trade and innovation are also threats. By giving non-military and non-ecclesiastical groups greater economic independence—and by simply enlarging the range of options open to ordinary people—they undermine elites' control.
Furthermore, innovation is risky when resources are finite, because most innovations fail. Consequently, most elites act to check innovation or even reverse it. Empires and large states may give a boost to economic life by providing public goods on a stable basis over a large area, but in the long run they cause stasis by checking innovation.
In Europe from the 17th century onwards, the failure of a hegemon to emerge and the interstate competition that resulted changed the incentives facing rulers. They now had more reasons to encourage innovation and growth, and increasingly they did so. The social status and rewards to innovators and people engaged in exchange rose sharply. The result was the sustained, intensive growth that is a central feature of modernity. For Morris this was a result of the renewal of productive war brought about by the military revolution, but if that were so then the benefits should have been even greater had Europe become united under the Habsburgs or Bourbons—and they should have been greater still in China or the Middle East. They were not.
The most interesting part of the book may be the final chapter, which looks forward to the next 50 years. For Morris, this is a time of great possibility but also great risk. He worries that in the absence of an effective globocop, war will once again become unproductive and we will see a repeat of the middle years of the 20th century (but with far more destructive weapons) or, even worse from his perspective, a relapse into "feudal anarchy."
Morris is optimistic, though. He thinks we still need war and an effective globocop, but only for a little while. Innovation, he argues, promises to so completely transform the human condition that war will finally become redundant. So we need Leviathan just long enough to allow something (the Singularity?) to finally transform the incentives we face so that violence no longer makes sense.
There are two things to say to this. The first is that the evidence suggests a global hegemon is more likely to strangle the innovation we need. It was |
still disguised as Lettie, has been courted by Howl. Martha assures him she has never met Howl and Michael knows she isn't lying because she 'twiddled her thumbs the whole time', and she only stops doing that when she lies. Fanny Hatter is Mr Hatter's second wife. She used to be the youngest, prettiest shop assistant in the hat shop. She is Martha's mother and is kind to all three girls. When she is widowed, she takes charge of the hat shop and places Lettie and Martha in promising apprenticeships, whilst keeping Sophie to trim hats. Shortly after Sophie disappears, she marries a wealthy man, Mr Sacheverell Smith (possibly thanks to a hat Sophie charmed), moves to a grand mansion in Vale End and sells the hat shop to Howl. She continues to worry about Sophie, who mysteriously disappeared, and is relieved and happy when they meet again.
is Mr Hatter's second wife. She used to be the youngest, prettiest shop assistant in the hat shop. She is Martha's mother and is kind to all three girls. When she is widowed, she takes charge of the hat shop and places Lettie and Martha in promising apprenticeships, whilst keeping Sophie to trim hats. Shortly after Sophie disappears, she marries a wealthy man, Mr Sacheverell Smith (possibly thanks to a hat Sophie charmed), moves to a grand mansion in Vale End and sells the hat shop to Howl. She continues to worry about Sophie, who mysteriously disappeared, and is relieved and happy when they meet again. The King of Ingary employs Howl to produce transport spells. When the Witch of the Waste threatens his baby daughter Valeria, he sends Suliman the Royal Wizard to the Waste to deal with the Witch. When the King's brother disappears whilst looking for Wizard Suliman, he asks Howl to look for the missing men and get rid of the Witch of the Waste. He then appoints Howl as the Royal Wizard, a move which creates a bad mood in the household of the moving castle.
employs Howl to produce transport spells. When the Witch of the Waste threatens his baby daughter Valeria, he sends Suliman the Royal Wizard to the Waste to deal with the Witch. When the King's brother disappears whilst looking for Wizard Suliman, he asks Howl to look for the missing men and get rid of the Witch of the Waste. He then appoints Howl as the Royal Wizard, a move which creates a bad mood in the household of the moving castle. Prince Justin is the younger brother of the King of Ingary. Unsettled by Suliman's disappearance, he sets off to find him only to go missing himself. The King of Ingary describes Justin as a brilliant general; with threats of war looming from both Strangia and High Norland, the King of Ingary becomes anxious and insistent that Prince Justin be found.
is the younger brother of the King of Ingary. Unsettled by Suliman's disappearance, he sets off to find him only to go missing himself. The King of Ingary describes Justin as a brilliant general; with threats of war looming from both Strangia and High Norland, the King of Ingary becomes anxious and insistent that Prince Justin be found. Mrs Penstemmon is a grand, talented old witch. She taught Mrs Fairfax, Suliman, and finally Howl; she is also mentioned as the teacher of Matilda, the Witch of Montalbino, in House of Many Ways. She is proud of Howl's talent and wants him to be a good person but she is concerned he is heading the same way as the Witch of the Waste. When Sophie visits her while pretending to be Howl's mother, Mrs Penstemmon encourages Sophie to break the contract between Howl and Calcifer. She detects Sophie's magical gift and sees instantly that she's cursed, but cannot lift the Witch's spell. She is killed by the Witch of the Waste when she refuses to tell the Witch where Howl is.
is a grand, talented old witch. She taught Mrs Fairfax, Suliman, and finally Howl; she is also mentioned as the teacher of Matilda, the Witch of Montalbino, in. She is proud of Howl's talent and wants him to be a good person but she is concerned he is heading the same way as the Witch of the Waste. When Sophie visits her while pretending to be Howl's mother, Mrs Penstemmon encourages Sophie to break the contract between Howl and Calcifer. She detects Sophie's magical gift and sees instantly that she's cursed, but cannot lift the Witch's spell. She is killed by the Witch of the Waste when she refuses to tell the Witch where Howl is. Wizard Suliman is the Royal Wizard and personal advisor to the King of Ingary. He originally comes, like Howl, from Wales, where he was known as Benjamin Sullivan. He was Mrs Penstemmon's second-to-last pupil. When the Witch threatens the King of Ingary's young daughter, he is dispatched to the Waste by the King. There he starts growing bushes and flowers in an attempt to reduce her power, but the Witch catches him. He projects most of his magic onto a scarecrow, which Sophie will talk life into. The Witch puts him to pieces and sells off his skull and guitar. She reassembles his body with parts of Prince Justin's (the head in particular) and calls him Gaston. She uses him to find out about Wales to get to Howl, then casts a spell on him that turns him into a dog. Calcifer guesses that one of his aliases is Percival. He takes on Lettie as an apprentice, because he is at least as strong willed as she is.
is the Royal Wizard and personal advisor to the King of Ingary. He originally comes, like Howl, from Wales, where he was known as Benjamin Sullivan. He was Mrs Penstemmon's second-to-last pupil. When the Witch threatens the King of Ingary's young daughter, he is dispatched to the Waste by the King. There he starts growing bushes and flowers in an attempt to reduce her power, but the Witch catches him. He projects most of his magic onto a scarecrow, which Sophie will talk life into. The Witch puts him to pieces and sells off his skull and guitar. She reassembles his body with parts of Prince Justin's (the head in particular) and calls him Gaston. She uses him to find out about Wales to get to Howl, then casts a spell on him that turns him into a dog. Calcifer guesses that one of his aliases is Percival. He takes on Lettie as an apprentice, because he is at least as strong willed as she is. Mrs Annabel Fairfax is a witch, a former pupil of Mrs Penstemmon's. A widow, she lives in Upper Folding and is a friend of Fanny's. She is "a plump, comfortable lady, with swathes of butter-coloured hair". She is chatty and uses home-made honey in her spells. She discovers quickly that Martha and Lettie have switched places, but accepts Lettie as her apprentice anyway and encourages her to accept Howl's advances and become his pupil, though Lettie eventually chooses Suliman instead. Though she tries, she is unable to lift the dog-man's spell [ clarification needed ].
is a witch, a former pupil of Mrs Penstemmon's. A widow, she lives in Upper Folding and is a friend of Fanny's. She is "a plump, comfortable lady, with swathes of butter-coloured hair". She is chatty and uses home-made honey in her spells. She discovers quickly that Martha and Lettie have switched places, but accepts Lettie as her apprentice anyway and encourages her to accept Howl's advances and become his pupil, though Lettie eventually chooses Suliman instead. Though she tries, she is unable to lift the dog-man's spell. Lily Angorian is an attractive schoolteacher in Wales who claims to be Benjamin Sullivan's fiancée. As such, she refuses to allow Howl to court her, though Sophie comes to believe that Howl is infatuated with her. She is later revealed to be the Witch of Waste's Fire Demon, and tries to take Howl's heart when the Witch of the Waste is killed. With the destruction of the Witch's heart, she is killed.
Major themes [ edit ]
Howl's Moving Castle explores several themes, including: destiny, youth, courage and love. The first two are central to Sophie's progression. Early on, her perceived notion of destiny makes her believe that she is doomed to fail because she is the eldest of three sisters. This is in contrast to Howl, who sees himself as the master of his own fate, unafraid of what society thinks of him or what their conventions demand. Sophie's self-perceived failure is reflected in the Witch of the Waste's spell, which causes her outward appearance to become old and dull.
Allusions and references to other works [ edit ]
The novel makes references to many other works of literature. John Donne is alluded to twice, first is in Chapter 10 when Howl refers to the first line of John Donne's poem "The Sun Rising", saying "Busy old fool, unruly Sophie." Howl makes a reference to Donne again in Chapter 11, when Miss Angorian reads from his poem "Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star". The poem also serves as the inspiration for the terms of Howl's curse. In the same chapter there is a sign on Megan's house labelled "Rivendell", which is the name of an Elf city in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In Chapter 12 there is a reference to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland when Howl tells Sophie "We can't all be Mad Hatters." Howl refers to Hamlet in Chapter 17 when he quotes "Alas, poor Yorick!" and "She heard mermaids, so it follows that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I have an everlasting cold, but luckily I'm terribly dishonest. I cling to that."; another Hamlet reference occurs at the beginning of Chapter 11 referring to the nothingness in the doorway to Wales as being "only an inch-thick after all." The names of Suliman's alias Percival, and Howl's brother-in-law Gareth are two of The Knights of the Round Table, while Howl's own alias, Pendragon, is derived from King Arthur's surname. The Witch of the Waste's name is a possible pun on the Witch of the West from the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its subsequent film. A traditional Welsh folk song Sosban Fach is referred several times in the novel as "Calcifer's silly saucepan song."
Film adaptation [ edit ]
In 2004 an animated film was released, directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film broke box office records in Japan, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
In 1986 Howl's Moving Castle was one of two runners-up for the annual Boston Globe-Horn Book Award in Fiction, behind In Summer Light by Zibby Oneal.[3] It was also named one of that year's ALA Notable Books for Children.
Jones and Howl won the annual Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association in 2006, recognising the best children's book published twenty years earlier that did not win a major award. Allusion to the mythical bird phoenix, which is reborn from its ashes, suggests the winning book's rise from obscurity.[4]
In other media [ edit ]
The Christian deathcore band "A Thousand Times Repent" took inspiration from Howl's Moving Castle in their EP Virtue Has Few Friends. The song "Take Me to the Witch of the Waste... We Have Much to Discuss" mentions the Witch of the Waste and Suliman.[7]Alleged hate crimes and reports of racial violence have risen in the weeks since Donald Trump took the election by storm, but recent investigations prove that things aren’t always what they seem. As two Bowling Green State University students are finding out, making things up can come with serious consequences.
Eleesha Long, a 24-year-old African-American student, filed a police report stating that three white men wearing Trump shirts assaulted her and shouted racial slurs as she was collecting yard signs. Long story short, an investigation by Bowling Green police found that the incident never happened.
Long posted the story to Facebook, but never called police and reported the crime. Her post caught the attention of her father who contacted law enforcement shortly thereafter. A Bowling Green State University officer took her to the police station to file a report.
Investigators stated that, during the report, Long changed her story multiple times, including where it happened, what happened, and when it happened. Police obtained a search warrant for her Facebook and Verizon history due to the doubt generated by her report.
Evidence revealed that Long was never at the location where the incident occurred. Text messages sent from Long to her boyfriend and mother were full of racial and hateful remarks against Trump supporters. The texts included statements like “I hope they all get AIDS” and “I haven’t met a decent Trump supporter yet.”
“I think that it’s terrible that someone would want to start lying about something like that,” said Monica Florez, a student at Bowling Green.
Long is facing charges of falsification and obstructing official business.
A second BGSU student filed a report that claimed two attackers robbed him and called him a racial slur. The alleged attack took place behind the Student Recreation Center.
Police found that this incident was also fabricated, but did not disclose whether the student would face charges.
“Filing a false report is a serious offense. In addition to any charges by police, students may be held accountable under the student code of conduct,” Student Affairs Vice President Thomas Gibson said in a statement.
Punishment for filing a false police report in Ohio includes up to 180 days in jail for a first-time offender. Those with multiple counts of falsification could face up to three years in prison. Those charged and convicted of obstructing official business could receive up to 90 days in jail.
The Bowling Green State University students aren’t alone in fabricating hate crime stories since the election.
A Muslim student at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette reported that two Trump supporters attacked her, stole her wallet, and removed her hijab. The student also stated that one of the attackers was wearing a Trump hat.
Major news outlets ran the story as fact but the Lafayette police stated that the student later admitted the report was a fabrication. She faces criminal charges for filing a false police report.
Reports of hate crimes are on the rise, but in many cases there is a lack of evidence for these incidents. In a world where everyone has a portable camera in their pocket, video evidence to support such serious claims is lacking. As a result, these liberal millennials are likely to experience the real-world consequences of breaking the law.
Latest VideosFor fascism, the State and the individual are one. – Giovanni Gentile, “Origin and Doctrine of Fascism”
The myth that fascism and Nazism are phenomena of the right relies heavily on Americans not knowing what fascism and Nazism really mean, what those ideologies stand for. Leftists in academia and the media have worked hard to portray fascism and Nazism in terms of sheer demagoguery and generic authoritarianism, carefully concealing the ideological roots that would reveal fascism and Nazism’s true political colors.
Think about this: We know the name of the philosopher of capitalism, Adam Smith. We also know the name of the philosopher of Marxism, Karl Marx. So, quick: What is the name of the philosopher of fascism? Yes, exactly. You don’t know. Virtually no one knows. This is not because he doesn’t exist, but because the political left – which dominates academia, the media and Hollywood – had to get rid of him to avoid confronting fascism and Nazism’s unavoidable leftist orientation.
So let’s meet the man himself, Giovanni Gentile, who may be termed fascism’s Karl Marx. Gentile was, in his day, which is the first half of the 20th century, considered one of Europe’s leading philosophers. A student of Hegel and Bergson and director of the Encyclopedia Italiana, Gentile was not merely a widely published and widely influential thinker; he was also a political statesman who served in a variety of important government posts. How, then, has such a prominent and influential figure vanished into the mist of history?
Let’s consider some key aspects of Gentile’s philosophy. Following Aristotle and Marx, Gentile argues that man is a social animal. This means that we are not simply individuals in the world. Rather, our individuality is expressed through our relationships: we are students or workers, husbands or wives, parents and grandparents, members in this or that association or group and also citizens of a community or nation. To speak of man alone in the state of nature is a complete fiction; man is naturally at home in community, in society.
Right away, we see that Gentile is a communitarian as opposed to a radical individualist. This distinguishes him from some libertarians and classical liberals, who emphasize individuality in contradistinction to society. But Gentile so far has said nothing with which conservatives – let’s say Reaganite conservatives – would disagree. Reagan in 1980 emphasized the importance of five themes: the individual, the family, the church, the community and the country. He accused the centralized state – big government – of undermining not merely our individuality but also these other associations.
“The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of American Left,” Dinesh D’Souza’s stunning new explanation of what makes the the leftists in America tick, is now available at the WND Superstore.
Gentile now contrasts two types of democracy that he says are “diametrically opposed.” The first is liberal democracy, which envisions society made up of individuals who form communities to protect and advance their rights and interests, specifically their economic interests in property and trade. Gentile regards this as selfish or bourgeois democracy, by which he means capitalist democracy, the democracy of the American founding. In its place, Gentile recommends a different type of democracy, “true democracy,” in which individuals willingly subordinate themselves to society and to the state.
Gentile recognizes that his critique of bourgeois democracy echoes that of Marx, and Marx is his takeoff point. Like Marx, Gentile wants the unified community, a community that resembles the family, a community where we’re all in this together. I’m reminded here of New York Gov. Mario Cuomo’s keynote address at the 1984 Democratic Convention. Cuomo likened America to an extended family where, through the agency of government, we take care of each other in much the same manner that families look out for all their members.
While Marx and Cuomo seem to view political communities as natural, inevitable associations, Gentile emphasized that such communities must be created voluntarily, through human action, operating as a consequence of human will. They are, in Gentile’s words, an idealistic or “spiritual creation.” For Gentile, people by themselves are too slothful and inert to form genuine communities by themselves; they have to be mobilized. Here, too, many modern progressives would agree. Speaking in terms with which both Obama and Hillary would sympathize, Gentile emphasized that leaders and organizers are needed to direct and channel the will of the people.
Despite Gentile’s disagreement with Marx about historical inevitability, he has at this point clearly broken with modern conservatism and classical liberalism and revealed himself to be a man of the left. Gentile was, in fact, a lifelong socialist. Like Marx, he viewed socialism as the sine qua non of social justice, the ultimate formula for everyone paying their “fair share.” For Gentile, fascism is nothing more than a modified form of socialism, a socialism arising not merely from material deprivation but also from an aroused national consciousness, a socialism that unites rather than divides communities.
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Gentile also perceived socialism emerging out of revolutionary struggle, what the media today terms “protest” or “activism.” Revolutionaries, Gentile says, must be ready to disregard conventional rules and they must be willing to use violence. Gentile seems to be the unacknowledged ancestor of the street activism of Antifa and other leftist groups. “One of the major virtues of fascism,” he writes, “is that it obliged those who watched from the windows to come down into the street.”
For Gentile, private action should be mobilized to serve the public interest, and there is no distinction between the private interest and the public interest. Correctly understood, the two are identical. Gentile argued that society represents “the very personality of the individual divested of accidental differences … where the individual feels the general interest as his own and wills therefore as might the general will.” In the same vein, Gentile argued that corporations too should serve the public welfare and not just the welfare of their owners and shareholders.
Society and the state – for Gentile, the two were one and the same. Gentile saw the centralized state as the necessary administrative arm of society. Consequently, to submit to society is to submit to the state, not just in economic matters, but in all matters. Since everything is political, the state gets to tell everyone how to think and also what to do – there is no private sphere unregulated by the state. And to forestall resistance to the state, Gentile argued that the government should act not merely as a lawmaker but also a teacher, using the schools to promulgate its values and priorities.
“All is in the state and nothing human exists or has value outside the state.” Mussolini said that, in the Dottrina del fascismo, one of the doctrinal statements of early fascism, but Gentile wrote it or, as we may say today, ghost wrote it. Gentile was, as you have probably figured by now, the leading philosopher of fascism. “It was Gentile,” Mussolini confessed, “who prepared the road for those like me who wished to take it.”
Gentile served as a member of the Fascist Grand Council, a senator in the Upper House of Parliament, and also as Mussolini’s minister of education. Later, after Mussolini was deposed and established himself in the northern Italian province of Salo, Gentile became, at il Duce‘s request, the president of the Italian Academy. In 1944, Gentile was accosted in his apartment by members of a rival leftist faction who shot him at point-blank range.
Gentile’s philosophy closely parallels that of the modern American left. Consider the slogan unveiled by Obama at the 2012 Democratic Convention: “We belong to the government.” That apotheosis of the centralized state is utterly congruent with Gentile’s thinking. Only Gentile would have provided a comprehensive philosophical defense that the Democrats didn’t even attempt. In many respects, Gentile provides a deeper and firmer grounding for modern American progressivism than anyone writing today.
John Rawls, widely considered a philosophical guru of modern progressivism, seems like thin gruel compared to Gentile in offering an intellectual rationale for ever-expanding government control over the economy and our lives. While Rawls feels abstract and dated now, Gentile seems to speak directly to leftist activists in the Democratic Party, in the media, and on campus.
One might naively expect the left, then, to embrace and celebrate Gentile. This, of course, will never happen. The left has the desperate need to conceal fascism’s deep association with contemporary leftism. Even when the left uses Gentile’s rhetoric, its source can never be publicly acknowledged. That’s why the progressives intend to keep Gentile where they’ve got him, dead, buried and forgotten.
“The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of American Left,” Dinesh D’Souza’s stunning new explanation of what makes the the leftists in America tick, is now available at the WND Superstore.About This Game
Story
Characters
Features
1920 x 1080 resolution.
Cinematic CGs.
3 Endings
Roughly 40,000 words.
Rating: 13+ Mild use of language and provocative content.
Team
Story, Programming and GUI: ds-sans
ds-sans Backgrounds Art: Kimagure After, Mugenjohncel
Kimagure After, Mugenjohncel Character Sprites: Jun Project
Jun Project CGs: Joko JMC/jmc5221, Ezekuro
Joko JMC/jmc5221, Ezekuro Ceri CV: Amber Barile
Amber Barile Publisher: DEVGRU-P
DEVGRU-P Opening Theme: Tandess
In the midst of their hearts, something is blossoming between two students. Both of whom go about their daily lives at an international school in Tokyo.Just what is flowering? Of course, it's love.Starting your new life after transferring into an international school, you find yourself dismayed when it turns out to be the same as any other. Except for one thing... or person, rather. As your newly founded relationship increasingly tightens with the girl you just met, find out what there is to learn about each other as your lives intertwine with one another, discovering things about her stashed away behind a veil of timidity.Ceri, a student of the Welsh International School of Japan (WISJ) is a warm-hearted girl, prone to being found immersed in the pages of a novel or the strings of a classical celtic harp. She has a desire to study literature, though she had been known to have had a large period of time away from school due to an illness. As stated by her.Of Welsh origin herself, Ceri's a lot more readable than her language. Or so it might seem. Timid and docile on the outside, nobody can really tell what surprises she might have in store. As you get to know her however, the truth about her becomes much more clear to you. Learn about her past, be with her in the present, and join her in the future. That is, if she opens up to you. She's an extremely shy person, so getting her to open up isn't going to be easy.(Player Named)You "play" as a half Japanese, half English transfer to the WISJ.His second week at an international school has just started. Many students seem to be pompous in his eyes. It costs a lot of money to attend, after all. Within his first week, he has managed to make a grand total of zero friends. Socialising isn't easy, at least that's what he thinks.Unlike his father, a well-regarded owner of a publishing company, he wastes his time daily doing nothing productive. Things change however, when he meets "someone" who piques his interest.Frequent updates on the project can be found on twitterDoug Benc/Getty Images
Update: Compare Mark Ingram to the last RB to win the Heisman, Reggie Bush. Did Reggie Bush lead the nation in rushing that year? Not even close. Two guys, DeAngelo Williams and Jerome Harrison, had more yards. Williams had over 200 yards more than Bush. And Williams did so for a decent team who won a bowl game that - like Stanford - is traditionally horrible. As for Harrison, true his team only went 5-7, but he means that Bush wasn't even the leading rusher in his conference, and again it wasn't close! (Now Ingram wasn't the leading rusher in his conference either, but it is you guys who are making the numbers argument)! Williams also had more TDs than Bush, Harrison had the same number, AND LENDALE WHITE HAD 24 RUSHING TDS TO 16 FOR BUSH!
And how important was Bush to a team that had a 3000 yard passer, two 1000 yard rushers, and 2 1000 yard receivers? Going back to the two 1000 yard rushers part, Bush didn't even lead USC in rushing or carries in every game!
And Bush was nowhere near the most important player on his team. To speak nothing of DeAngelo Williams, VINCE YOUNG WAS. He led Texas in passing AND rushing. That was a fact that USC fans saw in the Rose Bowl, remember?
So make a single argument for Gerhart over Ingram that doesn't also apply for Bush over Young, Williams and Harrison. You can't. That's why it proves my point whether you will acknowledge it or not.
First, I want to clear up a popular misconception that seems to exist among those who believe that Toby Gerhart lost the Heisman to Mark Ingram, which appears particularly galling since Gerhart won the Doak Walker award for best RB (as well he should have since he led all RBs in rushing and TDs). Please understand how the Heisman works: voters almost never directly compare one player to another. That only happens when the Heisman contest is basically a two-man race during the final weeks. In years where there are no consensus top two candidates like this one, and when the candidates under consideration play different positions (QB, RB, DT) for teams with different systems (pro-style, option, spread) and in different circumstances (from 13-0 national title contenders to 4 loss teams) direct comparisons are meaningless. People only do it in order to justify eliminating a particular candidate in favor of another candidate that they already like. So, "Gerhart had better numbers than Ingram!" is only good for a Gerhart supporter who wants to eliminate Ingram. It is totally useless for comparing Gerhart to the field i.e. Colt McCoy, Tim Tebow, Ndamukong Suh.
So, Mark Ingram did not beat out Toby Gerhart for the Heisman. Instead, Ingram beat out THE FIELD. Where the arguments for Gerhart over Ingram are great, but the arguments for Gerhart over everybody else aren't nearly as good. It is a conundrum common to Pac-10 fans who often get upset at what they perceive to be SEC teams being chosen over USC for the national title game. It is true, in a head to head comparison, USC often has a better case than the SEC team when both finish with the same record. However, the competition is not between USC and the SEC team for one spot, but between USC and EVERYBODY for TWO spots. What usually winds up happening is that where USC has a great case against the SEC team, their case against the other contenders for the title spot isn't nearly as strong.
So, the issue should be why Gerhart did not beat the field.
1. The Heisman DOES NOT go to the best player. Everyone acknowledges that. If it did, the Heisman would not have gone to an RB or QB every year but thrice (CB/WR/RS Charles Woodson, WR Tim Brown, WR/RS Desmond Howard) since anyone can remember. (And quite frankly, if it did, then Ndamukong Suh is your guy rather than Gerhart anyway, and if you don't believe me take the opinion of pretty much every NFL coach, general manager and scout.) Instead, the Heisman goes to "the most outstanding player." That is generally taken to mean the player who had the most impact on the college game i.e. the most influential player or the biggest story. Also, the award is truly not limited to an individual year, but with an eye towards history. So, they try to give it to someone whose award will seem justified and deserving 20-30 years from now. That is why "lifetime achievement awards" like those given to Ricky Williams and Ron Dayne for breaking the NCAA career rushing mark are given out. (The Heisman voters like significant records in general, which is why Tim Tebow got the award for being the first player to rush for 20 TDs and pass for 20 TDs in a season.) It is also why they favor QBs and RBs for the #1 team, guys who come up with big performances in big games, and guys who make eye-popping highlight reel plays.
2. The Heisman DOES NOT go to the guy with the best statistics, even if he is on a winning team. The truth is that the Heisman RARELY goes to the player with the best statistics. Instead, big numbers (or the best numbers) only help IF they are in context of the principle stated in #1. Did the guy with the best numbers break any significant records? Did he pass a milestone (i.e. 2000 rushing yards or 5000 passing yards)? Did he win any big, nationally significant games? Did he compile an electrifying highlight reel? Having the best numbers is something that clinches the deal only if those numbers are in the context of having an impact on the college game. That's why Navy tailbacks and Texas Tech QBs are rarely if ever serious Heisman contenders. It's also why Chase Keenum - who unlike Toby Gerhart actually was the most statistically dominant player in college football this year - didn't even get an invite.
3. Regional bias does matter, but it is not the evil thing that west coast people claim it to be. Yes, "east coast bias" does hurt western players. (Although Pac-10 folks need to be honest: their definition of "east coast" is overly large, and that is an understatement.) Look, only 10 of the 65 major college programs are west of Texas, ok? Further, only 28 of the 120 major college programs are west of Texas. (Even the WAC and the Mountain West have TCU and Louisiana Tech in them.) Do Pac-10 fans honestly think that they have the best teams and players EVERY SINGLE YEAR? If you do, well so do Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 10, and Big 12 fans and voters. As it is, Pac-10 players and teams do pretty well for themselves. No Big East player has won the Heisman since 1992. No ACC player has won the Heisman since 2000. And no RB or WR from the Big East or ACC has EVER won the Heisman.
And as for the BCS that allegedly so mistreats the Pac-10, no Big East or ACC team has EVER received an at-large bid to a major bowl, either in the BCS era or in the old bowl system that preceded it. (And incidentally, before the BCS, where Pac-10 teams generally had little problem going to the Fiesta Bowl, it was extremely unusual for SEC teams to play in any major bowl game but the Sugar.) So, while it is true that in some instances regional biases may hurt the Pac-10, the truth is that the Pac-10 is actually overrepresented, doing quite well for itself despite being the only game in town (as far as major conferences are concerned) west of Texas.
After all, where Gerhart was within 28 votes of winning, the ACC's electrifying C.J. Spiller and his 2508 total yards (rushing, receiving, kick returns, punt returns) and 20 TDs didn't even get to the ceremony. Gerhart's reason for not winning was the same as the east coast player Spiller's reasons for not getting an invite: there was nothing that made his great numbers a major story for college football, either in this year or in a larger historical sense.
After all, are we to pretend that rushing for 144 yards per game for an 8-4 team that finished in a 3 way tie for second place in their conference and only beat one ranked team all year was the most significant story in college football this year, or for that matter would be in any year? That it was some record-setting performance? That it included huge efforts in games that people are going to talk about for years? Was it the stuff of highlight reels? Was it anything to make anyone who isn't a Stanford or Pac-10 fan take notice this year, let alone 10 years from now?
Are we to wax rhapsodic over Gerhart's huge games against 6-6 Notre Dame and 8-4 USC teams that gave up big yards on the ground all year? Now I certainly will grant the Oregon game, but there were bigger performances in big games, and big performances in bigger games. So, rather than believing that Gerhart lost because he was a Pac-10 player, it is extremely difficult to imagine how Gerhart would have even been a candidate had he played at any school but Stanford.
The simple truth is that guys put up numbers like Gerhart for teams similar to Stanford and never come anywhere near the award. Consider, for instance, Dion Lewis of 9-3 Pitt. Were the 9 fewer rushing yards per game enough to create so much distance between Gerhart and yet another excellent east coast RB who didn't even get invited to the ceremony? When Lewis had 47 carries for 194 yards and 3 TDs in the nationally televised 45-44 loss to 13-0 Cincinnati? (Pac-10 fans take note: Jacquizz Rodgers, second to only Gerhart among RBs in the Pac-10, only had 73 yards on 20 carries against that same Cincinnati defense, and that game was in Corvallis!) Yet where everybody in the college football world has heard of Gerhart, practically no one outside the Big East has heard of the freshman sensation Lewis. It appears to me that Gerhart fans have little to complain about.
4. Ndamukong Suh. The great Nebraska defender was basically a spoiler, knocking out two candidates. Before the Big 12 title game, the award was basically Colt McCoy's (who broke the record for wins by a QB, currently has the highest completion percentage in NCAA history, and yes his team is 13-0) although McCoy's average season made him vulnerable with a bad performance. Thanks to Suh, McCoy's performance was not just bad but atrocious, dropping him behind both Ingram and Gerhart. Now had McCoy merely had a bad game, then Gerhart would have won. However, by so thoroughly individually outplaying the Heisman frontrunner head to head in what was the most dominating performance of the season, Suh's own candidacy greatly benefited, but at Gerhart's expense. Suh got a lot of votes that would have otherwise gone to Gerhart, particularly the critical second and third place votes. Also, McCoy's collapse (caused by Suh) helped Suh and Ingram far more than it did Gerhart. Gerhart would have very likely finished #2 to McCoy had he played so much as an average Big 12 title game, with Ingram likely coming in 3rd. But McCoy's collapse created an opening for another candidate, and Suh's rise kept Gerhart from being that candidate.
5. Mark Ingram's merit. Again, keep in mind, Ingram did not need to be a better individual player than Gerhart. This was not the Doak Walker award (Gerhart) or the Maxwell award (McCoy). Ingram merely needed to be deserving of the Heisman in his own right based on individual accomplishments. Were he not (as was the case with McCoy and Tebow), Gerhart wins it in a walk basically by default. More significantly, had Gerhart |
, tenor Yusif Eyvazov, and son Tiago.
At 45, Netrebko is showing no signs of slowing down. This month she comes to the United States for two performances—a duet concert with Eyvazov at the Los Angeles Opera on May 4 and the Metropolitan Opera’s 50th anniversary gala in New York on May 7—before heading to the Opéra National de Paris to play Tatiana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Here, Netrebko opens up about her process for our peek inside the habits of a creative mastermind.
How do you prepare yourself to be creative? What’s your ritual?
Every day I try to live as if it’s my last.
What place do you find most conducive to working?
I travel a lot. I can adapt to almost any situation.
Netrebko on stage at the Met in 2015. Getty Images
What one element is absolutely necessary for your process?
I don’t like people who stop me if I decide to do something.
What time of day do you prefer for working?
I’m definitely better in the morning.
How do you take your coffee?
Good, strong American coffee with a little milk and sugar.
I can only say that I work hard. As for talent, I do have some.
What do you most often do to procrastinate?
I spend time with my son. We’ll go bowling or draw.
What’s your best trick for overcoming a creative block?
Lying down on the beach, feeling nature, being calm.
It’s said that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. What is that ratio like for you?
I can only say that I work hard. As for talent, I do have some.
What have you learned from failure?
I haven’t made that many mistakes.
What do you hope your creative legacy will be?
I hope to make much more and not stop. Life is continuous!
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This story originally appeared in the May 2017 issue of Town & Country.Copyright by WOWK - All rights reserved DaeJuan Funderburk, #26. (Photo: West Virginia University Athletics)
Copyright by WOWK - All rights reserved DaeJuan Funderburk, #26. (Photo: West Virginia University Athletics)
Media outlets in Arizona report that a West Virginia University football player was arrested New Year’s Day in Scottsdale.
DaeJuan Funderburk was arrested for disorderly conduct, indecent exposure, public sexual indecency and assault with intent to injure, all misdemeanors, according to Scottsdale police.
Funderburk, #26, is a safety for WVU, according to the team’s website. He was red-shirted in 2014.
Director of WVU Football Communications, Mike Montoro said on Wednesday, Jan. 6, "He's [Funderburk] no longer a part of our program, so we'll have no comment on the matter."
The WVU football team was in town to play the Arizona State Sun Devils in the Cactus Bowl on Jan. 2. The Mountaineers surpassed the Sun Devils 43-42.The 17-year-old underwent lengthy surgery following the accident last Sunday and it was revealed on Wednesday both his lower legs had been amputated.
Monger was temporarily brought out of the coma before another operation on Thursday.
JHR Developments boss Steven Hunter, whose team ran Monger in Ginetta Juniors and British F4, has been with the teenager and his family throughout this week.
“We’ve had some real positives,” Hunter told Autosport. “Billy was breathing on his own and talking, to a degree.
“He’s aware of his injuries. He’s exceptionally positive about the situation – he’s sat there working out how to use a clutch on the steering wheel with his hands.
“That’s Billy. There’s a long, long road ahead, he’s going to go through some hard times, but I’m sure with the character he has he’ll come through it.”
Double IndyCar champion Alex Zanardi lost both of his legs in a 2001 crash, but has raced in the European/World Touring Car Championships and GTs using specially-adapted steering wheels – and won two gold medals in handcycling in last summer’s Paralympic games.
Button aids fundrasing push
Along with British Touring Car Championship points leader Tom Ingram, a JHR graduate and driver coach, Hunter set up a fundraising page to gather support for Monger’s recovery.
It was created late Wednesday afternoon with a £260,000 target, which was exceeded within hours and stood at more than £470,000 by midday on Thursday.
Formula 1 world champion Jenson Button and Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen donated £15,000 each, while Monger’s former rival Devlin DeFrancesco gave £26,000 and rally driver Steve Perez, whose son Seb drives for JHR, contributed £10,000.
“Jenson called us directly first,” said Hunter. “I can only thank him for the support and donation – and others who shared the fundraising page like Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton and Chip Ganassi.
“We came up with this target because that’s what I could see on the internet for the cost of the prosthetics. The level of rehabilitation is going to way exceed that.
“He’s such a nice kid, the life and soul of the party and the most serious racing driver you’ll see all rolled into one.
“It’s tragic to see him in a situation like this. He’s very well-loved.”
Support "overwhelming"
Hunter lost his brother Jamie, a talented racing driver, in 2001 to a road traffic accident.
He said the response his family received then meant he was not surprised to see an outpouring of support when the news of Monger’s injuries broke.
“JHR is a family, it’s a personal thing for us, and it’s devastating right across the board,” he added.
“I can’t thank people enough, especially Tom Ingram for the work he’s done and Senna Proctor who has been there every day – he’s Billy’s best buddy.
“The motorsport community is head and shoulders above anything I have ever experienced.
“It doesn’t matter what level you’re at, we are all doing the same thing – trying to win.
“I’m overwhelmed, but not surprised, there’s such great support.”'If it is done by your government, when there is an official process that does that, then would you say that there is a fundamental right that is violated?' says Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic Leonen
Published 9:00 PM, November 21, 2017
MANILA, Philippines – Just being included in a drug list is already a violation of a person's fundamental rights, Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Marvic Leonen said on Tuesday, November 21, during the first round of oral arguments on petitions questioning the war on drugs.
"Getting on the list itself, and not getting out, is itself a violation of a constitutional right, correct?" Leonen said during his interpellation of Joel Butuyan from the Center for International Law (CenterLaw), one of the petitioners.
Under the drug war, tipsters in a community may report names of alleged drug dealers or users to the Philippine National Police (PNP). This, among others, would be the basis of police to come up with a drug list.
In particular, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Memorandum Circular (MC) No. 2017-112 operationalized the Mamamayang Ayaw sa Anomalya, Mamamayang Ayaw sa Iligal na Droga or Masa Masid program, under which cities, municipalities, and barangays are required to establish a system of reporting suspected drug personalities.
The most controversial channel so far – drop boxes.
Leonen said this, in itself, already violates Section 11, Article II of the Constitution which states that: "The State values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect for human rights."
Leonen also pointed out that in CenterLaw's petition, a person on a drug list was not given an opportunity to make his case to the police to get himself off the list. Leonen led Butuyan to say there are no provisions in the government circular that would enable a person to get himself or herself off the list.
Labels
"Therefore, giving a mistaken label without procedure for you to get out of that particular label, for that label to stick even among official circles, can be a dangerous thing," Leonen said.
He added: "There are certain kinds of labels put on you that make you less than human. Is that not correct? Of course it can be done by your friends and enemies, because that's what happens when you live in a society. But if it is done by your government, when there is an official process that does that, then would you say that here is a fundamental right that is violated?"
Leonen advised Butuyan to specify in his memorandum which provisions under the government circular are considered unconstitutional. The associate justice told him to link the killings allegedly perpetrated by vigilantes – but which CenterLaw claims were masterminded by the police – to the circular.
Butuyan said the killings happened only after the circular was issued, or after President Rodrigo Duterte made the pronouncement to crack down on drugs.
"Perhaps you can cover the balance between community participation and what is constitutional and why you would say that the activities happening in San Andres Bukid are unconstitutional in the light of the need for community participation," Leonen said.
During his interpellation of Jose Manuel Diokno of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), the other petitioner, Leonen said the circular of PNP chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa violates laws against torture.
Leonen said that to declare these circulars unconstitutional would not stop the government from fighting drugs.
Dela Rosa was told to appear for the second round of oral arguments on November 28, alongside other officials. Solicitor General Jose Calida will take the floor on behalf of the PNP. – Rappler.comA grant of £1,285,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) will keep the glittering treasures of the Staffordshire hoard, the most spectacular heap of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found, in the region where an amateur metal detector found it last summer after it spent 1,300 years buried in a nondescript field.
The grant goes to Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent museums, which will share the treasure, having raised the £3.3m necessary to pay Terry Herbert, who found the gold, and farmer Fred Johnson, the owner of the field where it was discovered.
Unusually for the fund, when the trustees met today there was no argument about the extraordinary quality of the hoard, or the merits of making the grant. Dame Jenny Abramsky, chair of the NHMF, said: "The Staffordshire hoard is an extraordinary heritage treasure. It is exactly the sort of thing the National Heritage Memorial Fund was set up to save, stepping in as the 'fund of last resort' when our national heritage is at risk, as a fitting memorial to those who have given their lives in the service of our nation. We're delighted, in our 30th anniversary year, to be able to make sure it stays just where it belongs, providing rare insights into one of the more mysterious periods of our history."
"Frankly they'd have been demented not to give the money," David Starkey, the historian who led the £3.3m appeal, said, welcoming the announcement. He has labelled the 1,500 pieces of jewel-studded gold, which appear to have been wrenched violently off their original metal, leather and wooden mounts, "gangland bling".
"This is by far the most important archaeological discovery in Britain since the second world war, and beyond that this is a find – of the most extraordinary beauty, brilliance and technical sophistication – which has really caught the imagination of the public."
The culture minister, Margaret Hodge, said: "Thanks to this grant, these superb items will be able to stay – and be enjoyed – where they belong: in the Midlands where they were discovered."
The British Museum, which would once inevitably have been seen as the natural home for a find of international importance, gave its blessing and practical support to the campaign. The total includes thousands of small donations from members of the public, some sent from as far as Australia, and a £300,000 grant from the Art Fund charity, which launched the appeal. The museums, backed by their local authorities, put in £100,000 each.
Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund, said: "We have been absolutely bowled over by the enthusiasm and fascination the Staffordshire hoard has sparked amongst the British public, as well as visitors from abroad. It is wonderful news that the NHMF has enabled the target of £3.285m to be reached ahead of schedule, and I hope that this will give the West Midlands a head start with the next stage in fundraising for the conservation, research and display of the treasure."
When the find (pdf) was announced in September the news went round the world. The gold was found by Terry Herbert, a passionate amateur metal detector whose best previous find was a broken piece of medieval horse harness, on farmer Fred Johnson's land near Lichfield in July. When Herbert had covered his dining room table with gold, and was becoming thoroughly alarmed at the scale of his find, he called in the experts. The archaeologists and forensic scientists who hit the field – under the cover story from the local police that they were investigating a murder – found most of the pieces just below the surface, and some tangled in clumps of grass which had grown up through the delicate filigree gold: eventually they retrieved 2.5kg of silver and 5kg of gold. One gold-and-garnet Anglo-Saxon sword pommel would be regarded as a find of international importance: there were scores in the hoard, along with unique and enigmatic objects still baffling the archaeologists such as the wriggling gold serpents, and a biblical inscription on a strap of gold folded in half like a shirt collar.
Starkey said: "These are pieces from the period which we were brought up to call the dark ages, and they prove that it was no such thing. When the Normans invaded in 1066, they may have been better organised chaps – but it wasn't that they were the civilised ones invading a primitive backwater, they came because they were desperate to get their hands on the wealth of Harold's England."
Local pride and interest in the treasure is intense. The exhibitions at the Birmingham city museum, immediately after the find was announced in September, and at the Potteries museum in Stoke-on-Trent last month when the hoard returned for the first time to Staffordshire, broke records at both museums with crowds queueing for hours to see the treasures.
More than 52,000 people visited the Stoke museum in three weeks, donating more than £152,000 to the appeal, including a single anonymous donation of £50,000 on the eve of the exhibition.
Many of the pieces are still caked in mud, and some still tangled with blades of grass. While careful conservation work continues, scholars will be poring over the treasures for decades to come.
"There could be blood on them as well. These pieces still have a lot to tell us," said Deb Klemperer, the archaeologist and curator at the Potteries, who was reduced to tears at their beauty when she first saw the gold last summer.
Starkey said the gold, and its new homes in Birmingham and the Potteries, will redraw the map of Anglo-Saxon England.
"These pieces change our understanding not just of history but of geography, swinging the axis away from Kent and Wessex and Northumbria, which we are fairly knowledgeable about, to the highly important but very little understood kingdom of Mercia, of which we know so little."
And he added the collection would have a positive impact on the Midlands of today. "They will put new heart and hope into a region which has suffered terribly through de-industrialisation, with the loss of thousands of metal working jobs, and literally the shattering of the Potteries."
In Stoke Hazel Lyth, city council cabinet member for economic development and culture, said they were thrilled at the grant, "a fantastic gesture that will cap a phenomenal fundraising campaign", but warned that the fundraising goes on.
"Acquiring these unparalleled treasures is essential, but it is just the beginning. We still very much need the public's support in helping us to unlock the secrets of this amazing collection. It will cost a further £1.7m to develop a Mercian trail which will take in Lichfield and Tamworth to link up the ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom. We need to interpret and research the hoard, so that we can discover where it came from, why it was put in Staffordshire soil, and find the answers to many other questions."
Although the major exhibition has closed, some of the pieces remain on display at Stoke, Birmingham, and at the British Museum in London.The UFC will return to Atlanta, Georgia, for the first time in over three years with UFC 146 on Saturday, April 21. MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani broke the news on Fuel's "UFC Tonight" and via Twitter Tuesday night.
The last time the UFC ran a show in the city was UFC 88 on September 6, 2008, headlined by Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans. Evans won the fight via second round KO, earning Knockout Of The Night and a shot at then-Light Heavyweight Champion Forrest Griffin.
14,736 filled the Philips Arena that night for a live gate of $2.6 million -- the only time Atlanta has hosted a UFC event. While no fights were announced, expect Georgia's most notable Zuffa fighter -- former WEC Bantamweight Champion Brian Bowles -- to compete on the show, keeping with the UFC trend.
****
Also on "UFC Tonight" and Twitter, Helwani gave some interesting insight into how Tuesday's main event announcement of Alexander Gustafsson vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira came together. According to Helwani, Dana White originally offered Nogueira to Dan Henderson but Hendo turned the fight down. The plan was that if Rashad Evans defeated Phil Davis at UFC On Fox 2, he would get the next shot at current champion Jon Jones with the Hendo/Nogueira winner being next in line for a title shot. Helwani said Henderson's next fight is in limbo as a result.
In a clip that didn't air on last week's show, White talked about international expansion including Sweden, Paris and putting Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen II in an outdoor venue in Brazil. See the two minute clip after the jump.Vote For Us On Greenlight!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=880273231
Backstory:
A fiefdom was the central element of feudalism and consisted of heritable property or rights granted by an overlord to a vassal who held it in return for a form of feudal allegiance and service. Feudal lords were supposed to protect their vassals but sometimes they abused their power, imposing high taxes and mistreating those who couldn't pay.
The villages have been overrun by tyranny as the feudal lords continue to oppress their own people. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The kingdom needs a hero. You are finished with the oppression! Equipped with your bow and accompanied by your faithful wolf companion, you are the only one able to bring justice to the land.
About the Game:
Fiefdom Overthrow is an addictive Procedurally Generated, Open World, Action RPG where you conquer the outposts of 24 plots of land. But first, you must take out the Templar guarding the key. The farther out you go, the more difficult each section of land becomes.
The game also includes ongoing objectives to increase your level and collectible arrows from the townspeople of each plot of land.ABBOTSFORD, B.C.—It’s about a team.
It’s about Derek King, who decided to uproot his wife, twins, 11-year-old son, three dogs, two lizards and a guinea pig and answer a friend’s call for help. It’s about Ben Scrivens, a bookworm goalie who once was considered to have such little promise that he paid to finance his own trade from one junior to team to another. It’s about Philippe Dupuis proving to himself that he’s not a failure.
The story of this year’s edition of the Toronto Marlies is about Mike Zigomanis’ health concerns, Will Acton’s refusal to accept a life out of hockey and Jake Gardiner trying to play with a stick that isn’t his.
It’s about hard choices, melding together different hockey lives and the idea that the most important part of a person is often something you don’t know.
It’s about a boy named Dallas, hardened while being raised in “hillbilly country” in the United States, who grew into a man haunted by the memory of a.22 rifle and the two dads who abandoned him. It’s about coach Eakins, who made the NHL the hard way as a player and is now the bench boss of a team eight wins away from a minor league championship.
That’s the sturdy frame upon which the Toronto Marlies rest.
Derek
It’s hockey night in B.C.’s Bible belt. The local girls hockey association is selling 50/50 tickets. The Abbotsford Heat are the home team and even though the crowd is thin, Leaf Nation is everywhere in this country. Four fans in Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys sit behind the Marlies bench, all wearing heavy felt black beards in honour of forward Jerry D’Amigo, who has a serious mountain man look going.
Yes, a playoff beard on a Toronto professional hockey player. Haven’t seen that for a while.
Mike Zigomanis, with one elbow hyperextended and the other badly bruised, scores in overtime to eliminate the Heat and put the Marlies into the AHL’s Western Conference final. Like its Toronto parent club, this organization has its own history of futility. No Leaf farm team has won the Calder Cup since the days of the Original Six.
This Marlie club just might.
That’s what these players are trying to do. But it’s not who they are. This team is a Bull Durham-like mixture of players on their way up and on their way down, a club of prized prospects and scarred veterans just hanging on. Most are bachelors, a minority are married, fewer have children. Only a couple know what their paycheque will look like next season.
For Derek King, it’s a team he chose to join as an assistant coach when head coach Dallas Eakins came knocking. King, an excellent scorer during his NHL days, had moved into semi-retirement in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was doing some work as a video review judge during Phoenix Coyotes games when Eakins was hired to coach the Marlies in 2009 and gave his old Leaf roomie a call.
“I was looking for something, but I wasn’t sure what it was,” King says. “I just feel blessed that Dally thought of me.”
Eakins was surprised King accepted his offer, because it meant selling his Arizona home to Phoenix goalie Jason Labarbara and buying one in Oakville for his herd of kids and dogs and lizards. He put his trust in Eakins.
“Don’t think I would have gone to any other city,” he says. “Well, unless Dally asked me.”
Eakins coaches this team and these players well because he is one of them. It wasn’t just that he was a 10th-round draft pick who had to scratch and claw his way into 120 NHL games over a 16-year pro career in 17 cities. It’s that he had more than a one-year contract only once during all those years. He knows what it feels like to be the guy in the corner stall who stays in the minors while others get the summons to the big leagues.
Eakins was born in Dade City, Fla., the son of Carol Ploof, a native of Macon, Ga., and a native American, Ted Yoder, of no fixed address.
“My birth father was a drifter. Cherokee, I believe,” says Eakins. “He was a heavy, heavy drinker.”
The relationship between mother and father failed soon after his birth and young Dallas Yoder was left to grow up without a dad in what he calls “hillbilly country,” surrounded by alligators and water moccasins and other creatures large and small. His mother owned a.22 rifle and used it to shoot snakes in the backyard.
“My mom was a punch-first lady,” Eakins says.
His mother eventually met and married a Canadian, a long-distance truck driver named Jim Eakins. At the age of 7, Dallas, now adopted with a new surname and a sister five years his junior, headed north to a new home and a new country.
Hockey country.
Joe, Nazem and Jake
Along with Nazem Kadri and Jake Gardiner, Joe Colborne is one of the blue-chip players on the Marlies with the expectation being that he goes to the NHL, and soon.
But by Game 4 against Abbotsford, he’s not even playing. A badly mangled finger has convinced Eakins it’s time for Big Joe to take a seat and heal, temporarily halting Colborne’s bid to get hot again, hot like he was last fall when they were calling him “The Paper Boy” because he always delivered.
“I thought when I came out and started producing right away it would keep going the whole year, although I don’t think anyone was believing I was going to keep scoring two points a game,” he says. “It’s been a tough second half of the year for sure... I want to be a top points producer for the team, and that’s why the Leafs traded for me, is to produce.
“I’m hard on myself. It’s always a battle. I expect a lot of myself. Knowing I’ve put the work I have put in, I expect to get the results.”
Kadri, the highest drafted player on the Marlies roster (seventh overall in 2009), knows how he feels. He could be pouting now, unhappy that he played in the AHL most of the season and not the NHL.
“It’s a little frustrating because at the end of the day I want to be an NHL player and I want to contribute in the NHL and I want to help that team up there,” he says. “But that’s not my decision to make. Being down here, with the group of guys we’ve got that is so genuine, every single one of them is my brother. With the run we’ve got going here we believe in ourselves.
“And hey, if it means winning a championship, who’s going to be unhappy about that?”
Gardiner might be, but only just a little. The odd thing about the AHL is that you can’t necessarily dress your best team because of tricky roster rules. You can’t necessarily even use the hockey stick you want to use because of other, even trickier rules.
The league has a deal with Reebok/CCM that stipulates that only three players per team can use a stick made by any other company. Seniority decides which players get to choose their own sticks. On the Marlies, it’s Zigomanis, Philippe Dupuis and Jay Rosehill before everybody else.
Gardiner, the darling of the Maple Leaf defence while playing with a Bauer stick in the NHL, now has to use a Reebok model in the minors. It’s driving him nuts.
“I just don’t have a feel. My hands don’t feel as good,” he says, shaking his head. “It makes me a little less confident, for sure.”
Mike
Colborne is howling with laughter in the hallways inside the Abbotsford Sports and Recreation Centre, showing an image on the screen of his Blackberry. Overlaid over a picture of a stalk of broccoli, it says, “How do you know if your friend is a vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll f---ing tell you!!”
This is a variation on a Marlie joke always aimed at Zigomanis, whose devout food habits are clearly well advertised. It’s a passion indeed, one driven by the pursuit of physical purity and self-improvement.
And fear. And dread.
Zigomanis is one of hockey’s few vegans. He is one because debilitating illness runs in his family. High blood pressure. Gout. Diabetes.
Food, he believes, could help him avoid those threats. But it won’t help him in a battle already lost. His 63-year-old father Nick recently was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, a truth that sits heavy on his shoulders while his Marlie teammates remain unaware.
“Only about five people know,” he says quietly.
Mike and Nick had that son-and-dad thing down to an art. Nick was always, always there, never missing a day of work as a pipe fitter but getting to almost every hockey game his son played.
“He missed two games when I was an 8-year-old because some bricklayers were laying a new driveway,” Mike says with a far-away smile. “He’d take me to school in the morning. Then to Milliken Mills or Centennial Arena for adult shinny. Then drop me back at school.
“At night, we had the rink in the backyard. If it was too cold? Down in the basement shooting pucks for four hours. And he would watch.”
All those years while Zigomanis played junior with the Kingston Frontenacs, his dad rarely missed a game. Now, every day comes with a new limitation.
“He can walk around, but we can’t do anything with him,” says Zigomanis. “I took him to play pool at his old union hall and he had trouble picking up a cue. I know it’s going to get progressively worse.”
He worries how his mother will cope. He thinks about the metals his father was around for all his life and wonders if they are to blame. He even worries that Marlies trainer Henning Aagaard-Svensson is exposing himself every day to the dust of dangerous metals while sharpening skates.
“I offered to bring him a mask to wear while he does the skates,” says Zigomanis.
He thinks and he worries and he meticulously prepares for every practice and every game, all the time knowing this is the last year of a contract that pays him $300,000. That’s a fortune for a minor-leaguer.
It’s all relative, though. While he’s got his 1,800-square-foot bungalow in Scarborough and played games in the NHL, he never cashed in with a contract like his former workout friend Mike Cammalleri, now making millions with the Calgary Flames.
“Nothing in my career has happened the way I wanted it to,” he says. “That’s the case for 90 per cent of the guys. It’s not going to unfold the way you want it to.”
He thinks often about extending his career by eating the right foods. All the while, his dad’s illness eats at him.
Andrew
Andrew Martens hasn’t played in these AHL playoffs and there’s a good chance he won’t. At 30, he is a blue-line spare part, travelling with the team in case of calamity after being picked up from Wichita of the Central Hockey League earlier in the season.
To players who have known the $95 NHL per diem, the drop to $65 in the minors is something to grouse about. Not for Martens, the only player on the team who has three mouths to feed, his wife and two small children.
“I love this life,” he says. “It’s every kid’s dream to play pro sports, to go to the rink and see kids cheering for you, having an interest in you.”
After Zigomanis’ goal finished off Abbotsford in five games, the team’s two 18-year-olds, Stuart Percy and David Broll, were assigned the job of lugging equipment bags as the team packed up. Martens, wearing a suit and tie, pitched in as well, although he had enough seniority that nobody would have said a word if he hadn’t.
He’s two classes short of finishing an accounting degree from Bemidji State where he played his college hockey. He was once at the training camp of the NHL’s Florida Panthers, but didn’t even get into an exhibition game. He’s living out Carl Brewer’s famous quote, the one about how much he loved the game but the game just didn’t seem to love him back.
“I know there’s going to have to come a time when I will have to settle down,” says Martens. “How justified could I feel if I was taking something away from my children? But there’s still some good left in me as a player. I’m just going to roll with the punches for a while yet.”
Roger
In October, 1974, the patchwork Eakins clan, all four of them, drove into Peterborough.
“Very early, I remember seeing the kids playing road hockey and thinking, ‘That’s how I’m going to fit in,’” recalls Dallas Eakins.
He turned 8 that hockey season and Jim Eakins, who had given up long-distance trucking to do a daily run, built a backyard rink. At the age of 12, young Dallas went to Roger Neilson’s hockey camp, and soon after joined the junior Petes and began working at the camp during summers.
“The connection between Roger and I was immediate,” says Eakins.
Eakins is part of the so-called Peterborough hockey “mafia,” the godfather of which is the late Neilson, the former NHL head coach.
Like his mentor, Eakins is a person who engenders a remarkable level of devotion from friends and players.
With the Petes, he joined a junior team coached by future NHL coaches Dick Todd and Jacques Martin and loaded with future NHLers such as Kris King, goalies Kay Whitmore and Ron Tugnutt, Terry Carkner, Randy Burridge and John Druce.
He was drafted by Washington after his rookie OHL season. By his fourth year he was captain of the Petes.
He started his pro career in the minors in Baltimore. A career highlight came in the 1997 Eastern Conference final when, as a member of the New York Rangers, head coach Colin Campbell — another member of that Peterborough mafia — decided to have Eakins, a career defenceman, shadow Eric Lindros.
It almost worked. Lindros was shut down, but the Flyers still won the series.
It was another lesson for Eakins the player to absorb, one to add to those hockey and life experiences preparing him to become Eakins the coach.
But not for the pain that awaited him.
Will
Will Acton knows he’s got to get back to his other job soon.
“Every day I’m doing this I’m not cleaning some guy’s 9-iron,” he says in his unabashedly good-natured way.
As soon as this AHL playoff run is over, the Marlies’ fourth-line centre will head back to his post in the back shop at the Sleepy Hollow Golf and Country Club in Stouffville. He worked there last summer after getting a surprise call from the Leaf organization in March, following his final season at Lake Superior State. At the time he was summoned, he had $57 in his bank account.
Most figured that as the son of Leaf assistant coach Keith Acton, he was benefitting from a bit of nepotism. That assessment might have made sense, except Keith Acton was fired a few weeks later.
“It wasn’t a relief, because you never want your dad to lose his job,” says Will. “But it relieved all that pressure with him being in management and me as a player.”
Acton ended up earning a one-year AHL contract, and to the surprise of Eakins began insinuating himself into roles of increasing significance.
“One day he asked if he could sit in on the penalty-killing meeting,” says Eakins. “Before long, he was on the penalty kill. He’s like a smell that just won’t go away.”
Watch the 24-year-old Acton play and you quickly notice how much he does right, how he’s always in a position to make a play, always on the right side of the puck.
“All those years I would always say to my dad, ‘Just give me some of that knowledge,’ ” he says.
“I always had to be humble and disguise my dreams, keep them to myself. But I’ve always known I’d rather be the fourth-line centre getting eight minutes a night on a first-place team than be the leading scorer on a last-place team.”
For the Marlies, the trick is to put the guys like Acton in the same dressing room as players such as Colborne and Kadri and Gardiner, ones with realistic dreams of the NHL, and get them all to focus on the same objective.
“Every team has the potential to work together,” says Acton. “Every guy also has a reason to be selfish. As Dallas always says, ‘If we all want to get to where we want to be, we have to do it together.’ ”
Ryan
In the Marlies’ locker room during these playoffs, there are two precious items, two symbols of unity. One is the wooden image of the Calder Cup, built by locker room assistant and part-time carpenter Mike Manastersky. Made of oak, it has sunken holes for 15 pucks representing the 15 wins it takes to win the championship. So far, seven pucks have been inserted with eight still to go.
The second item is a Canadian Forces camouflage jacket brought back from Afghanistan by Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke last year. The Marlies give it to their best performer after victories, a powerful symbol of commitment to a cause.
As captain of the Marlies, Ryan Hamilton is the primary caretaker of these icons. At 27, he’s had a career path filled with potholes, injuries and more injuries, including a heart procedure.
For every member of the Marlies, he represents hope.
In late March, the phone rang and it was Eakins. He’d call from time to time to talk about the team.
“I could tell right away this was different,” Hamilton says. “Dallas said, ‘Get your best suit and tie. You’re going up.’ ”
It was six years since he’d received another call out of the blue, that one from the Minnesota Wild offering him a pro contract after going undrafted. That was a thrill. This one was more personal for both Hamilton and his coach.
“I had to get off the phone quickly. I knew I was going to get emotional,” says Eakins.
The next day, Hamilton was earning the NHL salary of his $525,000 two-way contract for the first time. Across from him for the opening faceoff in the opener of a home-and-home between the Leafs and New |
against some of the top crews in “ABDC” history.
+ Which crews are you most excited to see make their return, and who are you rooting for to take home the victory? Sound off in the comments, and be sure to catch the premiere of "America's Best Dance Crew All Stars: Road to the VMAs" on Wednesday, July 29 at 11/10c!California Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed a bill that would have given California the nation's toughest restrictions on gun ownership.
California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill Friday that would have imposed the nation's toughest restrictions on gun ownership, saying it was too far-reaching.
The legislation would have banned future sales of most semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines, part of a firearms package approved by state lawmakers in response to mass shootings in other states.
It was lawmakers' latest attempt to close loopholes that have allowed manufacturers to work around previous assault weapon bans. Gun rights groups had threatened to sue if the semi-automatic weapons ban became law.
"I don't believe that this bill's blanket ban on semi-automatic rifles would reduce criminal activity or enhance public safety enough to warrant this infringement on gun owners' rights," the Democratic governor wrote in his veto message.
He also noted that California already has some of the nation's strictest gun and ammunition laws.
Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, who proposed the measure, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The bill sought to ban the sale of assault rifles, but Brown objected that it also would have applied to low-capacity weapons commonly used for hunting, firearms training and target shooting, and some historical and collectible firearms. Brown also didn't want thousands of legal gun owners to have to register their existing weapons as assault rifles and be blocked from selling or transferring the weapons.
The governor's actions were a mixed bag for both gun rights groups and those seeking greater restrictions.
He signed a measure from Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, which bans kits that allow people to turn regular ammunition magazines into high-capacity magazines, as well as two other pieces of legislation that restrict the ability of mentally ill people to possess firearms.
Brown approved a measure making California the first state to impose a statewide ban on lead bullets for all types of hunting. Hunting with lead bullets already is prohibited in eight counties with endangered California condors. About two dozen states also have partial bans, most in sensitive wildlife refuges.
But he vetoed other bills including measures giving several San Francisco-area communities special authority to regulate weapons and gun shows, as well as several other bills he said went too far to restrict the sale or possession of certain types of handguns or shotguns.
Some of the new laws could trigger legal challenges.
Gun owners' rights groups have said they also could consider mounting recall campaigns or election-year challenges against Democratic lawmakers who voted for the gun bills. Final votes on the legislation occurred last month, just as two Colorado state lawmakers were recalled for supporting tougher gun laws in that state.
Copyright Associated PressAsk a Librarian, Florida’s virtual reference service, collaborates with 131 Florida libraries all working together to deliver first-rate reference services to users at their moment of need. Ask a Librarian takes customer service to a new level by offering Floridians fast, reliable and easy-to-use online reference assistance from anywhere in the state. It has been a vital service for 10 years connecting people to librarians 84 hours a week via live chat, email, and text messaging to receive assistance with homework, research projects, small business help, government services and general reference questions!
Ask a Librarian is an essential service for Florida libraries! A few examples:
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Please show your support for Florida’s Ask a Librarian service by signing this petition!It’s no secret that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has a narrow path to win the presidency this fall. Nowhere is that reality more apparent than when examining the electoral map on which Romney and President Obama will battle in November.
A detailed analysis of Romney’s various paths to the 270 electoral votes he would need to claim the presidency suggests he has a ceiling of somewhere right around 290 electoral votes.
While Romney’s team would absolutely take a 290-electoral-vote victory, that means he has only 20 electoral votes to play with — a paper-thin margin for error.
Romney’s relatively low electoral-vote ceiling isn’t unique to him. No Republican presidential nominee has received more than 300 electoral votes in more than two decades. (Vice President George H.W. Bush won 426 electoral votes in his 1988 victory over Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.)
By contrast, Bill Clinton in 1992 (370 electoral votes) and 1996 (379) as well as Obama in 2008 (365) soared well beyond the 300-electoral-vote marker.
Much of that is attributable to the fact that Democrats have near-certain wins in population (and, therefore, electoral-vote) behemoths such as California (55 electoral voters), New York (29) and Illinois (20).
The only major electoral-vote treasure trove that is reliably Republican at the moment is Texas, with its 38 electoral votes. So while George W. Bush won 30 states in 2000 and 31 states in 2004, he never came close to cresting the 300-electoral-vote mark in either race.
Bush’s two successful races, and the map on which he built them, are quite instructive when trying to understand Romney’s narrow margin for error this fall.
In 2000, Bush won 271 electoral votes — one more than he needed to claim the presidency. In eking out that victory, Bush not only carried the South and Plains states with a near sweep but also claimed wins in swing states such as Nevada, Colorado, Missouri and the major electoral-vote prizes of Ohio and Florida.
If Romney was able to duplicate Bush’s 2000 map, he would take 285 electoral votes — thanks to redistricting gains over the past decade.
But to do so, Romney would need not only to win the five swing states mentioned above — with the exception of Missouri, all of them are considered tossups (at worst) for the president at the moment — but also hang on to states such as North Carolina and Virginia where Bush cruised 12 years ago. (Obama carried both states in 2008.)
In 2004, Bush won reelection with 286 electoral votes, losing New Hampshire from his 2000 map but adding wins in Iowa and New Mexico.
Under the 2012 map, Romney would win 292 electoral votes if he replicated the Bush 2004 victory. But New Mexico seems like a very tough place to win — not to mention the fact that he would again need to carry Ohio, Florida, Colorado and Nevada as well as North Carolina and Virginia.
Now, the good(ish) news for Romney is that if he has a low ceiling, he also has a relatively high floor.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won 173 electoral votes in 2008. If Romney carried those same 22 states under the 2012 map, he would win 180 electoral votes.
Add Indiana, which McCain lost but which will almost certainly go for Romney in 2012, and the former Massachusetts governor’s electoral floor sits at 191.
Given the narrowness of his electoral map window, the key for Romney this fall is to win in places that Bush, McCain and other Republican nominees over the past two decades have struggled to make inroads. No Republican has carried Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), Michigan (16) or Wisconsin (10) in any of the past five elections, for example.
Win even one of them and Romney has a bit more flexibility when it comes to getting to 270 — and beyond.I took my seven-year-old son to see Justin Trudeau on Monday night. One of my hopes as a parent is that my son takes an interest in politics as a way to help him understand why things are how they are in his city, province, country, and planet. I want him to become an engaged and informed citizen and to understand the role he can play if he’s not happy with the direction things are going.
So we stood in the cold for more than an hour in a line that snaked the entire way around the Dartmouth Sportsplex. I hate the cold and wanted to bail but it was a rare educational opportunity for Oliver. While we stood there, rubbing our mittened hands together, hundreds of teachers walked by us carrying picket signs. He recognized his teacher from last year and they waved at each other.
He asked me why they were protesting and I explained how it connected to the current work-to-rule campaign. Then we saw teenagers with bandanas over their mouths holding signs that opposed pipeline construction. I explained that many people are against the decisions prime ministers make and peaceful protest is a protected part of living in a democracy. People are allowed to disagree, loudly, without risking going to jail. That spawned a lot more questions on his part.
I wanted to remember the night. I was so impressed by his questions and his desire to wait in the cold. So I got the woman standing behind us to take a photo. Then I did something I almost never do. I tweeted it. Normally, my Twitter account is for professional tweets only. But I decided to put this one out there:
An hour in long line in the freezing cold to take Ollie to see @JustinTrudeau in Dartmouth. pic.twitter.com/RfdDkxk7e4 — Erin Moore (@moorejourno) January 16, 2017
What happened next occurred because of my other role. Along with being Oliver’s mom, I’m also a journalism instructor at the Nova Scotia Community College. In fact, several of my students were at the event covering it for class. But the fact that I took my son to see the prime minister called my journalistic credibility into question for Ezra Levant, former Sun News Network pundit and current commentator for conservative news site Rebel Media.
Levant retweeted my photo with the caption “Journalism Instructor” in quotation marks then pinned it to his feed for his 94-thousand followers. The implication I’m guessing is that I couldn’t possibly have journalistic integrity if I took my child to a Liberal event. I must be a Liberal supporter. I must be biased. The trolls saw red meat and fought each other to feast on it first. Finally warm inside the arena, my Twitter account started blowing up with mostly anonymous users calling me a child abuser, a bad mother, and a bitch. Hundreds of them. They’re still coming.
I responded to Levant with the following:
Yes, journalism instructor (no quotes) introducing son to democratic experience of listening to PM while protestors demonstrate outside. https://t.co/tY0YuAhRFn — Erin Moore (@moorejourno) January 16, 2017
Then I stopped responding and it was hard. I was being attacked for my politics, my professionalism, and my parenting by people who don’t know a thing about any of them.
That’s how trolling works of course and it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. No one threatened to rape or murder me as so often happens to women online.
But it made me think a lot about the Oxford dictionary’s newest word: post-truth.
Somehow, what was actually going on in that photo didn’t matter at all. The fact was that as a mother I wanted my child to see the democratically-elected leader of our country answer questions by both supporters and opponents without a script. As a journalist and journalism instructor, holding those in power to account is a fundamental part of the job. In the town hall setting ordinary people, non-journalists, had the same opportunity to hold Justin Trudeau to account. What a thing for a child to witness.
But never mind the truth. To the trolls, and to Levant, that photo was an example of liberal bias in the media and of a bad mother forcing her child to risk frostbite so he could get indoctrinated by socialist propaganda. Sigh.
Some of my students have asked me why journalism and the pursuit of truth even matters if we’ve truly entered an era of post-truth. My response is that it matters now more than ever, that pursing truth is still an essential service in a democracy and that holding those in power to account has never been so important.
If we give in to fiction instead of fact, and vitriol instead of verification, we all lose because we’ll all be less-informed when it comes to making important decisions about our lives. That’s something that as both a journalism instructor and as a mom, I’m working hard to prevent.A new and improved vaccine for the Zika virus has been developed after an epidemic swept across the Americas in 2015.
Zika triggered travel warnings, with pregnant women being urged to postpone non-essential trips to affected countries during a surge in cases which revealed the mosquito-borne virus could cause birth defects.
Governments, academic laboratories, and pharmaceutical companies invested heavily in stopping the virus.
The committed public health efforts paid off, with Brazil declaring an end to its Zika emergency in May after a drop in cases.
However the World Health Organisation has warned that tens of millions of people could still be infected in the Americas in the coming years.
There are currently no licensed vaccines or therapeutics available to combat Zika, although a $100m US government-led clinical trial is underway.
Image: Twins born with microcephaly in Areia, Brazil
Now, researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) in the US have developed the world's first plant-based Zika vaccine.
They believe this vaccine could be "more potent, safer, and cheaper to produce" than the other medicines being developed.
"Our vaccine offers improved safety and potentially lowers the production costs more than any other current alternative, and with equivalent effectiveness," said ASU scientist Dr Qiang Chen.
Dr Chen is a specialist in developing plant-based vaccines and has previously worked to develop therapeutics and vaccines for West Nile virus and Dengue fever, which belong to the same family of viruses as Zika.
His Zika vaccine targets a key protein which envelopes the outside of the virus.
By developing this protein by itself, without the dangerous virus within it, it could be used to immunise people to the real strain of Zika.
Dr Chen's team performed immunisation experiments on mice and found a 100% success rate in inducing antibody and cellular immune response to protect against multiple Zika virus strains.
But while the virus is effective, it is not foolproof, and can cause serious side effects.
"Above all, we have to ensure the utmost safety with any Zika vaccine, especially because the people who will need it most, pregnant women, have the most worries about their own health, and the health of the fetus," said Dr Chen.
"This has to be 100% safe and effective."
Zika is associated with a birth defect called microcephaly when contracted by pregnant women. It can result in children being born with abnormally small heads and brain damage.
The virus, first discovered in Uganda in 1947, leaves those infected with mild flu-like symptoms and can also be sexually transmitted.As Boris was writing his excellent Laravel 4 tutorials here on Codeforest, I often asked him about Laravel 4 release date. Soon, he said, watch the web.
And the day has come, Laravel 4 is released officially with all the goodies, new website and other great stuff and all that on Taylor’s birthday. Coincidence? I think not.
Two hours ago Laravel Twitter account said:
I'm so glad to announce the official release of Laravel 4! New and improved site and documentation. Get it! http://t.co/jRc64bb6qG — Laravel (@laravelphp) May 28, 2013
What to say? Few hours before the release Jeffrey Way of Nettuts released his book on Laravel testing and Dale Reese, a member of core Laravel team released his book for begginers called Laravel: Code Bright – Web application development for the Laravel framework version 4 for beginners.
They updated their website, the documentation, API documentation and it is all available on Laravel official web as well as a 5 minute quickstart.
I am really more excited than should be, but all of the above is proof of an awesome community and obviously an awesome PHP framework.
As Laravel 4 is built so you can use it for small RESTful APIs or huge enterprise level applications, I am eager to see how developers will adapt to the new version.
And don’t think it’s over:
Want to keep living on the bleeding edge? Just update your laravel/framework dependency to 4.1.x. Ride it until 4.1 in November! — Laravel (@laravelphp) May 28, 2013
So, what are you waiting for, reading this article, go grab some tutorials and build something great with Laravel 4. And then post a link to it below in comments section.The news is filled with stories of celebrities who have engaged in egregious sexual misconduct. A recent poll suggested that more than half of U.S. women have experienced “unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances” at some point in their lives.1 Because I led a study of workplace sexual harassment in medicine,2 I was not surprised when reporters contacted me for comments on the recent disclosures. When a secretary filling in for my usual assistant relayed one reporter’s request, she told me she presumed the story was about my personal experience of sexual harassment. Disturbed, I leapt to correct her misapprehension: I was being sought out as a scholarly expert, not a victim. Then I wondered why it seemed so urgent to make that distinction.
An easy explanation is that I feared she would assume that someone in my department had engaged in misconduct — I would never want anyone to think that of any of my upstanding colleagues. Indeed, when I published my research findings, my department chair expressed shock: “Thirty percent of the women had been harassed? Are you sure that’s right? I just would never....” Like many well-intentioned and normally highly articulate men who are astonished by the #MeToo movement’s revelation that they’re surrounded by women who’ve had such experiences, he was left speechless.
But that’s not the whole story. I rushed to correct the secretary partly because I worried that she might tell others that I’d been victimized and also that victims do not fare well in our society. I aspire to become a leader in academic medicine. Being cast as a victim would tarnish my narrative. Who cares if research suggests that women are more vulnerable to harassment both when they’re perceived as weak and when they’re so strong that they challenge traditional hierarchies? Having come of age in the era of Anita Hill’s testimony against Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, I know that women who report sexual harassment experience marginalization, retaliation, stigmatization, and worse. Even in the #MeToo era, reporting such behavior is far from straightforward.
The many heartfelt messages I’ve received from strangers since publishing my research reinforce these intuitions. The brave physicians who’ve contacted me say they remained silent and questioned their self-worth after their experiences, wondering whether they brought it on themselves. The details of their experiences are appalling. One told of having a senior male leader in her field unzip the front zipper of her dress at a conference social event. Many report unwanted touching of breasts and buttocks. One described having a “tormentor” during training, and others noted remarkably consistent experiences in the operating room that ironically they thought were unique. One even described a rape by a superior during her training that she had never reported.
In fact, none of the women who’ve contacted me have reported their experiences. They speak of challenging institutional cultures, with workplaces dominated by men who openly engage in lewd “locker-room conversation” or exclude them from all-male social events, leaving them without allies in whom to confide after suffering an indignity or a crime. As one told me: “The machismo culture seemed so pervasive. One of the women even talked about how consent for sex was overrated, since some women use alcohol to have sex and later say that it was because they were so drunk and ‘all guys had raped someone.’”
One woman, whose experience indirectly came to the attention of her institution’s human resources group, consulted a lawyer who confirmed her suspicions that “making this an HR issue” could hurt her own career. “HR is about protecting the institution, not you,” the lawyer said. Fearing being labeled a troublemaker, she deflected the inquiry. Yet she felt guilty over not protecting younger women from the man who’d harassed her. Another woman asked my advice on convening a workshop on sexual harassment, wondering whether it would be career suicide.
One young physician described the shame and fear she felt after being harassed during training. She said, “If any women ever tell you that they had any experience like mine, please tell them to get out of there. Please tell them not to worry about the red flag it might be to transfer residencies, not to worry about potential damage to their reputation, not to worry about ‘who would believe [them] anyway,’ not to worry about appearing weak, not to worry about the old boys’ club that lets men cover for each other and makes the woman ‘sound crazy,’ the opportunities that they may miss in going to a smaller program, unwanted attention that would impinge on their privacy.” Although she had not reported the harassment to her mentors — “They judge me based on my work. I don’t want them to change the way they perceive me” — she said she “would advise any woman who came to me for advice to do something different from what I actually did.”
But standing up to harassment is clearly hard. In one case, a talented physician researcher had engaged in a witnessed act of unwanted sexual contact with a trainee. Yet two department chairs in his field independently told me they were trying to recruit the transgressor, who was considered a hot prospect, even as sexual misconduct proceedings were under way at his home institution. “It was just a mistake; we need to forgive and forget,” said one. “I have both sons and daughters, so I can see both sides,” said the other. Both worried about fallout if the behavior were to recur, but neither wanted to forgo the opportunity to steal away a superstar. These discussions highlighted how easy it can be to turn a blind eye to offenses by luminaries like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. And yet it remains unacceptable.
It was a luminary who provided my sole personal experience with workplace-related sexual harassment. Because it was a more minor transgression than some other women have faced, until very recently I hadn’t thought of it as harassment, although it meets the criteria outlined by experts — a disconnect that’s remarkably common.3 After a group dinner at a professional society meeting where I spent my time politely rebuffing sexual advances from a prominent surgeon, I became concerned when he accosted me at the cloakroom, intent on walking me to my room. He winked at the attendant and said, “She loves surgeons.” Just then, a senior female surgeon happened by. I said, “I do adore surgeons, which is why I planned to walk home with her.” Wordlessly, the female surgeon sized up the situation and took me by the arm, rescuing me from what was rapidly evolving from an uncomfortable situation into something potentially worse. I now keep my distance from that male surgeon; I even gave up a valuable scholarly opportunity just to avoid him. And the experience did make me silently question my self-worth: Why was my scholarship not substantial enough for this man to see me as a colleague who has done important research and has worthy ideas, instead of objectifying me?
Academic astronomers have formalized a rescue system like the one that fortuitously presented itself to me. Recognizing that mandatory reporting can dissuade people who need help, they maintain a list of “astronomy allies” — senior female astronomers, who wear prominent buttons at national society meetings and make themselves available to remove colleagues from problematic situations (www.astronomyallies.com). No questions are asked, although formal reporting is encouraged and facilitated where appropriate; the aim is to provide “judgment-free” help when someone believes it’s needed. It is a shameful statement about our society that such a system is required in a professional setting.
Reporters often ask me whether medicine is any different in this way from other fields. Some expect it to be better, given the compassion and altruistic impulses that lead people to pursue medicine. Others expect it to be worse, given the history of male domination and a hierarchical structure with strong power differentials, factors correlated with the incidence of workplace sexual harassment.4 Added to the mix are frequent “field experiences,” with easy access to beds and late-night work when hallways are emptier and inhibitions may be lowered. My intuition is that the problem is at least as bad in medicine as elsewhere, especially if one adds harassment by patients to that by colleagues and superiors. And the data show that the problem for female physicians is certainly bad enough that the profession must work together to correct it.2,5
I wish I had brilliant insights about how our society can address the deep-rooted, pervasive causes of this behavior proactively rather than simply reactively. Nevertheless, I find it valuable to have the opportunity to participate in this now open conversation and draw from the example of innovators like the astronomy allies, whose website explains: “Seeing us wear those buttons tells you not only that there is someone friendly around should you need us, but reminds people who might think about committing harassment that there are always people holding beacons of light to shine in the corners they are hoping to keep dark.”Making WebGL Dance or How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love Linear Algebra Steven Wittens unconed
http:// acko.net
How to DrawWhere to DrawWhat to Draw
In the Beginning There Was Pixels
Bresenham Lines Scanline Rendering Snap To Pixel "Anti-Aliasing!" Sub-Pixel Accuracy Samples Vector World Raster World Sampling Nearest Neighbour Filter Bilinear Filter Aliasing Anisotropic Filtering ⨉ 16 Sampling Theorem – Nyquist Frequency Jaggies = Sampled Edge Anti-Aliasing (AA) = Blur All The Things? Pixel Coverage – Box Filter SuperSampling (SSAA ⨉ 16) MultiSampling (MSAA ⨉ 16) Sampled Box Filter + Bilinear Filter Distance Function – Pixel-wide Gradient AA = Filter Before Sampling
Gaussian Blur, MIP Mapping, Anisotropic Filter Sub-Pixel AA (RGB) -webkit-font-smoothing
The Pixel is Dead
Long Live the Pixel Height Map – Perlin Derivative Noise Depth – Z-Buffer / Shadow Map Normals – Deferred Lighting
This is the Part Where You Learn Linear Algebra
Affine Transforms Rotation Scaling Skewing Parallel Lines Vector Basis New Basis Disassemble and Reassemble Matrix $$ \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-blue}{0.53} & \class{mj-green}{0.42} \\ \class{mj-blue}{-0.32} & \class{mj-green}{0.77} \end{bmatrix} $$ Matrix-Vector Multiply $$ \class{mj-purple}{\vec v'} = \mathbf{M} \cdot \class{mj-orangered}{\vec v} $$
$$ \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-purple}{x'} \\ \class{mj-purple}{y'} \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-blue}{0.53} & \class{mj-green}{0.42} \\ \class{mj-blue}{-0.32} & \class{mj-green}{0.77} \end{bmatrix} \cdot \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-orangered}{x} \\ \class{mj-orangered}{y} \end{bmatrix} $$ Disassemble and Reassemble $$ \class{mj-purple}{\vec v'} = \mathbf{M} \cdot \class{mj-orangered}{\vec v} $$
$$ \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-purple}{x'} \\ \class{mj-purple}{y'} \end{bmatrix} = \class{mj-orangered}{x} \cdot \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-blue}{0.53} \\ \class{mj-blue}{-0.32} \end{bmatrix} + \class{mj-orangered}{y} \cdot \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-green}{0.42} \\ \class{mj-green}{0.77} \end{bmatrix} $$ Matrix-Matrix Multiplication $$ \class{mj-purple}{\vec v'} = \mathbf{M'} \cdot \class{mj-orangered}{\vec v} = \mathbf{R} \cdot \mathbf{M} \cdot \class{mj-orangered}{\vec v} $$
$$ \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-purple}{x'} \\ \class{mj-purple}{y'} \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-blue}{-0.32} & \class{mj-green}{0.77} \\ \class{mj-blue}{-0.53} & \class{mj-green}{-0.42} \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-orangered}{x} \\ \class{mj-orangered}{y} \end{bmatrix} $$
$$ = \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-blue}{0} & \class{mj-green}{1} \\ \class{mj-blue}{-1} & \class{mj-green}{0} \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-blue}{0.53} & \class{mj-green}{0.42} \\ \class{mj-blue}{-0.32} & \class{mj-green}{0.77} \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-orangered}{x} \\ \class{mj-orangered}{y} \end{bmatrix} $$ 3D $$ \class{mj-purple}{\vec v'} = \mathbf{M} \cdot \class{mj-orangered}{\vec v} $$
$$ \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-purple}{x'} \\ \class{mj-purple}{y'} \\ \class{mj-purple}{z'} \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-blue}{a} & \class{mj-green}{d} & \class{mj-red}{g} \\ \class{mj-blue}{b} & \class{mj-green}{e} & \class{mj-red}{h} \\ \class{mj-blue}{c} & \class{mj-green}{f} & \class{mj-red}{i} \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-orangered}{x} \\ \class{mj-orangered}{y} \\ \class{mj-orangered}{z} \end{bmatrix} $$ 4D? $$ \class{mj-purple}{\vec v'} = \mathbf{M} \cdot \class{mj-orangered}{\vec v} $$
$$ \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-purple}{x'} \\ \class{mj-purple}{y'} \\ \class{mj-purple}{z'} \\ \class{mj-purple}{w'} \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-blue}{a} & \class{mj-green}{e} & \class{mj-red}{i} & \class{mj-indigo}{m} \\ \class{mj-blue}{b} & \class{mj-green}{f} & \class{mj-red}{j} & \class{mj-indigo}{n} \\ \class{mj-blue}{c} & \class{mj-green}{g} & \class{mj-red}{k} & \class{mj-indigo}{o} \\ \class{mj-blue}{d} & \class{mj-green}{h} & \class{mj-red}{l} & \class{mj-indigo}{p} \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-orangered}{x} \\ \class{mj-orangered}{y} \\ \class{mj-orangered}{z} \\ \class{mj-orangered}{w} \end{bmatrix} $$ Ordinary 2D Space Projective 2D Space Z Vector = Translation + Scale X/Y Vector = Perspective Projective 3D Transform = 3D X Y Z Matrix + Translation + Perspective
$$ \begin{bmatrix} \class{mj-blue}{a} & \class{mj-green}{e} & \class{mj-red}{i} & \class{mj-indigo}{m} \\ \class{mj-blue}{b} & \class{mj-green}{f} & \class{mj-red}{j} & \class{mj-indigo}{n} \\ \class{mj-blue}{c} & \class{mj-green}{g} & \class{mj-red}{k} & \class{mj-indigo}{o} \\ \class{mj-orangered}{d} & \class{mj-orangered}{h} & \class{mj-orangered}{l} & 1 \end{bmatrix} $$ Object Space to World Space World Space to View Space View Space to Screen Space Or Back Again
The Rise Of The Shaders
Vertex Shader
// Global Variables uniform mat4 projectionMatrix; uniform mat4 viewMatrix; uniform mat4 modelMatrix; // Per Vertex Attributes attribute vec3 position; // Per Vertex Code void main() { gl_Position = projectionMatrix * viewMatrix * modelMatrix * vec4(position, 1.0); } Fragment Shader
// Global Variables uniform vec3 color; uniform vec3 direction; // Interpolated Per-Vertex Quantities varying vec3 vNormal; // Per Fragment Code void main() { float diffuse = dot(vNormal, direction); gl_FragColor = vec4(diffuse * color, 1.0); }
Skeletal Animation
Normal Map
Color Map
// Global Variables uniform sampler2D colorMap; // Interpolated Per-Vertex Quantities varying vec2 vUV; // Per Fragment Code void main() { gl_FragColor = texture2D(colorMap, vUV); } + Specular Map, Normal Map, … Normal Mapping Parallax Mapping Wrong Camera Uniform Correct Camera Uniform
References and Links
Aerotwist.com — Paul Lewis – @aerotwist
Iquilezles.org — Iñigo Quílez – @iquilezles
mrdoob.github.io — Ricardo Cabello – @mrdoob
AlteredQualia – @AlteredQualiaVANCOUVER -- Off in the distance, a unicycle rolls around the ellipse that circles downtown's Esther Short Park. Nothing unusual there, though you might think of Vancouver as more of a meat, potatoes and bicycles-only kind of town. But there's something different about this unicycle. There's a blocky-looking thing under the saddle. And the rider isn't pedaling, yet the contraption is moving. And the rider is playing a guitar. By the time the rider rolls into closer view, it's clear that the unicycle is battery-powered. And it's clear that the rider is doing his best to promote the wizardry of inventor Daniel Wood. Wood, a high school dropout and self-taught engineer, invented the electric, gyroscope-packed, one-wheeled cycle to help launch a new company in downtown Vancouver. The invention is known as the SBU -- for Self-Balancing Unicycle -- and offers the promise of taking some of the circus-stunt nature of the unicycle to the masses.
The SBU delivers on one-half of the equation -- front to back balancing -- but the rider still must figure out the essential left and right balancing that's essential to turning and staying upright. Nevertheless, Wood, a 30-year-old refugee from a Vancouver high-tech firm where he was laid off last year, has created a product that appears to have few parallels in the market.
The SBU
Inventor:
Daniel Wood
Owner:
Focus Designs, co-founders Daniel Wood and Bobby Wood
Base product:
Conventional unicycle from Seattle Bike Supply, retrofitted with SBU equipment
Construction site:
Basement, 110 W. 13th St., Vancouver
Web:
He's spent more than two years developing and perfecting the design with this in mind: "I wanted to make something I would want to ride." There are other electric unicycles, and the two-wheeled Segway has shown the importance of gyroscopes in keeping a wheeled vehicle from tipping. But the SBU appears to be one of a handful to have combined the two features. Now Wood and his partners need people to pay $1,599 apiece for an SBU in the midst of a recession. Four units are on order, all from people who have said they're interested in being distributors. Wood has gotten two technological gadgetry celebrities on the SBU -- Adam Savage, host of the Discovery Channel's "MythBusters," and Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway. Savage contacted Wood just moments after he saw a story about the SBU on the Web site,
. "I gotta have one," Savage recalled telling Wood in an e-mail. Savage, whose program regularly features construction of contraptions, is a longtime unicyclist. He commuted on them when he lived in New York City and, to amaze his friends, he'd bounce down stairs on a unicycle or juggle while riding one. So he was eager to try out the SBU when Wood and his friends arrived on the "MythBusters" set in January. He quickly was hooked. "I love it!" Savage said in the phone interview. He keeps the SBU on the set. A regular unicycle and the SBU are different enough that it's an apples to oranges comparison, Savage said. The biggest difference would be starting and stopping. The SBU's internal gyroscope senses, through the rider's movement, whether he wants to go forward, slow down or stop. Lean forward enough, and it can go faster -- up to 10 mph. A skilled rider can ride uphill and downhill as easily as on flat ground. But it takes a skilled rider to make the SBU perform at all. First-time riders will spend much of their introductory moments sitting on the saddle, walking the SBU with one foot and making tentative attempts to roll with both feet on pedal-size platforms. Most people can be up and going in 45 minutes, Wood said. The Segway's Kamen wasn't one of them. While Wood was able to get the famous inventor on an SBU during a visit to Kamen's house in New Hampshire during a robotics conference last year, the Segway inventor needed help to stay aboard. Even Savage says the SBU |
-edible species [ edit ]
Amanita muscaria, a conditionally-edible species, a conditionally-edible species
Nutrients [ edit ]
A commonly eaten mushroom is the white mushroom (Agaricus bisporus). In a 100 gram reference amount, Agaricus mushrooms provide 22 calories and are 92% water, 3% carbohydrates, 3% protein, and 0.3% fat (table). They contain high levels (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of riboflavin, niacin, and pantothenic acid (24–33% DV), with moderate content of phosphorus (table). Otherwise, raw white mushrooms generally have low amounts of essential nutrients (table). Although cooking (by boiling) lowers mushroom water content only 1%, the contents per 100 grams for several nutrients increase appreciably, especially for dietary minerals (table for boiled mushrooms).
The content of vitamin D is absent or low unless mushrooms are exposed to sunlight or purposely treated with artificial ultraviolet light (see below), even after harvesting and processed into dry powder.[16][17]
Vitamin D [ edit ]
Mushrooms exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light produce vitamin D 2 before or after harvest by converting ergosterol, a chemical found in large concentrations in mushrooms, to vitamin D 2.[16][17] This is similar to the reaction in humans, where vitamin D 3 is synthesized after exposure to sunlight.
Testing showed an hour of UV light exposure before harvesting made a serving of mushrooms contain twice the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's daily recommendation of vitamin D, and 5 minutes of artificial UV light exposure after harvesting made a serving of mushrooms contain four times the FDA's daily recommendation of vitamin D.[16] Analysis also demonstrated that natural sunlight produced vitamin D 2.[17]
The ergocalciferol, vitamin D 2, in UV-irradiated mushrooms is not the same form of vitamin D as is produced by UV-irradiation of human skin or animal skin, fur, or feathers (cholecalciferol, vitamin D 3 ). Although vitamin D 2 clearly has vitamin D activity in humans and is widely used in food fortification and in nutritional supplements, vitamin D 3 is more commonly used in dairy and cereal products.
Name Chemical composition Structure Vitamin D 1 ergocalciferol with lumisterol, 1:1[18] Vitamin D 2 ergocalciferol (made from ergosterol) Vitamin D 3 cholecalciferol (made from 7-Dehydrocholesterol in the skin).
The photochemistry of Vitamin D biosynthesis
Use in traditional medicine [ edit ]
Medicinal mushrooms are mushrooms or extracts from mushrooms that are thought to be treatments for diseases, yet remain unconfirmed in mainstream science and medicine, and so are not approved as drugs or medical treatments.[19] Such use of mushrooms therefore falls into the domain of traditional medicine[20] for which there is no high-quality clinical evidence of efficacy.[21][22]
Preliminary research on mushroom extracts has been conducted to determine if anti-disease properties exist, such as for polysaccharide-K[23] or lentinan.[24] Some extracts have widespread use in Japan, Korea and China, as potential adjuvants to radiation treatments and chemotherapy.[25][26] As of 2019, there is no evidence that consuming mushrooms or mushroom extracts has any effect on human diseases.[21][22]
Safety concerns [ edit ]
Some wild species are toxic, or at least indigestible, when raw.[27] The safety of consuming Reishi mushrooms has not been adequately demonstrated, as of 2019.[21] Reishi mushrooms may cause side effects including dryness of the mouth or throat, itchiness, rash, stomach upset, diarrhea, headache, or allergic reactions.[21] Failure to identify poisonous mushrooms and confusing them with edible ones has resulted in death.[27][28][29]
A collection of dried mushrooms
Stuffed mushrooms prepared using portabello mushrooms
Production [ edit ]
Mushroom and truffle output in 2011
Mushroom- and truffle-producing countries in 2011[30] Country Output tonnes long tons short tons % of world output Albania 123 121 136 0.00160 Algeria 220 220 240 0.00286 Australia 49,696 48,911 54,780 0.646 Austria 1,600 1,600 1,800 0.0208 Azerbaijan 1,450 1,430 1,600 0.0188 Belarus 5,934 5,840 6,541 0.0771 Belgium 41,556 40,900 45,808 0.540 Bosnia and Herzegovina 994 978 1,096 0.0129 Brunei Darussalam 11 11 12 0.000143 Bulgaria 2,171 2,137 2,393 0.0282 Canada 78,930 77,680 87,010 1.03 People's Republic of China 5,008,850 4,929,740 5,521,310 65.1 Cyprus 730 720 800 0.00948 Czech Republic 361 355 398 0.00469 Denmark 10,304 10,141 11,358 0.134 Estonia 125 123 138 0.00162 Finland 1,668 1,642 1,839 0.0217 France 115,669 113,842 127,503 1.50 Germany 62,000 61,000 68,000 0.805 Greece 3,255 3,204 3,588 0.0423 Hungary 14,249 14,024 15,707 0.185 Iceland 583 574 643 0.00757 India 41,000 40,000 45,000 0.533 Indonesia 45,851 45,127 50,542 0.596 Iran 37,664 37,069 41,517 0.489 Ireland 67,063 66,004 73,924 0.871 Israel 10,001 9,843 11,024 0.130 Italy 761,858 749,826 839,805 9.90 Japan 60,180 59,230 66,340 0.782 Jordan 1,123 1,105 1,238 0.0146 Kazakhstan 558 549 615 0.00725 Kyrgyzstan 201 198 222 0.00261 Latvia 517 509 570 0.00672 Lithuania 13,008 12,803 14,339 0.169 Luxembourg 5 4.9 5.5 0.0000649 Madagascar 2,087 2,054 2,301 0.0271 Malta 947 932 1,044 0.0123 Moldova 475 467 524 0.00617 Mongolia 278 274 306 0.00361 Morocco 2,045 2,013 2,254 0.0266 Netherlands 304,000 299,000 335,000 3.95 New Zealand 9,884 9,728 10,895 0.128 North Korea 6,777 6,670 7,470 0.0880 Philippines 571 562 629 0.00742 Poland 198,235 195,104 218,517 2.57 Portugal 1,240 1,220 1,370 0.0161 Romania 7,661 7,540 8,445 0.0995 Russia 4,200 4,100 4,600 0.0546 Réunion 61 60 67 0.000792 Serbia 4,851 4,774 5,347 0.0630 Singapore 200 200 220 0.00260 Slovakia 1,898 1,868 2,092 0.0247 Slovenia 1,060 1,040 1,170 0.0138 South Africa 12,568 12,370 13,854 0.163 South Korea 30,574 30,091 33,702 0.397 Spain 127,000 125,000 140,000 1.65 Switzerland 8,465 8,331 9,331 0.110 Thailand 6,791 6,684 7,486 0.0882 Macedonia 2,784 2,740 3,069 0.0362 Tunisia 122 120 134 0.00158 Turkey 27,058 26,631 29,826 0.351 Ukraine 14,000 14,000 15,000 0.182 United Kingdom 69,300 68,200 76,400 0.900 United States 390,902 384,728 430,896 5.08 Uzbekistan 661 651 729 0.00859 Vietnam 21,957 21,610 24,203 0.285 Zimbabwe 613 603 676 0.00796 World 7,698,773 7,577,183 8,486,445 100
See also [ edit ]James Wan was at the Television Critics Association press tour this week to discuss CBS' MacGyver series, which he directed the pilot for. I sat down with Wan to talk about his new take on that classic '80s series (I’ll have more from our conversation on MacGyver soon), but we also chatted about his next project – the DC Extended Universe movie Aquaman, starring Jason Momoa.
The director of Saw, Insidious 1 and 2, The Conjuring 1 and 2, and Furious 7 chatted about his approach to the character, conveying speech underwater, what Aquaman comic book writer influenced his movie version, and more – and why he feels Aquaman is the Wolverine of the Justice League/DCEU.
IGN: With Aqauman, we’re going to meet him in Justice League first. Did you discuss how he'd be defined there, before moving into your movie?
James Wan: Yeah, as much as I possibly could; as much as I could get in there. The train on Justice League has kind of set off already! That's basically Zack's vision for that world, but you know, early on, Zack [Snyder] tried to involve me as much as he could and I really appreciated that. It's just that it was very hard for me to solely focus on it, because I was still in the midst of finishing up and shooting Conjuring 2 for Warner Bros. - the same studio! So it's this very interesting world, you know? As much as they wanted me to be involved with Aquaman early on, I was busy making a movie for them. [Laughs] But now that everything is finishing up, I'm definitely getting in there much, much more. And I'm definitely really excited about running with my standalone movie.
IGN: How do you approach communication underwater? On a comic book page, it's easy to do...
Wan: Yeah, speech bubbles, right?! Maybe it'll be speech bubbles. [Laughs] I never thought about that... Words come out of the bubbles. It's brilliant! That's a cool visual.
IGN: [Laughs] Hey, it would be a literal adaptation!
Wan: It would be very literal, yeah! No, here's the thing I always say, if you have water in your lungs, like these characters do, there's no air bubble. So I don't know... I just think in my movie, I want to kind of create... I love the idea of underwater speaking but with a real sort of sonic, aquatic quality to it. So there's this sort of aquatic, almost sonar/whale thing. Even though it's in a human language, there’s this slight sort of underlay to it, this ping to it, which I think would be interesting for us to design from a sound design perspective. Yeah, it will be fun. Also, Zack has some ideas that he'll be doing in Justice League.
Listen, I'll be honest, in some ways, JL will be an experiment for me to see what works and what may not work as well. And then kind of go, okay... Here’s the great thing, with all these superhero movies, you watch from one movie to another, and they always sort of slightly change things along the way. You kind of have to do that to make what's best for your film.
IGN: Everything is very analyzed with these movies and people are talking about what was reshoot on one or different versions on another. Do you try and put that aside and just think, "I have to do my story here for Aquaman. This is what I'm focusing on"?
Wan: You have to. You have to. You have to make the best movie you can. You have to make the best movie out of yours. You want to stay true and you want to be respectful and honor the world that we all collectively live together - the cinematic universe. So you want to honor that, but at the same time, you've got to make the best movie you can for your own movie.
IGN: So I have to ask about The Wrap reporting Black Manta is your villain...
Wan: Dude, you know I can't tell you that! [Laughs] Come on! As much as I want to share this with you, I can't do that this early on.
IGN: Are there certain creator runs or storylines from the comics that were a big influence as you were putting together the movie?
Wan: Listen, I'll be honest, I really love what Geoff Johns did with it. I really think he took this character that had become the joke of the superhero world and made him frickin' cool again. And I really admire it and that is my leaping off point.
IGN: Is it interesting working with Jason on the approach to the character, and as you mentioned, overcome people's preconceived notions?
Wan: Yeah, I actually think it's a brilliant move on Zack and co. to cast someone like Jason. Immediately, the whole joke aspect of Aquaman goes out the window. You have such a muscular, superhero-y character and one that is almost, to me, in some ways... I look at him, he's kind of the Wolverine in some respect. He's the outsider who gets pulled into this world and he kind of doesn't want to belong and he was doing his own thing. And he prided freedom above everything else. That kind of plays nicely into who his character is. He's like a reluctant superhero, right? He's the reluctant king, basically, or would-be king.
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman.Facebook is suing a Toronto-based porn company and 17 people for allegedly trying to hack the social networking site for the personal information of its users.
According to an amended statement of claim filed by Facebook in San Jose, Calif., Istra Holdings Inc. — which does business online under the name SlickCash — and the other defendants attempted to access its servers more than 200,000 times in June. SlickCash offers advertising commissions to web publishers fordirectingsurfers to itscollection of adult sites.
"The defendants knowingly and without permission took, copied, or made use of, data from Facebook's proprietary computers and computer network," said the amended statement of claim, filed last Wednesday.
Facebook did not saywhat information was stolen. The company said the attacks caused it to incur costs of$5,000 US and that it intends toseek additionaldamages, saying its reputation had been "irreparably" harmed.
The lawsuit also names Brian Fabian and Josh Raskin, who work at Istra in Toronto, and Ming Wu of Markham, Ont. It also says there are 14 other defendants, but doesn't name them.It is unclear whether any have filed a statement of defence.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Facebook said the automated scripts used by the defendants to try and infiltrate the site resulted in error messages being generated.
"Each of these requests sought to direct Facebook's computers to send information on other Facebook users back to [the company's internet protocol] address," the statement of claim said.
"These requests for information from Facebook generated error messages and were detected as unauthorized attempts to access and harvest proprietary information."
Facebook initially filed the lawsuit in June, but filed an amendment in December after successfully getting court orders that forced internet service providers Rogers Communications Inc. and Look Communications Inc.to divulge subscriber information.
Facebook had asked both companies to turn over the information voluntarily, but they refused, court document show.
"We have a policy that we do not turn over customer information without a valid court order," Rogers spokeswoman Taanta Gupta toldthe Canadian Press.
"Those are the steps to balance privacy with the requirements of the law."There are perhaps few things more symbolic of Toronto than its streetcars. For more than 150 years, surface rail has formed the backbone of the city’s public transportation system, and despite numerous struggles and threats of abolition, it’s still streetcars that principally serve the downtown core: 240 vehicles carrying some 290,000 daily riders across 11 lines.
154 years ago this week, work started on the city’s first streetcar route: a horse-drawn “street railway” between Yorkville town hall just north of Yonge and Bloor and St. Lawrence Hall on King St.
The route was chosen based on its popularity. The city’s first public transit company, founded by cabinet maker and undertaker H. Burt Williams in 1849, operated a stagecoach service between roughly the same two points, linking the Toronto’s main market with what was then the independent town of Yorkville.
Williams started out with just four “omnibuses,” each one capable of carrying just six passengers, but as the business and ridership grew, so did the fleet. By the 1850s, buses were leaving every few minutes during peak hours.
The Toronto Street Railway company was founded in 1861 by Alex Easton of Philadelphia. His vehicles, while still pulled behind a horse, promised a smoother ride compared to the Williams buses. The city’s roads were still unsealed in the 1860s, and the surface was often rutted by wagon wheels or a muddy quagmire in the rain.
Tenders for Easton’s street railway were printed in the Globe and other Toronto newspapers in Feb. 1861. The advertisements, which carried the official seal of the City of Toronto, sought companies interested in acquiring “the privilege of construction horse railways on the streets of the city.” The deadline for proposals was 14th March.
Sensing the arrival of a street railway would mean an uptick in business, merchants on Yonge St. began marketing their products around the transit line. A tea shop at the corner of present day Yonge and Dundas invited “everybody from the peasant to the prince” to pay a visit when the line opened.
Construction started with the laying of rails on Yonge St. north of Bloor on August 15, 1861. “The work will be prosecuted with vigour, and Mr. Easton anticipates that the cars will be running on the track in about a month,” the Globe wrote.
Amazingly, Easton had pledged to lay roughly three kilometres of track, import streetcars from Philadelphia, and acquire all the various sundries needed to operate a transit service in just four weeks. The feat wasn’t deemed remarkable in 1861, but it should have been. The rails were also being imported from Philadelphia and other metal parts were shipped from a foundry in Hamilton.
At some point in the pre-construction phase, a decision was made that still effects modern TTC streetcar and subway operations. The track gauge, the distance between the rails, was set at an unusual 4 ft. 10 7/8 inches—slightly wider than the gap used by most other railways. According to Transit Toronto, this was so public wagons could use the rails, too.
From the Articles of Agreement between the Toronto Street Railway and the City of Toronto: “The gauge of the said railways shall be such that the ordinary vehicles now in use may travel on the said tracks.” The iron-tired wagon wheels of private carts could use the inside of the metal rail, the city thought, and the streetcar wheels the outside, provided the former didn’t interfere with the latter.
In future years, instead of replacing the city’s entire network of streetcar rail, the TRC and its successor the TTC simply bought vehicles that fit the existing track. Even the new Bombardier low floor streetcars and the Rocket subway train are designed to use the TRC track gauge that was chosen to suit 19th century horse-drawn wagons.
By August 30, just 15 days after work started, the track reached Queen and Yonge. That day, the city’s first streetcars arrived at the Queen’s Wharf near present day Bathurst and Lake Shore. Seven “comfortable, tasteful” vehicles with views of various Toronto buildings printed on the outside were brought on the back of wagons to Yorkville where they were met with cheers and applause from a group of about 300 people.
Each streetcar held 24 people, making the capacity of Toronto’s first streetcar system 168—about 35 fewer than can be squeezed into a single articulated streetcar on Queen St. during a typical rush hour today.
As Easton promised, the line opened less than a month after construction began, on September 10. The first streetcar was scheduled to leave Yorkville at 4:00 p.m. loaded with dignitaries, but as the car pulled out of the barn it was mobbed by boisterous well-wishers who claimed the seats for themselves and refused to budge.
Drawn by a single horse, the first car had barely traveled a block before it derailed at Bloor St. “The passengers inside alighted and assisted in placing the vehicle on the rails again,” the Globe reported. “This occurred several times with all the cars on the journey, but the passengers treated the delay as a joke, and the crowd were always ready to give a ‘shove’ or a ‘lift’ to keep moving.”
When the first car reached St. Lawrence Hall, the passengers “gave three hearty cheers for the Queen” and a band struck up the national anthem.
Toronto had its streetcars, and the city felt like celebrating. A concert and ball was held at Yorkville Town Hall that evening, featuring a vocal performance by Augusta Robinson, the wife of Toronto mayor John Beverley Robinson, and the band of the British Army’s 30th (Cambridgeshire) Regiment of Foot.
“Everybody there seemed determined to be pleased,” the Globe reported. “Even the rain, which fell heavily in the evening, was looked upon as a sort of blessing.”Predators' Ryan Ellis ready to return to lineup
Assuming he doesn't suffer a setback before tonight, it's looking more and more like defenseman Ryan Ellis will return to the Predators' lineup against Minnesota.
Nashville Predators (Photo: File)
Ellis hasn't played since Jan. 8, missing the team's past 21 contests with a lower-body injury. He's still on injured reserve but has been skating with the team for several days.
At Thursday's morning skate, Preds defenseman Victor Bartley was on the ice for a lengthy time, which usually means a player isn't in the game that night. His departure from the lineup would open a spot for Ellis.
After the morning skate, Predators coach Peter Laviolette and Ellis both said no decision had been made. But Ellis said he feels ready and would love to be back in the lineup.
Assuming Ellis does return tonight, he'll likely be paired with Seth Jones. Both players are right-handed shots, but Jones has some experience on the left side, so he'll move over.
Ellis and Jones haven't spent a great deal of time as a defensive pairing this year, but they have played together at times – such as on the power play and late in games when Nashville has needed offense.
"Seth is a great player, he moves the puck really well and he skates really well," Ellis said. "He's got a great head on his shoulders. … It's more or less just getting used to two righties out there, but other than that, it should just take us a couple of games to get comfortable."
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At the time of his injury, Ellis had posted 18 points (five goals, 13 assists) in 40 games. But he knows it will be a challenge getting his conditioning back after missing close to two months.
"Nothing is like playing a game," Ellis said. "You can run, ride a bike and do everything to try to keep you up to speed. But there's nothing that is going to prepare you like a game would. More or less, when I get out there, it's just taking it slow and kind of not overstepping anything, not forcing anything and keeping it simple the first couple games."
Read or Share this story: http://tnne.ws/1Ac2QA8Alshon Jeffery is set to hit the open NFL free agency market in 2017, and there are going to be a lot of teams lined up with an interest in signing him. It isn’t very often that a superstar wide receiver hits the open market. His current situation with the Chicago Bears hasn’t gone very well, and there are serious issues that the two sides have with each other.
Chicago will likely attempt to re-sign Jeffery, but he is not happy with the way they have negotiated with him thus far. He may very well stop listening to their offers and might have already decided to move on from the Bears.
According to a report from Jeff Dickerson of ESPN, Jeffery has shrugged off his disappointment about not getting a new deal and is focused on the upcoming NFL season.
One team that should make an aggressive move to sign Jeffery next offseason is the Indianapolis Colts. He would give star quarterback Andrew Luck a legitimate No. 1 wide receiver. Jeffery would also make for one of the NFL’s top one-two punches at the wide receiver position with T.Y. Hilton.
Last season with the Bears, Jeffery ended up catching 54 passes for 807 yards and four touchdowns. He is one of the league’s most physical and athletic receivers and will go catch anything thrown his way. Those numbers were put up in just nine regular season games, due to injury issues that he struggled with throughout the entire season.
[Photo by AP Photo/L.G. Patterson] Indianapolis is without question a serious contender in the AFC playoff race. They have grown their team the right way through the draft and are ready to spend some big money on winning a championship. Adding a talent like Jeffery would take the Colts to the next level.
Jeffery is mentioned as one of the many candidates to win the NFL MVP award by Bovada Sportsbook. That doesn’t mean a whole lot, but still shows that he is a well-respected player.
There will be a lot of teams that the Colts will have to compete against if they want to sign Jeffery. He is one of the best wide receivers in the league and a lot of big contracts will be thrown his way. That being said, the Colts can offer him a much better opportunity to compete for a ring than most teams can.
Ryan Grigson has been known to be very aggressive in free agency over the years. He has made some very good moves but has also come through with some boneheaded decisions. Signing Jeffery would not come with much risk with the consistency that he has shown throughout his career.
It will be interesting to see what the Colts’ 2016 NFL season looks like when everything is said and done. They are hoping to bounce back from the disappointment that they dealt with throughout the 2015 season. Luck dealt with major injuries last season, and his return should help the Colts get back into the upper echelon in the AFC.
[Photo by AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt] At just 26-years-old, Jeffery still has potential to work his way into. Indianapolis would know exactly what they will get, although there will be room for improvement as well.
Expect to hear plenty of rumors with Jeffery’s name attached next offseason and throughout the 2016 season. If the Colts are smart, they will be one of the teams with the most interest in signing him. Jeffery would be a franchise changer for the Colts and would make Luck a much more dangerous quarterback than he has been thus far in his career.
Do you think that the Indianapolis Colts would be one of the top landing spots for Alshon Jeffery in free agency? Would the Colts become a top Super Bowl contender moving forward with him on board? Let us know your thoughts in the comment box below!
[Photo by AP Photo/Matt Rourke]India and Russia +
Vladmir Putin +
BRICS Summit +
NEW DELHI: In a game-changing arms acquisition, India is going to ink a Rs 39,000 crore deal for five new-generation Russian S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems, which can destroy incoming hostile aircraft, stealth fighters, missiles and drones at ranges of up to 400-km.will also finalise the long-awaited agreement for the joint production of around 200 Kamov 226T light utility helicopters at a cost of about $1 billion under the "Make in India" programme.With Russian Presidentheaded for India to attend thein Goa, the S-400 deal as well as the joint venture for helicopters to be established between defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics and Russian Rostec State Corporation will be inked over the weekend.TOI was the first to report in October 2015 that India had decided to purchase the S-400 systems, which basically have three kinds of missiles, with different capabilities, that can fly at supersonic and hypersonic speeds to intercept all kinds of targets at ranges from 120 to 400-km. Russian experts even proclaim the S-400 surface-to-air missile (SAM) system can "radar lock and shoot down" stealth fifth-generation fighters like the American F-35 jets.This procurement comes over a year after China sealed a $3 billion deal with Russia for acquisition of six S-400 batteries. China is slated to get the S-400 batteries, which is designated `SA-21 Growler' by NATO and rivals the anti-ballistic missile capabilities of the US Patriot PAC-3 system, from 2017 onwards.As for the Kamov helicopters, which will replace the aging and obsolete Cheetah and Chetak fleets of the armed forces, the deal will be signed between defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics and Russian Rostec State Corporation. HAL and Rostec will form a joint venture to set up the production facilities to execute the deal.As was reported by TOI last month, the decks had been cleared for the helicopter deal after a flurry of high-level meetings between the two countries. After a pronounced tilt towards the US in terms of defence deals and military-to-military ties over the last decade, India has reassured Russia that their traditional strategic partnership and defence projects will continue as before.Negotiations for other mega defence projects with Russia like the joint development of the futuristic fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) and the $1.5 billion lease of a second nuclear-powered submarine are also on track now.Soon after it had come to office in 2014, the NDA government had scrapped the long-pending acquisition of 197 light-utility helicopters from abroad, the selection process for which has been dogged by corruption allegations and technical deviations.The armed forces have waited a long time for new helicopters to replace their Cheetah/Chetak helicopters, which are even used even in high-altitude areas like Siachen. In all, the Army and IAF need 384 light-utility helicopters. HAL, which was tasked to manufacture 187 similar helicopters in 2009, too, is yet to deliver.On paper, this was a game Dortmund should've won handily. With Hoffenheim second to last, and Dortmund second behind the leaders, the home side were naturally the big favorites. However, Hoffenheim are a team that have always played well against Dortmund since we failed to relegate them at the end of the 2012-2013 season, and they turned up once again at the Westfalenstadion today.
Despite missing our two first choice center halves to injury, our line-up was a strong one. Nuri Sahin got his first Bundesliga start in exactly 365 days, while Gündoğan was on the bench after coming off at halftime against Porto. It was another game where we failed to create many chances playing a 4-2-3-1, with a doppelsechs instead of deeper lying playmakers like Gündoğan. In Mats Hummels' absence, the build up from defense to offense was lacking, despite Sahin's presence.
In the first half, we did very little offensively, lacking any creativity, and we didn't make up for it with good defense, either. Newly appointed manager Julian Nagelsmann had Hoffenheim dominating our midfield, and they scored on a counter-attack in the 25th minute. Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Bürki could've done a little better on the original shot from Kevin Volland, which was parried right to the feet of birthday boy Sebastian Rudy who converted the tap in.
It was nearly 2-0 a few minutes later, but Bürki made a good save on Kevin Volland's shot from close range. The closest Dortmund came to a goal in the first half was a free kick from Marco Reus, which was nicely saved by Hoffenheim keeper Oliver Baumann. We haven't scored a free kick since Robert Lewandowski scored one on the last game of the 2013-2014 season against Hertha, so it's no surprise that this one was kept out.
At the start of the second half, Ilkay Gündoğan was brought on for Shinji Kagawa, who didn't do much to impress in the first half, along with the rest of the Dortmund team. A lot of criticism was aimed at Kagawa, but he certainly wasn't the only one who wasn't on the top of his game today, i.e. Marco Reus. Just two minutes after coming on, Gündoğan tore through the Hoffenheim defense and nearly scored a wonder solo goal, but it hit the post and Reus fired the rebound over. Right after, Hoffenheim went straight up the pitch and Mark Uth forced Bürki to make another good save.
The game changed significantly in Dortmund's favor when Sebastian Rudy picked up a straight red card after a cynical foul on Aubameyang. In the 57th minute, Rudy slid in from behind and clipped Aubameyang when he had no chance of winning the ball. Despite not being the last man, it broke up a good goalscoring chance for Dortmund, which was enough for the referee to deem it a red card offense. With Rudy off, Hoffenheim put everyone behind the ball and tried to hold onto their lead for the rest of the game. They did a pretty good job of it, but Dortmund ended up making the inevitable breakthrough.
Photo by Lars Baron/Bongarts/Getty Images
The equalizer came in the 80th minute off a short corner, where Mkhitaryan played a one-two with Gündoğan, who played in Mkhitaryan. Henrikh finished it neatly with his left foot into the far corner, and opened up the floodgates for Dortmund. Mkhitaryan was one of Dortmund's only consistently good performers throughout the game. A lot is being discussed about Gündoğan and his impact on the Dortmund team, but Henrikh Mkhitaryan is another crucial player for Dortmund who really needs to sign a contract extension. He was my personal man of the match, and I've got his jersey coming in the mail!
The go ahead goal finally came in the 85th minute, and it was once again created by Ilkay Gündoğan, who played in Lukasz Piszczek with a clever lofted pass. Piszczek delivered a good cross from the byline, and it found Adrian Ramos' head who scored his third goal of the Bundesliga season. The goal could go a long way for his confidence, as he's been out of favor since the start of the Ruckrunde, and could see some more action considering we're still alive in three competitions. Our first choice striker, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, finally got his goal for the day in the 91st minute, on a counter-attack started by Adrian Ramos. Aubameyang didn't have much service for most of the game, but he was able to convert a tap in assisted by Mkhitaryan to put him at 22 goals for the season.
This performance wasn't Dortmund's best, but it was very encouraging to see them come from behind emphatically, even if they were given a huge advantage with the red card. Without it, it's hard to say that we certainly would've won, as Dortmund didn't look like scoring until much later in the game. It was evident that Hoffenheim still have our number, and look like a team that should be able to avoid relegation. There's a full slate of Bundesliga games midweek, which sees Dortmund take on Darmstadt away, a team who play dirty, dive, and will be tough to beat if we play like we did before the red card today.The European Union has signaled its desire to link the bloc's emissions trading scheme (ETS) with a similar system in California, due to open next year.
EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard has been in California this week to discuss the idea with state governor Jerry Brown and Californian Air Resources Board chairwoman Mary Nicholls.
The californian scheme is set to be the second largest of its kind, after the EU's, and comes after attempts to create a national US trading scheme were rejected by the country's senate.
In December, EU member states mandated the commission to starts negotiations on linking the EU's ETS with a similar system in Switzerland, but the California hook-up would be considerably bigger.
Transactions on the EU ETS were valued at roughly €72 billion in 2010, with Energy analysts Point Carbon predicting the California cap and trade scheme |
trend of a widening Hillary Clinton lead over opponent Donald Trump, a new poll out Friday shows the race is actually tightening in the battleground state of New Hampshire.
A WBUR survey found Clinton up 41 percent to Trump’s 38 percent among likely voters -- a three-point edge that’s still within the poll’s margin of error of 4.4 percentage points. Libertarian party nominee Gary Johnson has 11 percent of support.
A head-to-head matchup between Trump and Clinton would yield a slightly larger lead for the Democratic presidential nominee: Forty-six percent for Clinton, with 41 percent for Trump.
Trump lashes out at media; Michelle Obama blasts Trump
In WBUR’s last New Hampshire poll, which was taken in late September, Clinton led Trump by seven points.
New Hampshire voters remain skeptical about both candidates, though Clinton retains a slight advantage when it comes to favorability ratings. Forty percent of likely voters view Clinton in a favorable light, while 34 percent see Trump that way. And while 41 percent say Clinton is a “role model for young people,” just 13 percent see Trump similarly.
The poll was conducted just days after Sunday’s presidential debate, when Trump was able to publicly respond to the vulgar 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape where he can be heard saying that he would sometimes “grab [women] by the p****.” The survey, however, was taken before the latest allegations of sexual assault against Trump were published in various media outlets like the New York Times. Trump has denied those accusations, calling them “pure fiction” and “outright lies.”
The New Hampshire poll also found voters were tied when it came to the U.S. Senate race, with current Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte and her Democratic challenger, Gov. Maggie Hassan, earning 47 percent of support each. Sixty-one percent of those surveyed said Ayotte made the right decision when she withdrew her endorsement from Trump after the unaired “Access Hollywood” recording surfaced.
The WBUR poll surveyed 501 likely voters from Oct. 10-12.Author’s note: For the past few years, I’ve searched for videos of John Madden and Pat Summerall celebrating Thanksgiving. Much to my chagrin, they did not exist online. Much thanks to Fox Sports for putting this compilation video together to accompany this piece.
For over 20 years, John Madden and Pat Summerall were a quintessential part of the American Thanksgiving experience. They were an institution. On Thanksgiving and Sundays throughout the Fall, they had a gravitas that conveyed the game at hand was a big deal and a relatable sincerity, in their triumphs and struggles, that made them transcend the screen. You felt like you were watching the game with them in your living room.
“[That] is the goal,” their longtime producer Bob Stenner, whose legendary 50-year run included a vast majority of the Madden and Summerall partnership at CBS and Fox, tells The Big Lead. “Viewers are more perceptive than they get credit for. The goal is for you to feel like you are sitting with these guys watching a game. They’re not preaching to you. They’re not insulting you or your intelligence. It’s just yourself and these two guys watching a football game. They had that ability. It was natural to them.”
FESTIVE OCCASION
The banquets held with the network broadcasting team one or two nights before Thanksgiving were the stuff of legend. As Richard Deitsch noted in 2013, the tradition dates back to when Summerall and Tom Brookshier were the top NFL announcer team at CBS, and continued with Madden and Summerall at CBS, when they moved to Fox, and with other broadcasting crews ever since. (After working with Summerall at CBS and Fox for over 20 years, Madden did Monday Night Football on ABC and later Sunday Night Football on NBC with Al Michaels.)
“With a lot of people working on television on Thanksgiving day, you think about how they’re away from their family and they don’t get to have the [holiday celebration], but the dinners that we had the night before Thanksgiving were as much about family as anything else,” Madden’s longtime agent Sandy Montag tells The Big Lead. “It was a special time and an emotional time. You spend that much time on the road together and you are family. Sometimes, people there were having more fun in that environment than they would at home anyhow.”
These banquets were festive and inclusive; Montag recalls that Madden nudged the networks to invite the referees. While everyone is aware that the players, coaches, and broadcasters are away from home and family during the holiday, Madden wanted to make sure that the oft-forgotten officiating crew was not left out.
These evenings were such a profound part of their experience that Madden brought them up in his eulogy for Summerall in 2013.
“We had 22 straight Thanksgivings,” he said. “Now most people talk about Thanksgiving, and they say, ‘You know, it’s family. How is it being away from your family? And we said for years, and they weren’t idle words, ‘This is our family.'”
For the production team, the actual broadcasting of the game wasn’t much different, but there was an element that Bob Stenner, stressing that he did not mean this word pejoratively, classified as “window-dressing.” The booth was thematically adorned. Segments were pre-shot visiting schools, or with players’ families. “We kind of did the same thing at Christmas time, but we tried to bring the families in and explain what the holiday means and bring the thankfulness of it into the game,” Stenner says.
And of course, they talked turkey.
YUM
Of much intrigue throughout the game was which player(s) would earn the coveted turkey leg from Madden. “It first started as a regular, traditional two-legged turkey that Pat got from a BBQ restaurant in Dallas, and then it ended up being a six-legged turkey and then at the end it ended up being an eight-legged turkey,” says Lance Barrow of CBS Sports. “It was always a big deal. There was a police escort. Policemen, or other people from the crew, would bring the turkey out in the fourth quarter.”
Directed by Sandy Grossman and produced by Bob Stenner, the Madden/Summerall broadcasting crew was a breeding ground for behind-the-scenes workers who ascended to the top of the industry and remain there today. Barrow worked as a spotter for Summerall at CBS in the mid-70’s, became a Broadcast Associate then Assistant Director on the Madden/Summerall crew, and is now the Coordinating Producer for the network’s top NFL team and its golf coverage. Rich Russo and Richie Zyontz direct and produce the biggest NFL games on Fox. Mike Arnold is a Lead Director for CBS.
One of the enduring cultural impacts of the Thanksgiving broadcasts has been the turducken. The reason there was not a red squiggly line when I typed that word is John Madden. It was no secret that Madden loved to eat. Rather than being someone who would dine at fancy steakhouses or cosmopolitan hotspots, he had sophisticated tastes in unsophisticated food and was constantly on the hunt for dishes and spots like you’d see Guy Fieri eat.
For Madden’s “All-Madden Haul of Fame,” he put up plaques commemorating players at his favorite dives across America, which he famously crisscrossed by bus (if you’re interested in what that was like, Peter King rode along in the Madden Cruiser on a 1990 trip from Oakland to Manhattan, and aptly called Madden a “witness to America”).
Mike Singletary and Anthony Munoz were inducted in 1991’s inaugural class at Chuy’s, a Mexican restaurant outside El Paso where there was a big-screen TV and a husband and wife served what Madden wrote were “the best tamales I’ve ever had. Not that fancy Mexican stuff and foamy margaritas you get in those trendy places. Just real food and real beer.”
It was not uncommon for Madden to receive unsolicited turkeys around Thanksgiving, but one weekend before the holiday in the 1980’s would change everything. He was introduced through a Saints assistant to Glenn Mistich, proprietor of The Gourmet Butcher Block in New Orleans, who sent a turducken up to the booth. This was a duck stuffed inside a chicken stuffed inside a turkey — all deboned — with crawfish dressing and Creole dressing in between, that you sliced like a cake. “It was the most unbelievable thing you ever tasted,” recalls Sandy Montag.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune delved into the origin story in 2005:
“I’m there eating this turducken with my fingers,” Madden recalled. “(Saints owner) Tom Benson comes in and I have all this stuff on my fingers and I’m doing that thing in my head where I’m wondering, ‘Do I shake his hand?'” (For the record: Madden did shake Benson’s hand, sticky fingers and all, and he said the two haven’t spoken since.)
If you’re like me and wondering, the “All-Madden Turducken” is available online, for $139.95 plus shipping, which is not outrageous considering it feeds 20-25 people.
SUMMERALL’S BACKGROUND
By the time John Madden joined CBS in 1979, Pat Summerall was an established broadcaster. He’d been working in the field for two decades, and long since risen to the top of the profession.
Summerall had played in the NFL from 1952 through 1961 on the Detroit Lions, Chicago Cardinals, and New York Giants. The Cardinals were a lousy organization by the end of Summerall’s time with the team, and Summerall received a major blessing when Frank “Pop” Ivy lied when, upon his hiring in 1958, he told Summerall, “You’re one of our building blocks, one of the keys to success.”
Summerall was told he’d be playing both ways and place-kicking. Shortly after that, he read in the Jacksonville newspaper that he’d been traded to the Giants.
Those Giants had Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry as their offensive and defensive coordinators. Everything was first-rate. “From the uniforms and helmets to the towels and the soap in the locker room shower, it was like moving from the No-Tell Motel to the Ritz Carlton,” Summerall wrote in his 2006 autobiography.
Summerall’s most memorable moment was a 49-yard kick in the snow and swirling wind against Jim Brown’s Cleveland Browns that gave the Giants a spot in the famous 1958 NFL Championship Game against the Baltimore Colts. According to Summerall, Wellington Mara called that kick the most significant play in franchise history. (Vince Lombardi had been against the decision to kick, and Summerall recalled him later growling, “You son of a bitch, you know you can’t kick it that far!”)
The former kicker caught a lot of breaks as he climbed the ladder to the height of sports broadcasting. He had always been pretty resourceful; during some of his NFL offseasons he worked as an entrepreneurial farmer. Though he’d never again have this lucrative a harvest, there was one season where he grew watermelon, bell peppers, tomatoes, and squash and wound up with $50,000 profits, which he wrote was “nearly 10 times” his NFL salary.
Summerall’s first broadcasting break came before the 1960 season when he answered the phone for someone from WCBS-880 Radio in New York, trying to reach his roommate, quarterback Charlie Conerly. The station rep also invited Summerall to come along to audition for a weekly five-minute sportscast gig that was being vacated by Frank Gifford, who had a conflict of interest in his cigarette endorsement (Gifford signed a deal with Lucky Strike, while Camel sponsored the program). Summerall discovered he had a “knack” for it, and did those CBS spots during the 1960 and 1961 seasons.
Another conflict of interest opened the next door for Summerall. Former Bears quarterback (and Notre Dame Heisman winner) Johnny Lujack left the CBS television analyst job for Giants games, after he married into a family that owned Chevy dealerships, while Ford sponsored the games. Summerall leapt at the opportunity, where he was paid $325 a game plus travel expenses. His move coincided with a period where both the NFL and television were skyrocketing in popularity. Between 1960 and 1965, Summerall said that CBS’s NFL annual broadcasting fees went from under $5 million to $36 million.
Summerall credited play-by-play man Chris Schenkel with teaching him attention to detail in preparedness and also general tips he’d use for the duration of his career: “[Schenkel] also stressed that television was a visual medium and that I didn’t need to tell people what they could already see.” Schenkel also tipped Summerall off to a WCBS radio sports director job paying $75,000 plus advertising endorsements — a nice chunk of change in 1964.
“Even though I was working for the primary radio satellite of the CBS broadcast mothership, my job wasn’t much different from that of the radio sports guy working high-school games in Dubuque,” Summerall wrote. “I took my little tape recorder to team practices, interviewed the stars and coaches, brought the tapes back, edited them, wrote the shows, and engineered each day’s broadcast.” While this was arduous work, “it beat lugging melons to market.”
Early on, Summerall landed a big interview with Mickey Mantle. Mantle was not always friendly with reporters, but Summerall had a prior relationship with him. In a brief baseball stint with the St. Louis Cardinals’ Class C minor league team in Lawton, Oklahoma (“I might have had a chance if they’d outlawed the curve ball”) while still in college at the University of Arkansas, Summerall had been teammates with Mantle’s twin brothers Roy and Ray. Later, as a member of the Giants, Summerall shared a Yankee Stadium locker with Mantle during the months baseball and football season intersected. This access begot more access.
After only a few months doing the sportscasts, station management presented Summerall with the opportunity to take over the whole 4.5-hour morning show, a gig with an upside potential of half-a-million dollars a year. In addition to this, he remained doing football broadcasts and also picked up some reporting assignments for WCBS-TV. In early 1967, he was tapped to do pre- and post-game analysis with his old Giants teammate, Frank Gifford, for Super Bowl I, and later began doing the role of what we now refer to as a sideline reporter.
Summerall ultimately became the color analyst, working alongside Ray Scott and later Jack Buck. Buck stressed to Summerall that this was a diversion — “not Westminster Abbey” — and instructed him to loosen up. “Jack believed if we were having fun, our audience would, too,” Summerall wrote.
In 1974, after CBS Sports president Bob Wussler felt the duo of Buck and Summerall had run its course because they sounded too much alike, Summerall asked the network if he could do play-by-play. He’d soon be working alongside Tom Brookshier.
Summerall and Brookshier were opponents in their playing careers; Summerall wrote that in garbage time of a 1959 game between the Eagles and Giants that after catching a short pass “he belted me so hard in the head that my helmet split open.”
Nonetheless, when Jack Buck and Summerall got split up, Summerall and Brookshier been working together on the This Week in the NFL highlights show for NFL Films, and Summerall suggested his former adversary for the job. In addition to NFL, by the mid-to-late 70’s Summerall was also wetting his beak with calling NBA, figure skating, and the Westminster Dog Show. He’d later add golf and tennis majors to his repertoire.
Summerall and Brookshier would be a stalwart team into the 1980’s. “I still recall my days on the road with Brookie as one of the most enjoyable periods of my life,” Summerall wrote. “We painted every town red, and we had so much fun doing our jobs that the fans could feel it, too. People would write and say they’d sit down as a family and watch a football game and feel like we were a part of their gathering.”
“The rest of the world was caught up in the Bicentennial, the red dye scare, the dawn of Apple computers, the Son of Sam killer, and the Jonestown Massacre; we were focused on the next broadcast and how many drinks it would take to get us there and back.”
The carousing aspect of it was of utmost concern to CBS, which felt that the excessive drinking would either deeply embarrass the network or that one or both of their top NFL announce team would wind up dead. The final blowout was Super Bowl XV in New Orleans in early 1981, where the duo ran up a tab that was so extensive Summerall recalled Brookshier analogizing it to the Magna Carta.
Consequently, the pair was split up. The new top color commentator would be former Raiders coach John Madden, and Summerall had to audition against Vin Scully, for a half-a-season each, to keep his job.
Later on, CBS staged an intervention for Summerall, after which he went through rehab at the Betty Ford Clinic, and was very open in his later years about his recovery.
MADDEN’S BACKGROUND
Because John Madden ultimately became such an icon in broadcasting, as a pitchman, and for the video game bearing his name, his immense success during his 10 years as Raiders head coach is arguably underrated in present times. In the regular season, his teams went 103-32-7, which is good for the best winning percentage of any coach in modern NFL history. (Guy Chamberlin coached the Canton and Cleveland Bulldogs, Frankford Yellow Jackets, and Chicago Cardinals to a 58-16-7 career record in the 1920’s.)
In 1959, Madden was a 21st-round draft pick for the Philadelphia Eagles, trying to make the team as an offensive tackle. He suffered a season-ending knee injury in an August scrimmage before the season even began. In the abundance of free time, he wandered into the film room where quarterback Norm Van Brocklin was meticulously breaking down film. Throughout the season, this would be an incalculably valuable learning experience.
“For the first time in his football life, Madden was becoming a true student of the game,” Bryan Burwell wrote in the biography entitled Madden. “Van Brocklin taught him how to recognize everything an opposing defense could do. He taught him how to decipher zone, man-to-man, and combination coverages. He showed him how the secondary worked in concert with the linebackers. He revealed the secrets to attacking those defenses and took Madden on a crash course to understanding how every pass route could be used to pick apart holes in defensive coverages.”
The next year, Madden began his career as an assistant football coach at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, Calif., became the head coach there in 1962, and then went to San Diego State as a defensive assistant for three seasons. In 1967, Al Davis hired Madden to coach linebackers for the Raiders. Two years later, at the age of 32, Madden became the head coach after his predecessor John Rauch had burned out from paranoia over Davis’s cunning idiosyncrasies, leaving a team that had gone 25-3 the past three years and was one season removed from a berth in Super Bowl II.
Madden’s tenure with the Raiders, though quite successful in the aggregate, produced a lot of playoff heartbreak along the way. For years, the Steelers were Oakland’s biggest obstacle, knocking them out of the playoffs three times in four seasons in the 1970’s. The Immaculate Reception in 1972 delivered one of the most iconic gut punches in NFL history, and the Steelers’ defeats of the Raiders in the AFC Championship Games for the 1974 and 1975 seasons were also devastating.
This was an intensely bitter rivalry with violent play on both sides:
Madden and the Raiders finally got over the hump in 1976, vanquishing the Steelers in the AFC Championship game 24-7, and defeating the Vikings 32-14 in Super Bowl XI. Starters on this Raiders Super Bowl team included Ken Stabler, Fred Biletnikoff, Art Shell, Gene Upshaw, Willie Brown, George Atkinson, Cliff Branch, Dave Casper, Ted Hendricks, and Jack Tatum.
Madden was regarded as perhaps the first prominent “players’ coach.” Whereas the popular image of a football coach in this era, and many eras for that matter, is a no-nonsense drill sergeant, Madden commanded just three simple rules: Be on time, pay attention, and “play like hell” when he told them to.
“What I always remember is that as a player I was a little rebellious about things I thought were stupid,” Madden told Bryan Burwell. “I always thought some of those traditional drills teams did before games were a waste of your energy. I never wanted to do them. But most of all, when I was looking at these grown men I had to deal with — a lot of them were weirdos — and I knew the only rules I was going to have for them were rules that pertained to winning and losing. I didn’t care what they wore. I didn’t care about their facial hair. So I didn’t ask for it much. Be on time. Pay attention and play like hell when I ask you to. There was nothing else I needed.”
This was not an altruistic act from Madden. He wanted to win. Sometimes this meant taking character risks. “He was more concerned with the present and future than their pockmarked pasts,” wrote Burwell. “As affable as Madden could be with his players, he was absolute about what would happen if the guy couldn’t help. If he was a nutcase and he could play, he was an eccentric. If he was a boozer, criminal, or pill popper and couldn’t contribute, he was an asshole soon to be unemployed.”
By the end of his tenure as head coach, Madden was on a collision course toward mental and physical burnout. While he and Al Davis always had mutual respect in their relationship, the unyielding demands and late-night hours were not exactly stress-free. The film study was grueling. He binged on Maalox, Pepto-Bismol, and antacid tablets. The flying was torture. There was seemingly always an off-field fire to put out. He was missing his kids growing up. The money wasn’t even that fantastic in those days — he was making $100,000 a year in the end.
And so, at the age of 42, just two seasons removed from a Super Bowl victory, Madden left coaching and never looked back.
In June of 1979, Madden had signed a temporary deal with CBS to be a television analyst and was dismayed by the laissez-faire attitude the network was taking with his preparation and development. A summit in New York that he’d hoped would clue him in on broadcasting training wound up being for administrative and social purposes. He wanted practice and guidance, and he finally wound up getting it.
In September, he was given a rehearsal game between the 49ers and the Rams. His partner that day? A 27-year-old Bob Costas. Beforehand, nobody knew that these two would become broadcasting legends, but Costas impressed Madden with his voice and command, and Madden showed some promise.
“I’d be lying if I said I walked out of that booth thinking, This guy is going to be the next Big Thing,” Costas told Bryan Burwell. “I’d like to say I did, but I wasn’t that prescient. But did I think he had a chance to be good? I definitely did. There was something about him that was genuine. He wasn’t trying to sound like an announcer. There was something potentially spontaneous about him.”
“I always tell people this,” Costas continued. “He was extremely nice to me. And when I do say that, a lot of people might hear this and will say, ‘Well, what’s the big deal about that?’ You have to remember in 1979, he was a year removed from winning a Super Bowl, and at that time outside of St. Louis no one knew who the heck I was. There was no way he could have known that I would be subsequently successful in the business. Yet he was extremely nice to me….He wasn’t patronizing. He was really respectful. I always remember that. I am a firm believer in this: one of the measures of a person is how do they treat someone they have no reason to believe can do them that much good. I will always remember John Madden for that.”
Madden’s upward trajectory from that point on afforded him the opportunity to work with Summerall on the top team on an occasion where Brookshier had a family commitment. Summerall’s initial booth impression of Madden (who was sweating profusely over his fear of heights) was that he “certainly didn’t appear ready for primetime.”
However, he eased into the broadcast, and the pair quickly developed a natural familiarity. Summerall wrote: “With other temporary partners, I had often resorted to hand signals to let them know when I was done speaking, but it wasn’t necessary in John’s case. We were in sync.”
In 1981, two years after Madden joined CBS, he became a permanent fixture as a color commentator on the top NFL team. As previously mentioned, the first season was a battle between Vin Scully and Pat Summerall to earn the play-by-play job; as Rob Weintraub detailed in the New York Times this past May, there were a lot of competing interests and politics involved at the network executive level, and after much back-and-forth Summerall kept his job by virtue of being a better fit for football.
Summerall was unlike any other former jock in the booth, and called games with a soothing voice and a historically skilled brevity. Though he was not happy about being split from Brookshier, who was like a brother to him, his style complemented with Madden impeccably.
Summerall’s conciseness, in whatever sport he was calling, gave his analyst a chance to shine. “What made him wonderful, and one of the best who’s ever done that job, he let the analyst — be it Tom Brookshier, John Madden, or Ken Venturi or Tony Trabert on golf and tennis — he’d make them the star, and he let them be what they were supposed to be,” says Lance Barrow of CBS Sports. “Analyze the action. Analyze the game. And Pat would get them from Point A to Point B or Point C, and he never got in the way of his analyst.”
“What’s interesting is that they were not the kind of guys who would hang out together, but on Sundays, they just complemented each other,” says the producer Bob Stenner. “It was just a great style. Pat didn’t say much. John could be all over the place like you put in a pinhole in a balloon and it would fly all over the place; Pat had an ability to land safely.”
With them, football games felt like an Event. “A lot of network executives have said over the years that they were such an entertaining listen they were better during a blowout because they retained the audience because of how entertaining they were,” says their agent Sandy Montag.
Madden, between his broadcasting talents and his appearance in a series of fun and campy Miller Lite ads, was on his way to becoming one of the most recognizable pitchmen in America. Last month, he told SI’s Andy Gray that he was recognized more in the 1980’s for running through a wall in a Miller Lite spot than for having won a Super Bowl as a head coach.
Montag told me that the beer company initially coveted Al Davis for this role; Davis had zero interest and encouraged them to get Madden for it instead. The commercial has endured enough that it re-aired on a Thursday Night Football telecast a few weeks ago. Later, commercials for Ace Hardware, Tough Actin’ Tinactin, and Outback Steakhouse would also become staples.
Madden’s video game is probably his biggest source of fame and fortune. It debuted in 1988 for MS Dos and the Apple II, and landed on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis consoles in 1990 (and so on and so forth). Though his voice was also in the games, Summerall was not quite so lucky financially. EA Sports gave him an option for a four-year contract worth $75k per year, or stock in the company. Summerall chose the former; Madden chose the latter, and his stake in the company became worth millions and millions of dollars.
Taping calls for the video game was arduous work, requiring the announcers to go over thousands of scenarios with only slight differences in the mind-numbing repetitions — “running back X for one yard, two yards, etc.” — over and over and over again for five days. “The challenge in doing voice-overs is not to go insane at the sound of your own voice,” Summerall wrote.
In the booth, Madden and Summerall’s partnership excelled for over two decades, a testament to their combination of talent and likability. They personified the American Dream, ascending from little means to the utmost status by their tremendous fortune combined with seizing their opportunities. This all arose from their connection to games. By all accounts, it never went to their heads.
“I always preached that you can’t be a different guy when that red light goes on,” says Bob Stenner. “You’ve gotta just be you. It’s not like you’re an actor, where you’re one way before a game and another during it. That really doesn’t work. People see through it. Don’t take the viewers for granted. They’re smarter than we think.”
“I don’t think there’s a big secret to being good,” Stenner continued. “The secret is just to have people like you. Likability. I don’t like tension. There’s enough shit going on. I just want to relax on Sunday. I don’t want to sit on the edge of my chair. I want to sit back in my chair and enjoy the day. Pat and John allowed you to do that. You felt like you could approach them on the street and tell them you liked their work without their jumping down your throat. They were people’s people. They just were. To me, that’s the secret. You’ve got to want people like you. Don’t be phony about it. Just be who you are.”
Thanksgiving, with the love that Madden and Summerall had for the holiday, is as great of a time as any to reflect on that.
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Related The Power and Polarity of Peter VecseyFormer CIA director David Petraeus speaks after leaving the Federal Courthouse in Charlotte, North Carolina, April 23, 2015. REUTERS/Chris Keane
By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has decided not to impose further punishment on David Petraeus, a former U.S. military commander and CIA director who admitted sharing classified information with his mistress, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The short letter was sent by Stephen Hedger, the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, and the decision is in line with an Army review.
Petraeus resigned as head of the CIA in 2012 after it was revealed that he was having an affair with his biographer, Army Reserve officer Paula Broadwell. When he pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information, a court document signed by Petraeus and prosecutors said that in 2011, Petraeus illegally gave Broadwell access to official binders.
In April, the retired four-star general was sentenced to two years of probation and fined $100,000 but was spared prison time after pleading guilty to mishandling classified information.
The Pentagon could have sought to further reprimand Petraeus under military law.
Hedger's letter was addressed to Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Senator John McCain and Senator Jack Reed, who had recently asked Carter not to take further action.
The Pentagon declined to comment on the letter.
Petraeus, a counter-insurgency expert with a Princeton University doctorate, served as the top U.S. commander in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was once considered a possible vice presidential or presidential candidate.
Known as "black books," the binders that Petraeus shared with Broadwell contained classified information including identities of covert officers, code word information, war strategy, intelligence capabilities, diplomatic talks and information from high-level White House National Security Council meetings, according to court records.
Petraeus now serves as chairman of the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts' captive economic and geopolitical think tank, the KKR Global Institute, according to its website.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Bernard Orr and Bill Trott)In 2009 and 2010, Virginia Thomas became an outspoken opponent of the new President, Barack Obama. Ginni Thomas, as she is known, travelled the country as a leader of the growing Tea Party movement, which was particularly focussed on overturning the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Around the same time, legal challenges to the law were working their way to the Supreme Court, where Ginni’s husband, Clarence Thomas, serves. Media attention began to focus on the propriety of such a close association between a Justice and a public adversary of a law whose fate was before the Court. Then, shortly before the A.C.A. case came before the Justices, in 2012, something happened. Ginni Thomas stopped her public advocacy; indeed, she has virtually disappeared from public view in the past few years.
Why? Neither Thomas has ever addressed the issue publicly, but it’s possible to offer some informed speculation. The Justices, and especially Chief Justice John Roberts, are assiduous defenders of the Court’s reputation. As savvy denizens of Washington, D.C., they understand the political dimension of their work, but they are careful to avoid any taint of outside political activity that might raise questions about their ethics. This view is shared across the ideological spectrum at the Court, as the Justices believe, with some reason, that an attack on one of them could quickly expand into an attack on all. So did the Chief Justice suggest to Justice Thomas, in a gentle and deferential way, that perhaps his wife’s activities were reflecting poorly on the Court? And did Clarence and Ginni Thomas subsequently decide that she might dial back her outspoken role? It seems more than possible.
The retreat of Ginni Thomas brings to mind the emergence of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Earlier this week, Gorsuch gave a speech before the Fund for American Studies, a conservative educational and advocacy group. The Justices do occasionally speak before groups with high political profiles. Most of the Justices on the conservative wing have appeared in front of the Federalist Society, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen G. Breyer have addressed the American Constitution Society, the Federalists’ liberal counterpart. What made Gorsuch’s appearance especially notable was that it took place at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, which is the focus of several pending cases that may well wind up before the Supreme Court. These lawsuits allege that the Trump family’s ownership of the hotel, which is patronized by foreigners with interests before the executive branch, violates the emoluments clause of the Constitution. Gorsuch’s presence at the hotel could look like an endorsement of the propriety of its ownership arrangements.
Gorsuch’s Trump Hotel speech followed one he gave at the University of Louisville, where he was introduced by Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, who was, more than anyone, responsible for blocking Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the seat that Gorsuch now occupies. Gorsuch rewarded McConnell not only with an appearance in the senator’s home town but with a speech that underlined the Justice’s own conservative approach to the law.
There is nothing unlawful about Gorsuch’s speeches, though it’s hard to say just what the ethical rules are for Supreme Court Justices. They are exempt from the code that governs the conduct of other federal judges, so the Court has traditionally relied on informal self-policing. There is a strong internal culture based on the idea that no Justice should embarrass the Court; Gorsuch’s tiptoeing up to the line of advocacy for and gratitude to conservatives might earn some advice from the Chief Justice to mind the unwritten rules.
Gorsuch’s speeches might appear less distasteful to his colleagues if he had made an otherwise more graceful début on the Court. As Linda Greenhouse observed in the Times at the end of Gorsuch’s first term, he managed to violate the Court’s traditions as soon as he arrived. He dominated oral arguments, when new Justices are expected to hang back. He instructed his senior colleagues, who collectively have a total of a hundred and forty years’ experience on the Court, about how to do their jobs. Dissenting from a decision that involved the interpretation of federal laws, he wrote, “If a statute needs repair, there’s a constitutionally prescribed way to do it. It’s called legislation.” Perhaps he thought that the other Justices were unfamiliar with this thing called “legislation.” Gorsuch also expressed ill-disguised contempt for Anthony Kennedy’s landmark opinion legalizing same-sex marriage in all fifty states. Earlier this year, the Court’s majority overturned an Arkansas ruling that the state could refuse to put the name of a birth mother’s same-sex spouse on their child’s birth certificate. Dissenting, Gorsuch wrote, “Nothing in Obergefell spoke (let alone clearly) to the question.” That “let alone clearly” reflected a conservative consensus that Kennedy’s opinion was a confusing mess.
Perhaps Gorsuch will, as the years pass, prove to be a more clubbable colleague; or perhaps he’ll decide, at least socially, to go his own way. But what’s already clear is his ideology as a Justice. In his first fifteen cases on the Court, as the number-crunchers at FiveThirtyEight discovered, he joined Thomas, the most right-wing Justice, every time—and he even joined all of Thomas’s concurring opinions. Gorsuch’s outside activities may draw a private word from the Chief Justice, but Roberts would never presume (or want) to change Gorsuch’s votes. And the new Justice is casting those just as his sponsors had hoped and his opponents had feared.The UFC fighter who went viral for defecating in the ring has found a silver, er, brown, lining.
Justine Kish said she is entertaining endorsement offers from a few butt-wipe brands ― one of them is Dude Wipes, a product similar to baby wipes.
“I’m actually considering it because we could have some fun with it and maybe make the product less embarrassing and more funny,” she said Thursday on iHeart radio’s “Domenick Nati Show.”
Kish became a viral sensation for losing control of her bowels |
readopted by popular consent in the future. The Iowa Magnolia
Magnolia Flag Captured during Civil War
(Collection of the State Historical Society of Iowa) This flag was captured by the 2nd Iowa Cavalry on May 30, 1862 just north of Booneville, Mississippi. It is currently in the possession of the State Historical Society of Iowa, Des Moines, Iowa. This surviving Civil War era flag matches the 1861 Mississippi State Magnolia flag description more closely than any other currently discovered surviving Magnolia sample.
"A Flag of white ground, a Magnolia tree in the centre, a blue field in the upper left hand corner with a white star in the centre, the Flag to be finished with a red border and a red fringe at the extremity of the Flag".
Never officially christened as a military colors, this flag was the only Mississippi "state flag" captured during the Civil War.
Possible State Flag Number #1 Above is an idea of what a new Mississippi flag might look like if modeled from the "Iowa" flag. As fringe cannot technically be included in the description of a general usage flag, it is not included in this illustration. The 3rd Mississippi Magnolia
3rd Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers
(Collection of the Museum Division, Mississippi Department of Archives and History) This flag was created as the military colors or standard for the 3rd Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers. It was captured by the 9th Connecticut Regiment during the Civil War. The 9th Connecticut was the first Union regiment to return captured Confederate colors at New Orleans Exposition, (World´s Fair), on Connecticut Day, Feb 27, 1885. Thus the word "restored" is gilded on the flag.
Possible State Flag Number #2 Above is an idea of what a new Mississippi flag might look like if modeled from the 3rd Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers Colors. As fringe cannot technically be included in the description of a general usage flag, it is not included in this illustration. The Company K Magnolia
18th Mississippi Regiment - Burt Rifles
(Collection of the Museum Division, Mississippi Department of Archives and History) This flag was created as the military colors or standard for Company K of the 18th Mississippi Regiment, more affectionately known as the Burt Rifles, named after Erasmus Burt, who organized the regiment. The Burt Rifles saw action in numerous theatres of battle during the Civil war. Erasmus Burt himself was killed in action at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff in northern Virginia.
Possible State Flag Number #3 The image above is an idea of what a new Mississippi flag might look like if modeled from the Burt Rifles color. The Wayne Rifles Magnolia
13th Mississippi Regiment - Wayne Rifles
(Collection of the Museum Division, Mississippi Department of Archives and History) This flag was created as the military colors or standard for the Wayne Rifles who were attached to the 13th Mississippi Regiment. Among other places, the Wayne Rifles saw action at Cold Harbor, Virginia, Fredericksburg, Virginia, Malvern Hill, and east of Seven Pines, Virginia, and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Possible State Flag Number #4 The image above is an idea of what a new Mississippi flag might look like if modeled from the Wayne Rifles Colors. As fringe cannot technically be included in the description of a general usage flag, it is not included in this illustration. The White Magnolia
The Magnolia White Flag
(Collection of the Museum Division, Mississippi Department of Archives and History) This flag is a bit of a mystery. It was discovered stored in Mississippi´s old capitol building, but had no written history with it, and there are no archival references to its being commissioned or purchased by the State of Mississippi. Its physical properties make it appear to be an indoor flag.
It was likely the post Civil War Mississippi flag displayed in either the House or Senate chambers in the old capitol building from 1866 to 1894 when the current Mississippi flag was adopted.
Since there is no red border on this flag, it does not meet the original 1861 description of Mississippi’s flag. Nevertheless, here it is, an actual surviving Magnolia flag. Why the red border was removed is currently not known.
Possible State Flag Number #5 The image above is an idea of what a new Mississippi flag might look like if modeled from the Magnolia White flag. As fringe cannot technically be included in the description of a general usage flag, it is not included in this illustration. The 1st Mississippi Cavalry Magnolia
1st Mississippi Cavalry Colors This flag was possibly created as the military colors or standard for the 1st Mississippi Cavalry. The unit saw action in numerous theatres of battle during the Civil war.
This flag has often been described as Mississippi’s Magnolia state flag, flown from 1861 to 1894. It is erroneous to assume that this was Mississippi´s flag as it does not adequately meet the 1861 description of Mississippi´s flag, which is:
"A Flag of white ground, a Magnolia tree in the centre, a blue field in the upper left hand corner with a white star in the centre, the Flag to be finished with a red border and a red fringe at the extremity of the Flag".
Additionally, there are no actual surviving samples of this particular Magnolia flag, only illustrations.
Possible State Flag Number #6 The image above is an idea of what a new Mississippi flag might look like if modeled from a possible 1st Mississippi Cavalry Colors. As fringe cannot technically be included in the description of a general usage flag, it is not included in this illustration. The Mississippi UCV Magnolia
Mississippi United Confederate Veteran´s Magnolia Although the most popular and recognized of all Mississippi Magnolia flags, this flag ironically has no sanction relative to the Civil War itself.
While this flag has been described by many as the official secessionist state flag of Mississippi, it does not technically meet the state´s written description of the flag in 1861:
"A Flag of white ground, a Magnolia tree in the centre, a blue field in the upper left hand corner with a white star in the centre, the Flag to be finished with a red border and a red fringe at the extremity of the Flag". (Notice that no vertical red stripe on the fly is mentioned)
Furthermore, although listed as the military colors of several Mississippi Confederate units, there are no actual surviving samples of this particular "colors" to give that supposition credence.
That does not mean that the flag never existed. It was likely a post war flag, designed for use by one or more of Mississippi’s United Confederate Veterans units. Then over time, it was mistakenly identified as "the" Magnolia flag.
Possible State Flag Number #7 The image above is what a new Mississippi flag might look like if modeled from a possible post war Mississippi UCV flag. As fringe cannot technically be included in the description of a general usage flag, it is not included in this illustration.President Obama’s speeches constantly center of the pretense of his administration not having taken sides in Egypt, point to criticism from the new junta and the old elected government as proof that aren’t taking sides. It’s an argument no one is buying, however, as US aid dollars continue to flow by the billions to the military.
A solid month of loud support for the military takeover of Egypt has harmed American credibility in the nation in a way that is likely to last a generation. President Obama had already harmed America’s stance by backing Hosni Mubarak in the waning days of his dictatorship. Funding the military takeover has left it in tatters.
Cynically backing the latest coup in hopes of sidelining an elected government they didn’t particularly care for wasn’t a figment of anyone’s imagination: Secretary of State John Kerry really did praise the military takeover just two weeks ago.
That didn’t take long to blow up in America’s face. While other coups the US has backed didn’t come back to directly haunt them for years or decades, Egypt’s junta is already carrying out a campaign of massacres against civilian protesters, and President Obama’s response barely counted as criticism, filled with excuses and condemnations of the ousted civilian government.
Worst of all, President Obama is still refusing to halt aid to the junta, despite US law explicitly obliging him to. The US can’t bankroll a coup while pretending to be neutral, nor can it reasonably expect to be held blameless when the new junta starts slaughtering its political opponents in the streets.
Last 5 posts by Jason DitzStory highlights A federal judge denied bail for the kidnapping suspect
Chinese graduate student is still missing and presumed dead
Urbana, Illinois, (CNN) A man charged with kidnapping a Chinese graduate student "explained the characteristics of his ideal victim" and pointed out those in the crowd who matched them at a vigil he attended for the missing woman, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday.
Suspect Brendt Christensen's comments were recorded by the FBI, which began surveillance of Christensen about a week after the June 9 abduction. It wasn't immediately clear how the recording was made.
Bryan Freres, an assistant US attorney, told a federal judge in Illinois that Christensen, 28, was also recorded explaining how he kidnapped 26-year-old Yingying Zhang. Christensen said in the recording that Zhang fought him, and that he took her back to his apartment and held her there against her will last month, according to Freres. It was not clear where that recording was made.
Freres said Christensen was also caught on an audio recording threatening someone who then provided incriminating evidence to authorities. The prosecutor said he didn't see a "combination of conditions" where Christensen was not a danger to the community. US Magistrate Judge Eric Long agreed and denied bail for Christensen, who was charged on Friday, a day after the June 29 vigil.
Long said the fact that Zhang is still missing "weighs against you." He pointed out that Christensen was seen on video driving the vehicle that Zhang climbed in.
Read MoreRectangle vs Round Trampolines – The Duel
Trampolines are not just pure pleasure and fun which costs money. Better think of it as investment into the future. It is great for health, it is great for fun, it is even great for sunbathing. Just think of all possibilities it has to offer.
As you will see, rectangle shaped trampolines are overall winners when it comes to everything jump related, but that certainly doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t even consider round trampoline as your first choice! Read on.
How do I pick – Which is better??
There are a few ways you can do it. First, decide which shape would best fit your backyard, take measuring tape and check, leaving at least 3 ft from each size. You wouldn’t wanna get your self huge rectangle trampoline, unpack it and realize there is not enough room to accommodate it. Some people were there. Don’t be one of them.
When you have narrowed down the shape, then consider who will be using it. Do you have semi-pro gymnast at home? Then choice is definitely rectangle. Or are you buying it for occasional jumping sessions and play time? Then choice is again clear – round trampoline it is.
But fine, now that we tried to explain first steps in choosing what you really need, let’s go deeper into the matter and see what really are main differences between rectangle and round trampolines!
Rectangular Trampolines VS. Round Trampolines
Today standard trampolines come mostly in two shapes – round and rectangular. Main difference between them is not just in appearance, but also in overall safety, price and overall user experience.
Rectangle vs Round Trampolines – PERFORMANCE
Rectangular trampolines give you higher jump while absorbing more landing force. Also, regarding user experience, main difference is in that that rectangular trampolines will give you much more room for doing tricks, while round trampolines will try to direct you into the center of trampoline. Simply, rectangular is a choice which more professional users typically stick with.
Rectangle vs Round Trampolines – WEIGHT LIMITS
Weight limitation is also one important element to consider. Will it be used by older jumpers or only children? If children, how many of them will you allow on it? (We recommend only one jumper at a time, as multiple jumpers is number 1 reason for accidents). So when you’ll have those answers then and only then you can select a trampoline which will handle those requirements.
Rectangular trampoline generally have a lot higher weight limit than round counterparts, and it ranges from 250 – 450 lbs on rectangular and from 200 – 250lbs on round ones. Of course, there are models which allow a lot higher, so definitely go and check it out.
Rectangle vs Round Trampolines – USES
Round trampolines are designed for home and recreational rather than professional use. They accommodate less weight and force than rectangular trampolines, which are best suited for ever growing demands of gymnasts, divers and aerialists.
Rectangular vs Round Trampolines – PRICE
Round trampolines often feature a lower price than rectangular counterparts, and this is due to the inherent natural strength of the circular frame, which requires less added steel support than a square or rectangular frame design. Manufacturers can build round trampolines relatively easily, and at a low cost, which then gets passed on to the consumer. But, not only it has to do with extra cost of frame, there are other factors worthy mentioning, beside frame alone:
Size of the trampoline – bigger trampoline means that more materials will be used, from jumping mat and enclosure size all the way to weight, as shipping costs for trampolines are not exactly small.
– bigger trampoline means that more materials will be used, from jumping mat and enclosure size all the way to weight, as shipping costs for trampolines are not exactly small. Quality of materials: The used materials of what’s trampoline made of will affect the price. That especially goes for jumping mat, where some material, like Permatron, adds significantly to the overall price.
Rectangular vs Round Trampolines – SAFETY
„The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia“ suggests that parents weigh the risks of trampolines carefully before making a purchase. If you decide that a trampoline is the right choice for your family or children, the hospital recommends sticking with round designs, which offer a less powerful bounce than rectangular models. The reduced spring size of those trampolines lowers your children risk of injury. This is general recommendation when it comes to toddlers and small children who still aren’t so skillful trampoline bouncers.
Never have more than one child jumping on a trampoline. Multiple jumpers are great fun but also makes one of the most common reasons for accidents to happen.
Always use trampoline enclosure. It is a MUST HAVE security system which is not expensive and can prevent a lot of accidents.
Always do full inspection of trampoline integrity. Check trampoline mats, check trampoline springs and at last, check trampoline frame for possible cracks. If you need to replace any of replacement parts, replace it and only then continue to use it.
Never let children on trampoline without supervision. Trampoline is not a kindergarten.
VERDICT:
Round trampolines are the clear choice if you plan to use it for occasional recreational purposes. If you have a gymnast at home, or at least semi-pro trampoline user, then rectangular is a way to go.Before the year 1054 there would have been no difficulty in declaring that the Western Rite of the Undivided Church was simply the use of Latin speaking Churches. The Rite used by Christians in Scotland, Ireland and England, was as Orthodox as that used in Constantinople. In the first thousand years of Christendom all the far flung churches that were in communion with the Five Patriarchates (Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome) were Orthodox. After 1054, and more precisely, after the Norman Conquest (1066) of England, the Churches of the West were drawn into the Great Schism of the Roman Patriarchate away from the Unity of the Orthodox Church. The Western Liturgy came to reflect the Papal errors and even incorporated the Filioque in the Nicene Creed with other aberrations.
The restoration of a corrected, and truly Orthodox, Western Rite to Holy Orthodoxy in the United States was not originated by laity or by ordinary clergy. The vision of the Western Rite as an essential part of the Orthodox Mission in America belonged toArchbishop Tikhon of the American Archdiocese under the Moscow Patriarchate. About ninety years ago he examined the existing Anglican Book of Common Prayer and sent it to the Holy Synod of Moscow. That Liturgy, derived from the ancient use of the Orthodox West, and first expressed in English in the edition of 1549 by authority of King Edward the Sixth of England, was corrected and approved by the Holy Synod for Orthodox Church use.
In the years following, blessed Tikhon was himself elevated to Patriarch of Moscow, martyred by the communists in 1925, since declared a Saint of the Church, and thus known to Orthodox faithful throughout the world as St. Tikhon, Enlightener of America. This is the same Saint Tikhon who, about the time he obtained approval for the restoration of the Western Rite in America, also consecrated (in 1904) Raphael Hawaweeny to the episcopate of the Orthodox Church of North America, from which the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese descends.
As the Orthodox Mission in America grew in numbers and in maturity, further authorization of the Western Rite was given by the Patriarchs and Holy Synod of Antioch. Metropolitan Anthony (Bashir) founded the Western Rite Vicariate for the creation of Western Rite Missions and Parishes in the Archdiocese. Metropolitan Philip (Saliba) has promoted an increasing number of Western Rite Parishes throughout North America; and new additions of Clergy and Laity to this world have more than doubled its size in a few years. Western Rite Orthodoxy is now a rapidly growing dimension of the Church's Mission in America.
The Western Rite Parishes represent a restoration of the legitimate Western Liturgy of the Undivided Church of the first 1,000 years, by Patriarchal authority, for the benefit of all Orthodox people.
Introductory Articles on the Western Rite
Apologias for the Western Rite
Western Orthodox History
An Excerpt from the Report of Metropolitan Anthony (Bashir) to the 1958 Archdiocesan Convention On 31st May 1958, His Beatitude, Alexander III, Patriarch of Antioch of blessed memory, in consultation with the heads of the other autocephalous Orthodox churches, authorized His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony (Bashir), of blessed memory, to establish the Western Rite in theAntiochian Archdiocese. Originally from the November 1958 issue of The Word, reprinted in the Lion.
Western Orthodox Customs, Devotion and PietyThe Jacksonville Jaguars had several needs heading into the month but came out fairly successful in addressing them. Though they couldn’t address the offense as much as some would have preferred, they were able to land two of the three top free agents on the market with cornerback A.J. Bouye and defensive end Calais Campbell. They were also able to add a starter at strong safety, Barry Church, formerly of the Dallas Cowboys.
On paper, the Jaguars young ascending defense came out of early March as a potential top-5 unit, and Doug Marrone should have a great chance to improve upon Gus Bradley’s horrific tenure. As I’ve mentioned in the past, however, the Jaguars went 3-13 in 2016, and it will take more than winning the offseason to fix them. That said, great organizations build through the draft, and the Jaguars have made it clear that they plan on doing the same as they chase improvement.
In this particular piece, we’ll take a look at four prospects that could help make the Jags offseason complete, as April’s draft is just around the corner.The question arises each year: Who plays the toughest schedule? At the beginning of the season, the NCAA releases a rating of each team's schedule based on its opponents' records from the previous season. This is a good method, but it does have obvious flaws.
The first flaw is simply basing the ratings on opponents' records from the previous season. Let's look at a few examples:
In 2014, I had TCU as my most improved team in the country. The Horned Frogs won 12 games and nearly made the first College Football Playoff in 2014. I also had Memphis as one of my most improved teams, and the Tigers won the Miami Beach Bowl, finishing 10-3 and ranked No. 25 in the Associated Press poll in 2014. However, if you used the NCAA method, you got credit for playing two teams that were a combined 7-17 in 2013 with TCU being 4-8 and Memphis 3-9.
Vanderbilt was clearly a much weaker team in 2014 than in 2013. It was coming off a 9-4 season but had only 10 returning starters and a new head coach. Fresno State had Derek Carr in 2013 and went 11-2 but last year had just 13 returning starters and was replacing an NFL starting quarterback. By the NCAA method of determining strength of schedule, you would have gotten credit for playing a pair of teams that were 20-6 the previous year, yet those two teams finished a combined 9-17 in 2014.
Last year, I pointed out that teams like Michigan (5-7 in 2014), Stanford (8-5 in 2014) and Northwestern (5-7 in 2014) were all much stronger in 2015. Those three teams, who combined for an 18-19 record in 2014, combined to go 32-8 in 2015.
The second flaw is that a team's record does not determine its strength. Let's look at two teams for this year and see which one is really the stronger team:
Last year, Western Kentucky went 12-2 while being led by senior quarterback Brandon Doughty. Tennessee was just 9-4. A closer look shows that WKU played a total of three Power 5 conference teams. Vanderbilt had a 20-11 first-down edge versus them and 385-246 edge in yardage, and WKU was lucky to escape with a 14-12 win over a team that eventually finished 4-8. In the other two Power 5 matchups, Western Kentucky lost to Indiana (6-7) on the road and was beaten by LSU in Baton Rouge 48-20.Kerry to Bring Erdogan to Task for ‘Offensive’ Remark
By Arshad Mohammed and Jonathon Burch
March 01, 2013 " Information Clearing House " - " Reuters " - ANKARA - Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to take Turkey's prime minister to task for describing Zionism as a crime against humanity, an attack on a key U.S. ally that has overshadowed their talks on the crisis in neighboring Syria.
Kerry, on his first trip to a Muslim nation since taking office, is meeting Turkish leaders for talks meant to focus on Syria's civil war and bilateral interests from energy security to counter-terrorism.
But comment by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan at a U.N. meeting in Vienna this week, condemned by his Israeli counterpart, the White House and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, has clouded his trip.
"This was particularly offensive, frankly, to call Zionism a crime against humanity... It does have a corrosive effect (on relations)," a senior U.S. official told reporters as Kerry flew to Ankara.
"I am sure the secretary will be very clear about how dismayed we were to hear it," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
"To state the obvious, it complicates our ability to do all of the things that we want to do together when we have such a profound disagreement about such an important thing."
Washington needs all the allies it can get as it navigates the political currents of the Middle East, and sees Turkey as the key player in supporting Syria's opposition and planning for the era after President Bashar al-Assad.
But the collapse of Ankara's ties with Israel have undermined U.S. hopes that Turkey could play a role as a broker in the broader region.
"The Turkey-Israel relationship is frozen," the U.S. official said. "We want to see a normalization... not just for the sake of the two countries but for the sake of the region and, frankly, for the symbolism," he said.
"Not that long ago (you) had these two countries demonstrating that a majority Muslim country could have very positive and strong relations with the Jewish state and that was a sign for the region (of what was) possible."
Erdogan told the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations meeting in Vienna on Wednesday: "Just as with Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it has become necessary to view Islamophobia as a crime against humanity."
Erdogan's caustic rhetoric on Israel has won applause from conservative supporters at home but raised increasing concern among Western allies.
"Erdogan's comments about Israel have become progressively more worrying," said Moshe Kantor, President of the European Jewish Congress. "This type of rhetoric is pushing Turkey further away from the West and Europe and closer to Iran."
Ties between Israel and mostly Muslim Turkey have been frosty since 2010, when Israeli marines killed nine Turks in fighting aboard a Palestinian aid ship that tried to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.
In recent weeks, there has been a run of reports in the Turkish and Israeli media about efforts to repair relations, including a senior diplomatic meeting last month in Rome and military equipment transfers.
The reports have not been confirmed by either government.
SUPPORT FOR SYRIAN OPPOSITION
Turkey's relations with the United States have always been prickly, driven more by a mutual need for intelligence than any deep cultural affinity. And Erdogan's populist rhetoric, sometimes at apparent odds with U.S. interests, is aimed partly at a domestic audience wary of Washington's influence.
But the two have strong common interests. Officials said Syria would top the agenda in Kerry's meetings with Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, building on the discussions in Rome between 11 mostly European and Arab nations within the "Friends of Syria" group.
After the Rome meeting, Kerry said on Thursday the United States would for the first time give non-lethal aid to the rebels and more than double support to the civilian opposition, although Western powers stopped short of pledging arms.
"We need to continue the discussion which took place in Rome... in terms of the main goals there is no daylight between us and the Americans," a senior Turkish official said.
"A broad agreement was reached on supporting the opposition. Now our sides need to sit down and really flesh out what we can do to support them in order to change the balance on the ground," he said.
Turkey has been one of Assad's fiercest critics, hosting a NATO Patriot missile defense system, including two U.S. batteries, to protect against a spillover of violence and leading calls for international intervention.
It has spent more than $600 million sheltering refugees from the conflict that began almost two years ago, housing some 180,000 in camps near the border and tens of thousands more who are staying with relatives or in private accommodation.
Washington has given $385 million in humanitarian aid for Syria but U.S. President Barack Obama has so far refused to give arms, arguing it is difficult to prevent them from falling into the hands of militants who could use them on Western targets.
Turkey, too, has been reluctant to provide weapons, fearing direct intervention could cause the conflict to spill across its borders.Birdseye map of San Jose by Gifford in 1875
US40 #31 SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA (Birdseye Map, 1875, Gifford) Date: 1875 Author: Gifford Dwnld: Full Size (8mb) Source: Library of Congress Print Availability: See our Prints Page for more details pff
This map is part of a series depicting the 40 largest cities in the United States (as ranked by CBSA). This series will run through the month of July.
I'm on the fence about this Gifford birdseye of San Jose, California [gmap].
It's certainly not as lovely as the site's other San Jose birdseye map, but then again, very few maps are. This one seems to offer some impressionistic-looking distance abstraction to cover up some problems with perspective.
For more map resources and imagery from this period in San Jose's history, check out the California Historical Society's website.LEVEL and Wow Air are both offering rock-bottom fares from the US to Europe this summer.
At a time when major airlines are hiking up airfare for the summer rush, several low-cost carriers are offering rock-bottom prices for long haul flights.
On Monday, Icelandic discount carrier Wow Air announced that a new route from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to Reykjavik will open on July 13. This is the 10th destination in North America for the airline, which already operates in nine US cities including Newark, Los Angeles and Miami. One-way tickets for the new route debuted at $99, and for an additional $149, travelers can connect to one of 23 other cities like London, Paris or Amsterdam.
Wow has been building its presence as a low-cost carrier with competitive base rates since 2011, but the field is widening fast.
On March 17, Level Airlines burst onto the scene, promoting one-way tickets from the US to Europe for an impressive $149. While flights won’t start until June, tickets can be purchased now from Barcelona to Los Angeles (June 1), San Francisco (June 2), Punta Cana (June 10) and Buenos Aires (June 17). After announcing these rock-bottom prices, Level’s website had issues processing requests, and managed to sell 52,000 tickets in just 24 hours.
Level was launched by the International Airlines Group (IAG), which is the parent company of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, and Vueling. For them, offering a low-cost option provides more options to the growing number of consumers willing to fly on a no-frills airline.
“Long-haul, low-cost is a segment of the market that will experience significant growth and that we can operate profitably,” IAG said in an email to Yahoo Finance. “Level complements our current portfolio of airlines and further diversifies our existing customer base.”
Travelers may have to pay for hot meals when flying on a low-cost carrier. (Getty) More
Being a part of the IAG network is one of the reasons Level is able to offer such competitive fares. For now, travelers can only book flights out of Barcelona, which is the home base for Vueling. This allows Level flights to feed into Vueling’s extensive network that currently includes more than 100 destinations around the world. While the new airline does have two new Airbus A330 aircraft, initial flights will be operated by Iberia’s flight and cabin crew.
Level ticket costs include space in the overhead compartment, but customers have to pay additional fees to check a bag. Airlines typically provide a blanket, pillow, drinks and a hot meal on long-haul flights, but travelers will have to pay for these add-ons when flying on Level.
Also churning out cheap tickets is Norwegian Air, which last month announced that it will offer one-way transatlantic tickets for $64. The new routes take travelers from small regional airports in the Northeast, to small regional airports in cities like Dublin and the UK, requiring some logistical maneuvering to get to your final destination. Still, the tickets are cheap, and will be available from July through October.
Major US carriers like United, Delta and American Airlines haven’t announced plans to launch their own low-cost carriers, but they have introduced lower-fare options for cost-conscious travelers. All three airlines offer a basic economy option, which allows fliers to take advantage of cheaper fares if they follow certain restrictions, like forgoing seat selection and not putting a bag in the overhead bin. That said, Delta did start a no-frills airline in 1996 called Delta Express, and shut it down in 2003.
Brittany is a reporter at Yahoo Finance.
More:
Basic economy seats: Is the discomfort worth the savings?
American Airlines introduces Basic Economy class. Is it worth it?
Airfare to these cities is expected to drop in 2017The Joy of Ministering Young men of the Aaronic Priesthood, you are beloved sons of God, and He has a great work for you to do. To accomplish this work, you must fulfill your sacred duty to minister to others.1 Do you know what it means to minister? Think about this question while I tell you about a girl named Chy Johnson. When Chy started high school last year, she became the victim of cruel and thoughtless bullying. She was mistreated, shoved, and taunted as she walked to class—some students even threw garbage at her. You have probably seen people mistreated like this in your school too. For too many people, the teenage years are a time of loneliness and fear. It doesn’t have to be this way. Fortunately for Chy, there were young men at her school who understood what it means to minister. Chy’s mother had asked teachers at the school to help stop the bullying, but it continued. She then contacted Carson Jones, an Aaronic Priesthood holder and the starting quarterback of the football team. She asked him to help her find out who was doing the bullying. Carson agreed to help, but in his heart he felt that he could do much more than just identify the bullies. The Spirit whispered to him that he needed to help Chy feel loved. Carson asked some of his teammates to join him in ministering to Chy. They invited her to sit with them during lunch. They walked her to class to make sure she was safe. Not surprisingly, with football players as her close friends, no one bullied Chy anymore. This was an exciting season for the football team. But even with the thrill of an undefeated season, these young men did not forget about Chy. They invited her to join the team on the field after games. Chy felt loved and appreciated. She felt safe. She was happy. The football team went on to win the state title. But something more important than a football championship happened at their school. The example of these young men has motivated other students to be more accepting, more friendly. They now treat each other with more kindness and respect. National news media found out what these young men had done and shared their story across the country. What began as an effort to minister to one is inspiring thousands of others to do the same. Chy’s mother calls these young men “angels in disguise.” Carson and his friends are quick to say that Chy has blessed their lives much more than they blessed hers. That’s what happens when you lose yourself in serving others—you find yourself.2You change and grow in ways that would not be possible otherwise. These young men have experienced the joy of ministering and continue to seek opportunities to bless others. They are anxious to extend their ministering in the coming months when they serve as full-time missionaries.3
A Need and a Duty There are thousands of Chy Johnsons throughout the world—people who need to feel Heavenly Father’s love. They are in your schools, in your quorums, and even in your family. Some come to mind quickly. Others have needs that are less obvious. Virtually everyone you know could be blessed in some way by your ministering. The Lord is counting on you to reach out to them. You don’t have to be a star athlete to minister to others. You received the power, the authority, and the sacred duty to minister the moment you were ordained to the priesthood. President James E. Faust taught, “Priesthood is the authority delegated to man to minister in the name of God.”4 The Aaronic Priesthood holds the keys of the ministering of angels.5 As you love His children, Heavenly Father will guide you, and angels will assist you.6 You will be given power to bless lives and rescue souls. Jesus Christ is your example. He “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”7 To minister means to love and care for others. It means to attend to their physical and spiritual needs. Put simply, it means to do what the Savior would do if He were here.
Your Family Start in your own home. This is where you can do your most important ministering.8 Do you want to try an interesting experiment? The next time your mother asks for your help around the house, say something like, “Thank you for asking, Mom. I would love to help.” Then watch her reaction. Some of you might want to brush up on your first aid skills before you try this. You may send her into shock. After you revive her, you’ll find a noticeable improvement in your relationship with her and an increase of the Spirit in your home. That’s just one way to minister to your family; there are many others. You minister as you speak kind words to family members. You minister as you treat your siblings like your best friends. Perhaps most important, you minister as you assist your father in his duties as the spiritual leader in your home. Give your full support and encouragement to family home evening, family prayer, and family scripture study. Do your part to ensure that the Spirit is present in your home. This will strengthen your father in his role and prepare you to be a father someday. If you do not have a father in your home, your responsibility to minister to your family is even more needed.
Your Quorum You also have a duty to minister in your quorum. The priesthood is expanding across the world. Many of you are heeding President Monson’s call to rescue. There are more active Aaronic Priesthood holders today than ever before in the history of the Church. Yet there are still those who are not active and who need you. Last June, when a new branch was created in Bangalore, India, the only young man in priesthood meeting was a recently ordained deacon named Gladwin. Gladwin, along with the Young Men president and branch president, began calling the less-active young men and visiting them in their homes. Soon a second young man, Samuel, started coming to church again. Each week Gladwin and Samuel called those who had not attended quorum meeting and shared what they had learned. They also called or visited them on their birthdays. One by one, the less-active young men became their friends and began to accept invitations to come to quorum activities, to attend quorum meetings, and eventually to do their own ministering. Today, all of the young men in the branch are active in the Church. The scriptures teach that Aaronic Priesthood quorums are to sit in council and edify—or build |
public safety, much less of turning the other cheek in the face of violence, would have been regarded as heinous.
Not surprisingly, revolutionary anarchists were even less ambiguous than socialists. In contrast to the state-controlled militia that the Second International was prepared to accept in the 1906 resolution cited above, the anarchists sought the direct arming of the masses. In Spain, weapons were supplied to anarchist militants from the very inception of the movement. The workers and peasants relied on themselves, not on the largesse of statist institutions, to obtain the means for insurrection. Just as their notion of democracy meant direct democracy, so their notion of antimilitarism meant that they had to countervail the state’s monopoly of violence with an armed popular movement–not merely a state-subsidized militia.
Secularism and Rationalism
It remains to add that anarchists and to a great extent the revolutionary socialists of the Left That Was not only tried to speak in the general interests of humanity but abjured any body of ideas and prejudices that denied humanity its naturalistic place in the scheme of things. They regarded the worship of deities as a form of subjugation to creations of human making, as the masking of reality by illusion, and as the manipulation of human fears, alienation, and anomie by calculated elites in behalf of an oppressive social order. Generally, the Left That Was boldly laid claim to the rationalist heritage of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, however much this saddled the Marxists with mechanistic ideas. But also, organic forms of reason, borrowed from Hegel, competed with mechanism and conventional empiricism. Where intuitional notions competed with materialist ones among anarchists, they attracted a sizable body of artists to the anarchist movements of the past, or to anarchist ideas. Additionally, rationalism did not crowd out emotive approaches that fostered a highly moral socialism that was often indistinguishable from libertarian outlooks. But almost every attempt apart from certain individual exceptions was made to place mechanistic, organic, and emotive approaches to reality in a rational framework–notably, to achieve a coherent approach to social analysis and change.
That this endeavor led to disparate tendencies in the Left That Was should not surprise us. But the notion of a rational society achieved by rational as well as moral means and idealistic sentiments formed a unifying outlook for the Left That Was. Few leftists would have accepted William Blake’s notion of reason as “meddlesome” or current postmodern views of coherence as “totalitarian.”
The Left That Was was divided over the question of whether there could be a peaceful, indeed reformistic, evolution of capitalism into socialism or whether an insurrectionary break with the capitalist system was unavoidable. The wariness of the Left That Was toward reforms can perhaps best be seen in the fact that years ago, serious debates occurred among Western leftists of all kinds on whether they should fight for the eight-hour day, which many thought would make capitalism more palatable to the working class. In Tsarist Russia, the Left seriously debated whether their organizations should try to alleviate famine conditions among the peasantry lest their charitable efforts deflect the anger of the peasantry away from Tsarism.
But however serious those differences were, attempts at reform for its own sake were never part of leftist ideology. The revolutionary Left–which truly defined socialist and anarchist movements as a Left–certainly did not want to improve the capitalist system, much less give it a “human face.” “Capitalism with a human face” was an expression they would have regarded as a contradiction in terms. The Left That Was hoped to overthrow capitalism and initiate a radically new social system, not to rationalize the existing order and make it acceptable to the masses.
To participate in struggles for reforms was seen as a means to educate the masses, not a way to dole out charity or improve their material lot. Demands for reforms were always permeated by the broader message that fundamental social reconstruction was needed. The fight for the eight-hour day, years ago, and strikes for better living conditions, not to speak of legislative improvements for working people, were seen as means for mobilizing the oppressed, for engaging them in struggles, and for disclosing the limits–and basic irrationalism–of capitalism, not simply or even significantly as a means for bettering life under capitalism. It was not until a later day that reforms were advocated by so-called leftist parties, candidates, deputies, and humane devotees of the working class, the poor, and the elderly as techniques for “humanizing” capitalism or rendering leftist candidates more popular–and electable for public office.
To ask for improved working and living conditions was seen as a way of directly challenging the “wage system” and the sovereignty of capital. Even so-called “evolutionary” or “reformist” socialists who hoped to ease from capitalism into socialism were revolutionary in the sense that they believed capitalism had to be replaced by a radically new social order. Their conflicts with the revolutionary socialists and anarchists in the Left That Was centered on whether capitalism could be replaced by piecemeal changes, not on whether it could be given a “human face.” The First World War and particularly the revolutions that followed it left reformist socialism in debris—but it also produced a Left that radically departed in many of its basic tenets from the Left That Was.
The First World War and Bolshevism
The outbreak of the First World War, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, and the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in the Spartacus League uprising of January 1919 (a drawing of socialist blood that occurred with the indirect assent of the official German Social Democrats) opened a major breach in the history of the Left generally.
At the outbreak of the war, nearly all the socialist parties of warring Europe succumbed to nationalism, and their parliamentary fractions voted to give war credits to their respective capitalist states. Nor did the attitudes of certain leading anarchists, including Kropotkin, prove to be more honorable than those of the “social patriots,” to use Lenin’s epithet for the German and French socialist leaders who supported one or another camp in the war.
To analyze the reasons why this breach was opened in the Left That Was would require a study in itself. But the Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1917 did not close the breach. Quite to the contrary–it widened it, not only because of the unavoidable polarization of Bolshevism against Social Democracy but because of the authoritarian elements that had always formed a part of the highly conspiratorial Russian revolutionary movement. The Bolshevik party had little commitment to popular democracy. Lenin had never viewed “bourgeois democracy” as anything more than an instrument that could be used or discarded as expediency required. Many demands were placed on the largely Bolshevik regime that was formed in November (it initially included Left Social Revolutionaries as well): the advancing German army on the eastern front, the incredibly savage civil war that followed the Revolution, the isolation of the Bolsheviks from the workers and peasants in the early 1920s, and the attempt by the Kronstadt sailors to recover a soviet democracy that had been effaced by the bureaucratic Bolshevik party. These demands combined to bring out the worst features of Lenin’s centralist views and his opportunistic views of democracy. Beginning in the early twenties, all affiliates of the Communist International were “Bolshevized” by Zinoviev and his Stalinist successors, until the commitment of socialism to democracy was marginalized and largely faded in the Communist parties of the world.
No less important in undermining the Left That Was were the various myths, popularized by Lenin, that capitalism had entered a unique, indeed “final” stage of its development, a stage marked by “imperialism” and worldwide “struggles for national liberation.” Here, again, Lenin’s position is too complex to be dealt with cursorily; but what is important is that the traditional internationalism that had marked the Left That Was increasingly gave way to an emphasis on “national liberation” struggles, partly for the purpose of weakening Western imperialism, and partly to foster economic development in colonized countries, thereby bringing the domestic class conflict within these countries to the top of their national agendas.
The Bolsheviks did not abandon the rhetoric of internationalism, to be sure, any more than the Social Democrats did. But “national liberation” struggles (which the Bolsheviks largely honored in the breach at home, after they took power in the newly formed Soviet Union) uncritically fostered a commitment by the Left to the formation of new nation-states. Nationalism increasingly came to the foreground of socialist theory and practice. It is not surprising that the first “People’s Commissar of Nationalities” in the new Soviet Union was Joseph Stalin, who later fostered this nationalistic trend in Marxism-Leninism and who during and after the Second World War gave it a distinctly “patriotic” quality in the USSR. Expressions claiming that the Soviet Union was the “fatherland of the working class” were ubiquitous among Communists of the interwar period, and their parties were modeled on the centralized Bolshevik Party to allow for Stalin’s blatant interference in their affairs.
By 1936, the politics of the Communist International (or what remained of it) had veered sharply away from the ideals that had once guided the Left That Was. Luxemburg, honored more as a martyr than as a theorist, was discredited by the Stalinist cabal or totally ignored. The Second International was essentially moribund. Idealism began to give way to a crudely amoral opportunism and to an antimilitarism that was variously emphasized, rejected, or modified to suit the foreign policy of the Stalinist regime.
Yet opposition there was–as late as 1939–to this degeneration of the ideas that had defined the Left That Was–opposition from left-wing tendencies in certain socialist parties, from anarchists, and from dissident Communist groups. The Left That Was did not disappear without furious debates over these ideals or without attempts to retain its historic premises. Its ideals remained at the top of the revolutionary agenda during the entire interwar period, not only as a source of polemics but as part of an armed confrontation in the Spanish Revolution of 1936. Leftist parties and groups still agonized over issues like internationalism, democracy, antimilitarism, revolution, and their relationship to the state–agonies that led to furious intramural and interparty conflicts. These issues were branded on the entire era before they began to fade–and their fading altered the very definition of leftism itself.
The Left and the “Cold War”
The “Cold War” invaded the humanistic agenda of the Left That Was by turning most leftist organizations into partisans of the West or the East and by introducing a dubious “anti-imperialism” into what became Cold War politics. “National liberation” became the virtual centerpiece of the “New Left” and of the aging “Old Left,” at least their various Stalinist, Maoist, and Castroist versions.
It should be understood–as this Left did not–that imperialism is not unique to capitalism. As a means of exploitation and cultural homogenization, and as a source of tribute, it existed throughout the ancient, medieval, and early modern eras. In ancient times the imperial hegemony of Babylon was followed by that of Rome and the medieval Holy Roman Empire. Indeed, throughout history there have been African, Indian, Asian, and in modern times, expansionist and exploitative “sub-imperialist” states that were more precapitalist than capitalist in character. If “war is the health of the state,” war has usually meant expansionism (read: imperialism) among the more commanding states of the world and even among their client states.
In the early part of the twentieth century, the various writings on imperialism by J. A. Hobson, Rudolf Hilferding, and Lenin, among others, did not discover the concept of imperialism. They simply added new, uniquely capitalist features to earlier characterizations of imperialism, such as the “export of capital” and the impact of capitalism on the economic development of colonized countries. But what capitalism has also exported with a vengeance, in addition to capital itself, has been nationalism (not only demands for cultural autonomy) and nationalism in the form of centralized nation-states. Indeed, the centralized nation-state has been exported to peoples who might more reasonably have turned to confederal forms of struggle and social reconstruction in asserting their cultural uniqueness and right to self-management. Let me emphasize that my criticisms of nationalism and statism are not meant to reject the genuine aspirations of cultural groups for full expression and self-governance. This is particularly the case where attempts are made to subvert their cultural uniqueness and their rights to autonomy. The issue with which I am concerned is how their cultural autonomy is expressed and the institutional structures they establish to manage themselves as unique cultural entities. The cultural integrity of a people does not have to be embodied in the form of a nation-state. It should, in my view, be expressed in forms that retain valuable cultural traditions and practices in confederal institutions of self-management. It was goals such as these in particular that were raised and prized by the great majority of anarchists and libertarian socialists, even certain Marxists, in the Left That Was.
What has happened instead is that the export of the nation-state has poisoned not only the modern Left but the human condition itself. In recent years, “Balkanization” and parochialism have become vicious phenomena of disastrous proportions. The recent and much-described breakup of the Russian empire has resulted in bloody national struggles and aspirations for state-formation that are pitting culturally disparate communities against each other in ways that threaten to regress to barbarism. The internationalist ideals that the Left That Was advanced, particularly in the former “socialist bloc,” have been replaced by an ugly parochialism–directed against Jews generally and in much of Europe against “foreign workers” from all parts of the world. In the Near East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, colonized or formerly colonized peoples have developed imperial appetites of their own, so that many of what now pass for former colonies that have been liberated from Euro-American imperialist powers are now pursuing brutally imperialist aspirations of their own.
For the emergence of an authentic Left what is disastrous here is that leftists in the United States and Europe often condone appalling behavior on the part of former colonies, in the name of “socialism,” “anti-imperialism,” and of course “national liberation.” The present-day Left is no less a victim of the “Cold War” than colonized peoples who were pawns in it. Leftists have all but jettisoned the ideals of the Left That Was, and in so doing, they have come to accept a kind of client status of their own–first, in the 1930s, as supporters of the “workers’ fatherland” in the East, and more recently as supporters of former colonies bent on their own imperialist adventures.
What matters is not whether such leftists in Europe or the United States do or do not support “liberated” nation-states that are either newly emerging, subimperialist, or imperialist. Whether Western leftists “support” these nation-states and their endeavors means as much to those states as seagull-droppings on an ocean shore. Rather, what really matters–and what is the more serious tragedy–is that these leftists rarely ask whether peoples they support accept statist regimes or confederal associations, whether they oppress other cultures, or whether they oppress their own or other populations–let alone whether they themselves should be supporting a nation-state at all.
Indeed, many leftists fell into the habit of opposing the imperialism of the superpowers in a mere reaction to the sides that were lined up in the “Cold War.” This “Cold War” mentality persists even after the “Cold War” has come to an end. More than ever, leftists today are obliged to ask if their “anti-imperialist” and “national liberation” concerns help to foster the emergence of more nation-states and more ethnic and “sub-imperialist” rivalries. They must ask, what character is anti-imperialism taking today? Is it validating ethnic rivalries, the emergence of domestic tyrannies, sub-imperialist ambitions, and a rapacious collection of militaristic regimes?
Clearly, parochialism is one product of the new “anti-imperialist” nationalism and statism that have been nourished by the “Cold War” and the reduction of specious leftists to minions of old Stalinist and Maoist-type conflicts dressed in the garb of “national liberation.” Parochialism can also function internally, partly as an extension of the “Cold War” into domestic spheres of life. Self-styled spokespeople for ethnic groups who literally pit one racial group against another, dehumanizing (for whatever reason) one to enhance the other; spokespeople for gender groups that parallel such exclusionary ethnic groups in opposition to their sexual counterparts; spokespeople for religious groups that do the same with respect to other religious groups–all reflect atavistic developments that would have had no place in the Left That Was. That the rights of ethnic, gender, and like strata of a given population must be cherished and that cultural distinctions must be prized is not in question here. But apart from the justified claims of all these groups, their aims should be sought within a human-oriented framework, not within an exclusionary or parochial folk-oriented one. If an authentic Left is once again to emerge, the myth of a “hegemonic” group of oppressed people, which seeks to rearrange human relations in a new hierarchical pyramid, must be replaced by the goal of achieving an ethics of complementarity in which differences enrich the whole. In ancient times, the slaves of Sicily who revolted and forced all free men to fight as gladiators in the island’s amphitheaters behaved no differently from their masters. They reproduced what was still a slave culture, replacing one kind of slave by another.
Moreover, if there is to be a Left that in any sense resembles the Left That Was, it cannot be merely “left of center.” Liberalism–with its menu of small reforms that obscure the irrationality of the prevailing society and make it more socially acceptable–is an arena in its own right. Liberalism has no “left” that can be regarded as its kin or its critical neighbor. The Left must stake out its own arena, one that stands in revolutionary opposition to the prevailing society, not one that participates as a “leftist” partner in its workings.
Will There Be a Left Today?
Certainly the Left That Was fought against innumerable irrationalities in the existing social order, such as long debilitating working hours, desperate hunger, and abject poverty. It did so because the perpetuation of these irrationalities would have completely demoralized the forces fighting for basic social change. It often raised seemingly “reformist” demands, but it did so to reveal the failure of the existing social order to meet the most elementary needs of denied people. In fighting for these “reforms,” however, the concern of the Left That Was was explicitly and unwaveringly focused on the need to change the whole social order, not on making it less irrational and more palatable. Today, the Left That Was would have also fought with desperation against the forces that are depleting the ozone layer, destroying the forests, and proliferating the nuclear power plants in order to preserve life itself on this planet.
By the same token, however, the Left That Was recognized that there are many problems that cannot be solved within the framework of capitalism. It held, however “unrealistically” it may seem, to its revolutionary position rather than curry public favor or surrender its identity to opportunistic programs. At any given moment, history does not always present the Left with clear-cut alternatives or immediately “effective” courses of action. In August 1914, for example, no forces existed that could have prevented the outbreak of World War I, not even the Social Democracy that had committed itself to opposition to the war. The Left had to live an ineffectual, often hidden, frustrating life amidst the effluvium of popular jingoism that engulfed so much of Europe, including most of the workers in the socialist movement itself. Similarly, in 1938, there was no longer any possibility that the Spanish Revolution could be rescued from fascist military attacks and insidious Stalinist counterrevolution, despite the valiant struggles that continued for the greater part of a year thereafter.
Regrettably, there are some impossible situations in which an authentic Left can only take a moral stance, with no hope of intervening successfully. In such cases, the Left can only patiently try to educate those who are willing to listen, to advance its ideas to rational individuals, however small their numbers may be, and to act as an ethical force in opposition to the “art of the possible,” to use a famous liberal definition of politics. A recent case in point was an admirable slogan that was raised at the inception of the Gulf war, namely “Neither Side Is Right”–a slogan that obviously did not resonate with the nationalistic attitude of the great majority of American people, nor one that was likely to be politically effective. Indeed, to choose sides in the Gulf war would have been to confuse American national chauvinism with democracy, on the one hand, or to confuse an indifference to Saddam Hussein’s totalitarianism with “anti-imperialism,” on the other. This eminently moral position tries to advance a humanistic viewpoint in the face of the repellent political and economic reality that marked both camps in the conflict.
To pretend that an authentic Left can always offer a practical solution to every problem in society is chimerical. Offering “lesser evils” as a solution to every evil that this society generates will lead to the worst of all possible evils–the dissolution of the Left into a liberal morass of endless compromises and humiliations. Amid all its fights in support of concrete issues, an authentic Left advances the message that the present society must be demolished and replaced by one that is rational. Such was the case with socialists like Eugene V. Debs and anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman in the Left That Was. Put bluntly: What this society usually does should not deter Leftists from probing the logic of events from a rational standpoint or from calling for what society should do. Any attempt to adapt the rational “should” to the irrational “is” vacates that space on the political spectrum that should be occupied by a Left premised on reason, freedom, and ecological humanism. The need to steadfastly maintain the principal commitments that minimally define a Left may not always be popular, but the alternative to the monstrous irrationalities that permeate present-day society must always be kept open, fostered, and developed if we are ever to achieve a free society.
It may well be that in the foreseeable future an authentic Left has little, if any, prospects of gaining a large following. But if it surrenders the most basic principles that define it–internationalism, democracy, antimilitarism, revolution, secularism, and rationalism–as well as others, like confederalism, the word Left will no longer have any meaning in our political vocabulary. One may call oneself a liberal, a social democrat, a “realo” Green, or a reformist. That is a choice that each individual is free to make, according to his or her social and political convictions. But for those who call themselves leftists, there should be a clear understanding that the use of the term Left involves the acceptance of the fundamental principles that literally define and justify the use of the word. This means that certain ideas like nationalism, parochialism, authoritarianism–and certainly, for anarchists of all kinds, any commitment to a nation-state–and symbols like the broken rifle of pacifism are totally alien to the principles that define the Left. Such ideas, introduced into politics, have no place in any politics that can authentically be characterized as leftist. If no such politics exists, the term Left should be permitted to perish with honor.
But if the Left were to finally disappear because of the melding of reformist, liberal, nationalist, and parochial views, not only would modern society lose the “principle of hope,” to use Ernst Bloch’s expression, an abiding principle that has guided all revolutionary movements of the past; the Left would cease to be the conscience of society. Nor could it advance the belief that the present society is totally irrational and must be replaced by one that is guided by reason, an ecological ethics, and a genuine concern for human welfare. For my part, that is not a world in which I would want to live. ¤Richard Alan White is now long retired from his paying job--that as a security guard at Daniel Webster College. But the Manchester, New Hampshire-native is seeing his other career, that of music composer, finally gaining traction. White’s 900-page opera Hester is getting its debut Thursday in New York City.
Listen to the broadcast version of this story.
(Editor’s Note: We strongly recommend listening to this story.)
Before he was a composer, Richard Alan White was a kid growing up in Manchester, in a house full of music.
“My mother was a singer, and trained voice, and she sang professionally, and I can remember hearing her sound,” says White.
The second musical constant was the Saturday performances of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.
“I got a sense of music, and also a sense that it is important,” he says.
It would take 82 years before White’s own full-scale work would be in the hands of a professional company. It’s a story of persistence, sure, but not in a Hollywood ‘I’m going to prove them wrong’ kind of way. Instead, White speaks of his below-the-radar life in music like it’s been a reward--that he’s always found pleasure in simply wandering around the notes.
After performing in musicals at Manchester Central High School in the early 1950s, he earned a music degree at the University of New Hampshire. From there, he was off to New York, to take in all the city offered.
“You see, being in the West Village, you could cut it with a knife: there were writers all over the place, and painters.”
White immersed himself in the music and theater scene. He took evening classes at Juilliard, sang in church choirs, and then worked his way through a masters degree.
“When I finally got my Masters of Arts at Columbia University, the first job I got was loading trucks for United Parcel Service,” he says with a laugh.
That blue collar job would be the first of many for White. Instead of living hand to mouth as a struggling artist, or on a piano bench enduring music lessons with tone-deaf kids, he sought out steady paychecks. He took on jobs that would leave him free for his real, if unpaid, career.
“Music was my full-time occupation, I have to say, because I tended to take jobs which I would work in the evenings, and I have my days for my music.”
That’s how White, along with his wife and kids, would eventually land back in New Hampshire, in the early 1990s. He got a job as an overnight security guard at Daniel Webster College in Nashua.
“Sometimes he would drop in...and we would chat,” says Hannah McCarthy, who spent 25 years as Daniel Webster’s president. One of her initiatives at the school was placing donated pianos around the campus.
“We had a plan that we were going to put a piano everywhere we had social space. So we had a piano in our dining hall at the college, and we had it at the student center, and two of our residence halls.”
McCarthy says she was unaware that a trained composer, doubling as a school security guard, may have been tinkering away on his grand opus on one of these pianos.
White does remember playing on those pianos, but he promises that when he was on the clock, the task at hand was always his priority. Although, musical threads would inevitably come to him on the job.
“I suppose with this job, walking around with a nightstick, keys, and handcuffs, that I would be by myself. I guess I have to admit that, yes. That my mind would be clearer,” he says.
From that mind came a 900-page opera that took decades to complete. The work, Hester, is named after the main character of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter.
Earlier this year, White moved from Milford, N.H., to Brooklyn, N.Y., to be closer to his daughter, Rebecca, who submitted her dad’s work to the Center for Contemporary Opera in Manhattan.
“It is a wonderful story that Mr. White has, but if the work wasn’t worthy of a performance, we wouldn’t have done it,” says Jim Schaeffer, general and artistic director of the Center for Contemporary Opera. “It was worthy.”
The opera’s debut is already sold out, but the company added a second show for this weekend. White, admittedly, is uneasy about the attention.
“I don’t know what they are going to think of me, so it’s a little nervous. I think the music is done, great music, but I really don’t know if it is going to be great, or not so great.”
Reviews aside, White already has one admirer in his former boss at Daniel Webster College, Hannah McCarthy.
“He was good, he was so good,” she says. “But what he really had, he had so much passion for this. I mean he gave his entire life to this work. He made choices so he could do what he knew would be beautiful, and I expect that it will be.”One of my favorite watchmakers, HYT, has unveiled the new generation of HYT skeleton watches with the fascinating HYT H4 Gotham, an incredibly cool fusion of their trademark liquid hour indication with an amazing movement and a light carbon case.
Produced in a limited run of just 50 pieces, the new H4 Gotham is the first HYT watch to feature a case made entirely from diabolically rigid 3DTP carbon and it’s also the first watch from this company to display the time off center on its bezel, rather than on the flange as its predecessors.
It looks sport and chic and it’s extremely technical with an unstructured dial and a new exclusive caliber, produced in-house by HYT, with 35 jewels, 28,800 vph and a power reserve of 65 hours. Thanks to a sapphire disc secured by three anchor points at 4 and 8 o’clock housing the minute indicator and the power reserve indicator at 3 o’clock, the entire gear train is visible, making this timepiece even more eye catching.
The lower side of the HYT H4 Gotham houses the company’s signature bellows, which look like true pistons. For the first time for HYT the watch features time indexes engraved on the bezel and also for the first time the H4 comes with an all new technical strap, made from a chic mix of rubber and Nomex technical fibre.
The price for these drool inducing HYT H4 Gotham watches is $79,000.A far-left protest group at the University of Pittsburgh is promising to “rage on” after shutting down a debate between scholars from the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute.
At least one protester was detained Wednesday night after a group of students interrupted a debate, making loud noises with kazoos to disrupt the speakers throughout the event hosted by the College Republicans.
"Did they really think such infantile behavior helped advance their side of the argument?"
[RELATED: One detained after protesters crash on-campus debate at Pitt]
Now, the Pittsburgh Student Solidarity Coalition (PSSC)—which College Republicans President Marlo Safi claims is “the group that protested” during the debate—has vowed to continue its campus disruptions.
In fact, PSSC encouraged students before the event to show up with their “crew” and “get creative,” adding that “after all, there’s free Chick-fil-A involved,” leading to the eventual arrest of one protester.
“The University of Pittsburgh brings right-wing speakers to have ‘debates’ about immigration, continues to defend racist shit, and arrests any students who brings this to attention,” PSSC declared in a statement after Wednesday’s event. “The Pitt College Republican’s ‘debate’ had no room for the names of those who have lost their lives to this death machine.”
The statement goes on to say “f*ck every cop who ever did their job,” from “border police, to campus police, to the racist killers in St. Louis,” encouraging its members to “rage on in the face of state terror.”
[RELATED: Pro-Trump students have table flipped, lit stolen at Pitt]
One of the speakers from Wednesday’s event, the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky, has since recounted his experiences in an article for National Review.
Recalling the protesters’ tactics of “putting cone hats on their heads” and attempting to “loudly play kazoos,” von Spakovsky questions what they really thought they were “achieving” with their antics.
“Did they really think such infantile behavior helped advance their side of the argument and persuaded folks in the audience that they have the correct substantive view on immigration issues?” he asks, concluding that “all the protesters did was annoy the audience.”
“If the childish and thoughtless behavior of the protestors, however, was indicative of the type of intellectual rigor and cultural behavior being taught in our classrooms today, this country is indeed in trouble,” he adds.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @AGockowskiAMC Networks, producers of acclaimed television shows such as Mad Men, Hell on Wheels, and Halt and Catch Fire, is getting ready to announce a new over-the-top (OTT) video-streaming service dedicated to the art of the horror film. Shudder according to a report in Variety, went into closed beta testing earlier this week when AMC quietly began sending invites to viewers who requested them using a pre-launch page. The network reportedly intends to offer a two-month free trial at launch, after which the service will cost $5 per month or $50 per year.
As of now, Shudder’s on-demand catalog contains more than 200 horror flicks from around the world, including such all-time classics as A Tale of Two Sisters and Let the Right One In. These movies can be accessed either directly or via curated lists containing different titles with similar themes. There will also be a 24/7 linear feed for those who want a more TV-like experience.
Shudder only works from within a browser at this time, but dedicated apps for major mobile platforms and popular streaming devices are in the works. AMC has yet to announce a launch date for the service, which is based on the same DreamFever online video platform that already powers the network’s SundanceNow OTT product.
Why this matters: It’s easy to see why companies are turning to niche OTT offerings such as Shudder, but there is room for only so many. Those who wish to survive (or even thrive) will need to keep their prices low, ensure a constant supply of quality content, and hope that bigger OTT video players like Amazon and Netflix don’t turn their attention to their particular niche.When Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gives a speech about the U.S. economy, it gets a whole lot more attention than when Barack Obama gives a speech about the U.S. economy. Why is this true? Well, it is because Bernanke has a whole lot more control over the U.S. economy than Obama does. It is the Federal Reserve that controls monetary policy and interest rates. It is the Federal Reserve that can create money out of thin air. It is the Federal Reserve which is going to have the most influence over whether there will be inflation or deflation. So when Bernanke gives a speech, world financial markets listen. On Friday, news of the Bernanke speech sent gold and silver soaring towards new highs and send the U.S. dollar tumbling once again. This new Bernanke speech was yet another very strong indication that Helicopter Ben is getting ready to fire up the printing presses in an attempt to get the U.S. economy moving.
So is it a good thing for an unelected, virtually unaccountable private central bank called the Federal Reserve to have more power over the U.S. economy than the president of the United States?
Of course not.
But that is the way our system works.
So what did Bernanke say during his speech in Boston that was so earth shattering?
Well, you can read a full transcript of what Bernanke said right here. The following are a few key excerpts from Bernanke’s remarks….
*”Although output growth should be somewhat stronger in 2011 than it has been recently, growth next year seems unlikely to be much above its longer-term trend. If so, then net job creation may not exceed by much the increase in the size of the labor force, implying that the unemployment rate will decline only slowly. That prospect is of central concern to economic policymakers, because high rates of unemployment–especially longer-term unemployment–impose a very heavy burden on the unemployed and their families. More broadly, prolonged high unemployment would pose a risk to consumer spending and hence to the sustainability of the recovery.”
Clearly, Bernanke feels as though unemployment is way, way too high and that lowering unemployment is now the number one policy priority of the Federal Reserve.
So how will this be accomplished? After all, interest rates are already kissing the floor and that hasn’t brought the U.S. economy back to life.
Well, as most financial analysts are anticipating, the Fed could launch a substantial new round of quantitative easing.
But wouldn’t that cause a rise in the inflation rate?
Well according to Bernanke’s speech, the U.S. economy is supposed to have a certain amount of inflation….
*”Similarly, the mandate-consistent inflation rate–the inflation rate that best promotes our dual objectives in the long run–is not necessarily zero; indeed, Committee participants have generally judged that a modestly positive inflation rate over the longer run is most consistent with the dual mandate.”
Do you understand what Bernanke is saying there?
He is actually saying that the goal of the Federal Reserve is not to have a zero inflation rate. Rather, he says that we should expect to always have at least some inflation and that this is normal.
In fact, in his speech Bernanke said that inflation in the United States is currently too low….
*”…inflation is running at rates that are too low relative to the levels that the Committee judges to be most consistent with the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate in the longer run.”
Inflation is too low?
Is he joking?
No, sadly he is not.
Instead, he seems ready to break out the money hoses and start showering dollars from every street corner….
*”Given the Committee’s objectives, there would appear–all else being equal–to be a case for further action.”
“Further action” being code words for the “quantitative easing” that we have all been anticipating.
The funny thing is that in the nearly 4,000 word Bernanke speech there was not a single word about the value of the U.S. dollar.
This month the U.S. dollar has been plummeting like a rock, but apparently it is not an important consideration for Bernanke.
In essence, Bernanke’s message is that the focus is on trying to “fix” the U.S. economy and if it is necessary to jack up the rate of inflation and to |
of the base to snipe my 2 medivac (if this is not suspicious idk what to say) do you think this is standard double drop 15:42 minute timing??
16:42 random moving all stalker to the natural and build a photon cannon
18:20 dat game sense! move all stalker to the main again still he finished the first obs and still 0 vision to the map
18:35 moving the stalker in the perfect direction to kill my drop
seriously this guy have 0 multitasking and very bad army control that why he lost that much,for me is maphack
and in master league i have never seen toss play without obs until 18:20 (unless is a maphacker), every toss build min 3 obs idk he moving stalker so random for me is suspicious... plz explain that:6:32 moving 2 stalker into my reaper without vision at random!!14:18 random moving all the stalker first to my marauder and after go to xel naga first for snipe 1 marauder (this not very suspicious but still)15:42 moving the stalker into my drop!! this is rly suspicious he select all the stalker and move to the cliff of the base to snipe my 2 medivac (if this is not suspicious idk what to say) do you think this is standard double drop 15:42 minute timing??16:42 random moving all stalker to the natural and build a photon cannon18:20 dat game sense! move all stalker to the main again still he finished the first obs and still 0 vision to the map18:35 moving the stalker in the perfect direction to kill my dropseriously this guy have 0 multitasking and very bad army control that why he lost that much,for me is maphackand in master league i have never seen toss play without obs until 18:20 (unless is a maphacker), every toss build min 3 obs
He has some good moves but some bad ones too, like he eventually allows you to make this double drop that will kill his economy entirely (see how late he reacts to the 19 min drop). His game plan makes sense, staying defensive on 3 bases after a failed 5 gates blink is fine, he knows that the main threat is the drops. He tries to use his stalker to defend drops, succeed at first, fails eventually.
Ofc, there's the possibility he's just a bad player using a hack but to me it's just a standard master having some good and bad moments...
He has some good moves but some bad ones too, like he eventually allows you to make this double drop that will kill his economy entirely (see how late he reacts to the 19 min drop). His game plan makes sense, staying defensive on 3 bases after a failed 5 gates blink is fine, he knows that the main threat is the drops. He tries to use his stalker to defend drops, succeed at first, fails eventually.Ofc, there's the possibility he's just a bad player using a hack but to me it's just a standard master having some good and bad moments...
yeah but moving stalker in my drop is rlly suspicious i wait more people to watch the replay
yeah but moving stalker in my drop is rlly suspicious i wait more people to watch the replay mass stalker walks into a bar and says where is the counter?
Entropical Profile Joined October 2014 Russian Federation 2 Posts #9190
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/340614-gm-master-map-hacker-and-general-hacking-and-cheating-thread?page=451#9012 Probably it's the same "MonteCristo" who tried to report someone earlier in this topic, and ended up getting banned himself, lol. His other replay which he himself uploaded has quite a few suspicious moments, too.
AntiHacker Profile Joined March 2015 Turkey 2 Posts #9191 On April 07 2015 20:26 Gwavajuice wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 07 2015 19:11 AntiHacker wrote:
Nickname : InSTinK
Server : NA
League : Master
Profile :
Replay:
Its so obvious he hack. He's moving his army and getting them posioning into the me without seeing me or sending any scout!
In the last part of game he moved his army to blockade me without no recon or seeing me or scaning me how could he knows if he not a hacker? This is so obvious he hack also he scanned my vipers to see them for making more vikings to destroy them quickly in the middle of the game. Where he knows all of this My army? My base? My Units? This is so strange and his hack is so obvious just as i wrote in the begining of this thread. I hope he'll get a ban quickly. I also reported him more 20 to blizzard! Nickname : InSTinKServer : NALeague : MasterProfile : http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/403486/1/InSTinK/ Replay: http://drop.sc/395836 Its so obvious he hack. He's moving his army and getting them posioning into the me without seeing me or sending any scout!In the last part of game he moved his army to blockade me without no recon or seeing me or scaning me how could he knows if he not a hacker? This is so obvious he hack also he scanned my vipers to see them for making more vikings to destroy them quickly in the middle of the game. Where he knows all of this My army? My base? My Units? This is so strange and his hack is so obvious just as i wrote in the begining of this thread. I hope he'll get a ban quickly. I also reported him more 20 to blizzard!
Watched the whole replay from is point of view :
1 - no evidence of hacking whatsoever
2 - more like evidence of not hacking cause many times he would have done things better if he was hacking (killing overlords faster, better positionning of his army, defending your runbyes...)
3 - big evidence of you being salty.
You seriously reported him 20 times to blizzard? Not only it makes you look ridiculous but also spamming false accusations won't help blizzard in busting the real hackers...
Edit : I'm sure the kind of guy that also rant about Blizzard doing nothing about hackers...
Watched the whole replay from is point of view :1 - no evidence of hacking whatsoever2 - more like evidence of not hacking cause many times he would have done things better if he was hacking (killing overlords faster, better positionning of his army, defending your runbyes...)3 - big evidence of you being salty.You seriously reported him 20 times to blizzard? Not only it makes you look ridiculous but also spamming false accusations won't help blizzard in busting the real hackers...Edit : I'm sure the kind of guy that also rant about Blizzard doing nothing about hackers...
U must be his friend or himself no doubt! He's exactly hacked the game when he moves the army against mine thats shows correctly he is a MapHacker. Thats obvious.... U must be his friend or himself no doubt! He's exactly hacked the game when he moves the army against mine thats shows correctly he is a MapHacker. Thats obvious....
CysticFibros Profile Joined October 2012 Germany 26 Posts #9192 On April 07 2015 23:59 Gwavajuice wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 07 2015 21:41 CysticFibros wrote:
Hackername: Chalumeau
race: Protoss
1. The Protoss player has not even seen thus did not even know what I'm looking for a race but builds forge and counter of cannons when I first pool play.
2 He goes on air and did not turn or scout observer exactly what I had built wan roach hydra at the counter.
Replay:
http://drop.sc/395839
Hackername: Chalumeaurace: Protoss1. The Protoss player has not even seen thus did not even know what I'm looking for a race but builds forge and counter of cannons when I first pool play.2 He goes on air and did not turn or scout observer exactly what I had built wan roach hydra at the counter.Replay:
OMG I though april's fool was last week!
you're seriously posting a replay of silver vs gold? of wings of liberty? with both player clearly not knowing what they do? you really think hacking was the cause of your loss?
Please read the OP and the motivation behind this GM/master hacker thread. Then go to strategy section, the zerg help me thread and ask for help. OMG I though april's fool was last week!you're seriously posting a replay of silver vs gold? of wings of liberty? with both player clearly not knowing what they do? you really think hacking was the cause of your loss?Please read the OP and the motivation behind this GM/master hacker thread. Then go to strategy section, the zerg help me thread and ask for help.
Please stop spam hacker matter what league or not fakes Maphack is a hack Please stop spam hacker matter what league or not fakes Maphack is a hack
KingAlphard Profile Blog Joined August 2012 Italy 1704 Posts #9193
Has been maphacking for at least 1 month.
Server: EU
League: Diamond
B.Net profile: battlenet://starcraft/profile/2/1606736158648172544
http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/3713126/1/NightWarrior/
Replay:
http://drop.sc/395875
Pulls multiple probes ahead of time against a non scouted cannon rush.
Hacker name: [AG] Nightwarrior. Team AG (Aggression gaming) - he is the ingame owner of the team as well.Has been maphacking for at least 1 month.Server: EULeague: DiamondB.Net profile: battlenet://starcraft/profile/2/1606736158648172544Replay:Pulls multiple probes ahead of time against a non scouted cannon rush. hots/lotv gm protoss - tesgaming.com
BadBorz Profile Joined June 2012 Canada 60 Posts Last Edited: 2015-04-09 01:18:52 #9194 On April 08 2015 02:22 jaf wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 08 2015 01:34 Gwavajuice wrote:
On April 07 2015 23:14 jaf wrote:
http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/857218/1/MonteCristo/
MonteCristo
EU
Protoss
http://ggtracker.com/matches/5910031
Moving stalker to kill my drop with 0 vision on the map he build the first obs at 20 minute (ithink) only for kill my wm prof are at 16:40 and 18:40 moving stalker from main to natural for kill my drop and in the end attack before my +3 atk finish (but still fail) MonteCristoEUProtossMoving stalker to kill my drop with 0 vision on the map he build the first obs at 20 minute (ithink) only for kill my wm prof are at 16:40 and 18:40 moving stalker from main to natural for kill my drop and in the end attack before my +3 atk finish (but still fail)
Watched replay from his vision. My thoughts :
1- I really doubt someone hacking would station his army on top of 3 wm. Moreover, he was caught off guard by your mines, wouldn't he have got obs earlier if he knew you were going for this tech?
2 - He does move his stalkers at his natural, but then he moves them letting you drop the natural and do considerable amount of damage. he has 15 stalkers, letting just 5-6 at his natural to defend would have been easy no?
3 - you also successfully drop his main with 4 widow mines, surely he would have protected his base better if he was hacking?
4 - he doesn't attack "before your +3 finishes" he attacks because he just hit 2/2 and you killed 37 workers : what else would he possibly do? you also manage to flank his HT and get rid of them very fast, he would have had a better map awarness with a hack, don't you think?
In conclusion, I don't think there is any evidence here, the guy played normally, probably not hacking. Watched replay from his vision. My thoughts :1- I really doubt someone hacking would station his army on top of 3 wm. Moreover, he was caught off guard by your mines, wouldn't he have got obs earlier if he knew you were going for this tech?2 - He does move his stalkers at his natural, but then he moves them letting you drop the natural and do considerable amount of damage. he has 15 stalkers, letting just 5-6 at his natural to defend would have been easy no?3 - you also successfully drop his main with 4 widow mines, surely he would have protected his base better if he was hacking?4 - he doesn't attack "before your +3 finishes" he attacks because he just hit 2/2 and you killed 37 workers : what else would he possibly do? you also manage to flank his HT and get rid of them very fast, he would have had a better map awarness with a hack, don't you think?In conclusion, I don't think there is any evidence here, the guy played normally, probably not hacking.
idk he moving stalker so random for me is suspicious... plz explain that:
6:32 moving 2 stalker into my reaper without vision at random!!
14:18 random moving all the stalker first to my marauder and after go to xel naga first for snipe 1 marauder (this not very suspicious but still)
15:42 moving the stalker into my drop!! this is rly suspicious he select all the stalker and move to the cliff of the base to snipe my 2 medivac (if this is not suspicious idk what to say) do you think this is standard double drop 15:42 minute timing??
16:42 random moving all stalker to the natural and build a photon cannon
18:20 dat game sense! move all stalker to the main again still he finished the first obs and still 0 vision to the map
18:35 moving the stalker in the perfect direction to kill my drop
seriously this guy have 0 multitasking and very bad army control that why he lost that much,for me is maphack
and in master league i have never seen toss play without obs until 18:20 (unless is a maphacker), every toss build min 3 obs idk he moving stalker so random for me is suspicious... plz explain that:6:32 moving 2 stalker into my reaper without vision at random!!14:18 random moving all the stalker first to my marauder and after go to xel naga first for snipe 1 marauder (this not very suspicious but still)15:42 moving the stalker into my drop!! this is rly suspicious he select all the stalker and move to the cliff of the base to snipe my 2 medivac (if this is not suspicious idk what to say) do you think this is standard double drop 15:42 minute timing??16:42 random moving all stalker to the natural and build a photon cannon18:20 dat game sense! move all stalker to the main again still he finished the first obs and still 0 vision to the map18:35 moving the stalker in the perfect direction to kill my dropseriously this guy have 0 multitasking and very bad army control that why he lost that much,for me is maphackand in master league i have never seen toss play without obs until 18:20 (unless is a maphacker), every toss build min 3 obs
I agree with you lol... this guy is a maphacker and that's pretty obvious.he moves his stalkers right to the drops while he has absolutely no information on what's going on on the map because of no obs, no scouting at all. he also go straight to the marauder behind the xel naga tower to kill it. he also stay very prepared to the front incoming attack before it comes on third base. this guy is a maphacker and it's 100% obvious if you dont agree with that you should be totally blind, stupid or be a friend of him or even himself.
I agree with you lol... this guy is a maphacker and that's pretty obvious.he moves his stalkers right to the drops while he has absolutely no information on what's going on on the map because of no obs, no scouting at all. he also go straight to the marauder behind the xel naga tower to kill it. he also stay very prepared to the front incoming attack before it comes on third base. this guy is a maphacker and it's 100% obvious if you dont agree with that you should be totally blind, stupid or be a friend of him or even himself.
ShazWowSC Profile Joined April 2015 1 Post #9195 I don't know if this is confirmed info, and is pretty old, but Gerudo is the same as impa... I've had interactions with him when he was under the alias FnaticTRiCKY and Gerudo, as well as Ivanski (mostly tricky and gerudo). (skype, ingame chat) pretty sure they are the same person although he denied it when trying to join the team I was on at the time.
MonkeyBot Profile Joined June 2013 United States 125 Posts #9196 I thought this would be a good place to post About Blizzards's recent round of bans and suspensions: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/18648312
Heartland Profile Blog Joined May 2012 Sweden 23882 Posts #9197 On April 11 2015 07:32 MonkeyBot wrote:
I thought this would be a good place to post About Blizzards's recent round of bans and suspensions: I thought this would be a good place to post About Blizzards's recent round of bans and suspensions: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/18648312
and there was great rejoicing
yaaaaaay and there was great rejoicingyaaaaaay My mom doesn't sound weird!!
avilo Profile Blog Joined November 2007 United States 4099 Posts Last Edited: 2015-04-11 19:58:08 #9198
Server: NA
League: N/A
Description: Throughout the course of this replay, perfect phoenix harrass early on, always avoids units. I will list all of the time stamps, as well as corresponding time stamps to his VOD that show suspicious action.
There are also suspicious waypoint rallies consistently in this game that consistently match-up with opponent unit pathing through the fog of war. In other words, WinterSC units will suddenly all be waypointed to a single point and then a second point past that point that correspond with either my destination point of my units, and with cloaked units through the fog of war.
The most damning evidence i found starts at the 11:10-11-35 marks in the replay where if you watch closely going on very slow you will note Winter never moves his screen to the right most observer. The observer also never comes into vision range on top of that. Yet at the 11:28-11:29 mark you will see the strange way point command with the secondary destination point that is instantly put on top of my observer from the mini-map while Winter's screen is near his natural base, not to mention you cannot see cloaked units on the mini-map.
The same thing happens multiple times in the game, earlier on in the game phoenix use this waypoint command and are set on the pathing of an observer, then it is done at my third base again set to pathing on a probe through the fog of war, then with the two observers starting at 11:14-11:16 high templar are warped in at my natural on the pathing of my left most observer to where my obs destination point is, and then again with a hallucinated phoenix that has the same waypointed command set on a path with the left most observer, and of course the observer on the right side of the map is the most blatant.
My own analysis is here on my VOD:
Starting time of Analysis: 13:20
End Time of Analysis: 2:15:54
Replay:
VOD Of Opponent During the Game:
Starting Time of the Game Played: 4:01:40
Here are time stamps of my initial replay analysis with thoughts (i also go over all of these in my VOD):
6:00
goes for gas probes, then clicks through fog of war instead to probe he cannot see, then suddenly changes his mind and goes back to the gas probes (phoenix clicked exactly to the probe)
6:04
clicks almost directly on/near the MSC. Not unusual that MSC is between bases, but he goes straight to it
7:30
the 100% evidence: phoenixes selected by winter to kill probe leaving enemy natural, then...
7:35
his screen locks in place as he perfectly adjusts phoenix pathing towards the probe. Note he does not click
to go scout the third from the start...he is following the probe through the fog of war. This is not a "random" catch that normally would happen like when a player would send their phoenix to the third to scout it
9:23
All game long winter is willing to blindly send his phoenix in...suddenly when another probe is en route to third his phoenix this time are purposely rallied solely to the third to kill the probe again
9:33
he has no idea where my phoenix were last at, main? natural? The moment i select my phoenix at 9:33, he selects his and moves his away as if he knows mine are on the way and then suddenly decides it's now safe to hit the natural?
10:35
no vision of the entire map, no timing on anythingas my units get closer to his natural be begins to select his stalkers repeatedly
10:36
starts to move his stalkers towards the direction i click my phoenix? similar command is queued up here to the one previously at 9:23 where he had queued phoenix movement in anticipation of a probe...same command done here and cancelled in same fashion
10:39
screen lock again...? He was microing without even looking at this units? What?
11:16
winter's templar are warping and and all of the for some reason are waypointed to his natural...
Check my observer in the center of the map and where it is headed to...
The templar are all rallied to the point near where my
observer end path point is.
11:23
Screen locks at his natural as he then suddenly selects all stalkers and right clicks towards the observer which of course not only can he not detect, it is not even in range of his nexus or units in the fog of war.
11:24
the only scout/hallucinated phoenix makes the entire game is perfectly timed/pathed to cross paths with the
observer coming down the center of the map.
Phoenix is also way pointed to what looks random at firstbut was a previous location near the observer's pathing
There is no reason to waypoint the phoenix in this nature ever which means it is automated with the hack winter is using
Whatever hack this may be can possibly re-orient and set units on a path that will be to the intended destination
of an opponent's unit?
11:28-11:29
The third time this strange command has been issued this game with his units. Keep in mind since 11:23 winter has not
ever visually seen on his screen the observer blip.
His screen is at his natural and he warps in a stalker. He then immediately has all of his stalkers selected and they all are instantly commanded to the exact pinpoint location of where the observer is on the mini-map, which of course is impossible because Winter never ever had his camera anywhere near the observer in the first place to have seen it
Bonus Round:
Winter's VOD:
http://www.twitch.tv/wintergaming/v/4011909
Starting from 4:06:41:
Every time he selects phoenixes to move them his eyes change
direction looking at map for where my units are or are not
Notice when he goes back to base to macro normally his focus
is entirely on buildings, looks at main monitor...
Then every time he goes to harrass he is looking at an
entirely different monitor?????
4:06:51
Winter Selects phoenixes, eyes immediately shift to looking
at mini map
4:07:11
Attention focuses momentarily to macro face forward as normal
4:07:12
Head suddenly shifts again to look at other monitor? map?
Checking for position of my units, another successful harrass
4:07:17
Focused back on main monitor, goes to macro
4:07:20
Attention back on phoenixes
4:07:32
Back to macroing...
4:07:33
Head turns immediately now to check mini-map/2nd monitor for
position of my units
4:07:39
This will no repeatedly happen any time he goes to harrass
and selects his phoenixes, he will look off to the left
(from his perspective).
4:07:36
Looks off to the left again checking mini-map/monitor/hack
for position of my units to see if safe to phoenix harrass
Once again, perfectly avoids all units
4:08:07
Selects phoenixes starts clicking around, then eyes again
go to his left to check mini-map/hack/monitor
Once again, perfectly avoid all units that had sent back
to the natural.
4:08:35
Again, eyes to the left after selecting phoenixes
4:08:33
Looks like he looks off at the probe?
4:08:38
Phoenixes selected again, eyes shift way left again looking
off to check where my units are again.
Third time, 100% avoids all my units. Choosing correct base
for PHoenix to harrass
4:09:02
He is bouncing phoenix between base, but checks his
mini-map/hack/monitor just to make sure it's safe.
Once again perfectly avoids army.
4:09:14
He immediately looks off to the left again, has his phoenix
selected while screen is between his main and natural
----------------------------------------------------
***************
VOD Time: 4:09:17 Game Time: 7:30
This was the first very blatant moment i found from the
replay analysis of him following a unit through the fog of
war.
***************
Watching the VOD after confirms that he immediately selects
his phoenixes and his eyes veer off as has occurred every
single time he does a 100% successful phoenix harrass.
VOD Time: 4:09:20 Game Time: 7:33
All phoenixes selected, begins to look off to the left again
VOD Time: 4:09:23 Game Time: 7:36
As he follows my probe through the fog of war he begins
looking more to the left again
*******************************************************
VOD Time: 4:09:35 Game Time 7:48
For the first time while harrassing with phoenixes, he does
not look off to the left at his second monitor/hack and he
runs into my phoenixes/stalkers this time.
This is the one time during the VOD he does not turn his eyes left and it is the only time he predicts wrong on where my units are.
*****************************************************
VOD Time: 4:09:47 Game Time: 8:00
Phoenixes selected, ready to harrass...
VOD Time: 4:09:50 Game Time: 8:03
He again looks to his mini-map/monitor/hack to check for
where my units are or are not
VOD Time: 4:10:44 Game Time: 8:57
Phoenixes selected, he looks off to left at mini-map/hack
monitor to see where is safe to harrass
VOD Time: 4:10:45 Game Time: 8:58
Initially chooses to go to natural
*********************************
VOD Time: 4:10:59 Game Time: 9:13
Phoenixes selected, immediately looks off to mini-map/hack
monitor again to see where is safe to harrass?
*********************************
VOD Time: 4:11:09 Game Time: 9:22
Phoenixes selected, looking again to the left
******************************
VOD Time: 4:11:12 Game Time: 9:26
Again, the video perfectly matches up to the initial replay
analysis of him sending these phoenix specifically to snipe
the probe going to my third.
He even looks off to the left as the probe is about to get
within vision.
Eyes immediately look away from the probe when it does come
into vision...Ooops Winter?
VOD Time: 4:11:28 Game Time: 9:41
Again, this time eyes go to the right as he watches my units
on the left side of the map.
Perfectly avoids all phoenixes which he had no map vision
of for quite a while. This is the 4th time in a row he has
guessed correctly on his harrass. He had actually made
a beeline towards the natural after looking off screen
and identifying my phoenix were out of position.
VOD Time: 4:11:40 Game Time: 9:53
No vision of my phoenixes...why is he suddenly smiling? He
has not seen my phoenixes coming for his phoenix yet.
What he probably does know is that my phoenix upgrade has
finished and he is about to get caught (in multiple ways).
He starts his change in expression before the phoenix are
even on map/on screen.
************************************ Most Damning
VOD Time: 4:12:23 Game Time: 10:37
Just as previously whenever harrassing with phoenix he looks
off to the left to check where my units are positioned...
He looks to the left as my units are about to reach his ramp,
and this time in the game matches up perfectly with my
initial replay analysis of this moment.
VOD Time: 4:12:24 Game Time: 10:38
He now is again looking off to the left which we can conclude
at this point is into the fog of war at my units as well
as his screen about to be locked.
VOD Time: 4:12:25 Game Time: 10:38/10:39
As with the initial replay analysis, Winter's screen moves
down and locks, as he is looking at my army right outside
of his natural, and he is instantly ready to grab his army
************************************
VOD Time: 4:13:05 Game Time 11:18
Eyes shift again to the left and he seems to know obs is
nearby that he cannot see (never came in vision)
VOD Time: 4:13:15 Game Time: 11:29
The most obvious looks off to the side again, then units all
way pointed onto the observer which he should not even know
is on the map (check the replay analysis)
His cursor jumps to the observer location. Then his units
fumble around.
4:18:09 VS HUK
Eyes to the left before Huk's proxy probe is even in vision on mini-map? He sees proxy, decides to not even check for it? OK
--------------------------------------
As mentioned and linked, i went over this on stream, i would like people's opinions here from TL. Once again, the most obvious suspicious action and impossible one to me is the one at 11:29 where his stalkers are insta rallied to an observer he's never seen with pin point accuracy from off screen while his screen is still at his natural base.
Also edit:
I do not have SC2 gears, but i would appreciate if someone could check the points in the game on SC2 gears where there is the weird way point command into secondary point, something may come up there.
Hacker name: WinterSCServer: NALeague: N/ADescription: Throughout the course of this replay, perfect phoenix harrass early on, always avoids units. I will list all of the time stamps, as well as corresponding time stamps to his VOD that show suspicious action.There are also suspicious waypoint rallies consistently in this game that consistently match-up with opponent unit pathing through the fog of war. In other words, WinterSC units will suddenly all be waypointed to a single point and then a second point past that point that correspond with either my destination point of my units, and with cloaked units through the fog of war.The most damning evidence i found starts at the 11:10-11-35 marks in the replay where if you watch closely going on very slow you will note Winter never moves his screen to the right most observer. The observer also never comes into vision range on top of that. Yet at the 11:28-11:29 mark you will see the strange way point command with the secondary destination point that is instantly put on top of my observer from the mini-map while Winter's screen is near his natural base, not to mention you cannot see cloaked units on the mini-map.The same thing happens multiple times in the game, earlier on in the game phoenix use this waypoint command and are set on the pathing of an observer, then it is done at my third base again set to pathing on a probe through the fog of war, then with the two observers starting at 11:14-11:16 high templar are warped in at my natural on the pathing of my left most observer to where my obs destination point is, and then again with a hallucinated phoenix that has the same waypointed command set on a path with the left most observer, and of course the observer on the right side of the map is the most blatant.My own analysis is here on my VOD: http://www.twitch.tv/avilo/v/4017010 Starting time of Analysis: 13:20End Time of Analysis: 2:15:54Replay: http://drop.sc/395918 VOD Of Opponent During the Game: http://www.twitch.tv/wintergaming/v/4011909 Starting Time of the Game Played: 4:01:40Here are time stamps of my initial replay analysis with thoughts (i also go over all of these in my VOD):6:00goes for gas probes, then clicks through fog of war instead to probe he cannot see, then suddenly changes his mind and goes back to the gas probes (phoenix clicked exactly to the probe)6:04clicks almost directly on/near the MSC. Not unusual that MSC is between bases, but he goes straight to it7:30the 100% evidence: phoenixes selected by winter to kill probe leaving enemy natural, then...7:35his screen locks in place as he perfectly adjusts phoenix pathing towards the probe. Note he does not clickto go scout the third from the start...he is following the probe through the fog of war. This is not a "random" catch that normally would happen like when a player would send their phoenix to the third to scout it9:23All game long winter is willing to blindly send his phoenix in...suddenly when another probe is en route to third his phoenix this time are purposely rallied solely to the third to kill the probe again9:33he has no idea where my phoenix were last at, main? natural? The moment i select my phoenix at 9:33, he selects his and moves his away as if he knows mine are on the way and then suddenly decides it's now safe to hit the natural?10:35no vision of the entire map, no timing on anythingas my units get closer to his natural be begins to select his stalkers repeatedly10:36starts to move his stalkers towards the direction i click my phoenix? similar command is queued up here to the one previously at 9:23 where he had queued phoenix movement in anticipation of a probe...same command done here and cancelled in same fashion10:39screen lock again...? He was microing without even looking at this units? What?11:16winter's templar are warping and and all of the for some reason are waypointed to his natural...Check my observer in the center of the map and where it is headed to...The templar are all rallied to the point near where myobserver end path point is.11:23Screen locks at his natural as he then suddenly selects all stalkers and right clicks towards the observer which of course not only can he not detect, it is not even in range of his nexus or units in the fog of war.11:24the only scout/hallucinated phoenix makes the entire game is perfectly timed/pathed to cross paths with theobserver coming down the center of the map.Phoenix is also way pointed to what looks random at firstbut was a previous location near the observer's pathingThere is no reason to waypoint the phoenix in this nature ever which means it is automated with the hack winter is usingWhatever hack this may be can possibly re-orient and set units on a path that will be to the intended destinationof an opponent's unit?11:28-11:29The third time this strange command has been issued this game with his units. Keep in mind since 11:23 winter has notever visually seen on his screen the observer blip.His screen is at his natural and he warps in a stalker. He then immediately has all of his stalkers selected and they all are instantly commanded to the exact pinpoint location of where the observer is on the mini-map, which of course is impossible because Winter never ever had his camera anywhere near the observer in the first place to have seen itBonus Round:Winter's VOD:Starting from 4:06:41:Every time he selects phoenixes to move them his eyes changedirection looking at map for where my units are or are notNotice when he goes back to base to macro normally his focusis entirely on buildings, looks at main monitor... |
closer, Ellmers then amended the basis of her opposition. She spoke out against an abortion exception beyond 20 weeks for rape victims because she did not want those patients to be required to show a police report alleging the rape prior to proceeding with the abortion. Backers of the provision pointed out that no such paperwork was required prior to 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Quigley said Ellmers not only succeeded in scuttling the vote but triggered fierce media criticism of the bill.
“She contributed to this media firestorm, taking attention away from the horrific reality we were trying to draw America’s eyes to: the fact the U.S. is one of only seven nations to allow abortion on demand after five months,” Quigley said.
As a result, the Susan B. Anthony List, which works to elect pro-life women to public office, took an unprecedented step.
“Because that betrayal was so profound, we had to take action and endorse against her,” Quigley said. “It was the first time in our history that we’ve endorsed a pro-life man over a pro-life woman in a Republican primary.”
Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Mallory Quigley:
It wasn’t just an endorsement. The group also blitzed North Carolina’s second congressional district, going door-to-door to tell thousands of GOP voters why Ellmers was unacceptable to them. Quigley said their work made a big difference.
“Almost 40 percent of the people who originally said to the activists that they were supporting Renee Ellmers changed their minds and said they were less likely to vote for her after learning about her role in derailing the pain capable bill,” Quigley said.
She said taking the time to speak with voters is quickly becoming the most effective campaign tool.
“You can’t really measure what the impact of a TV ad is, especially in the age of NetFlix and DVR,” Quigley said. “For us to know that we actually reached 12,571 people by Election Day was a powerful statement for the pro-life movement. This is where we thrive, in person-to-person interaction.”
When Holding’s overwhelming victory was secured, Quigley and her colleagues rejoiced.
“We could not stand for what she did back in January (2015) and the damage she caused to the pro-life movement, so we were glad to see her defeated on Tuesday,” Quigley said.
Now the Susan B. Anthony List turns its attention to the general election, in races all over the nation and in the race for the White House.
Read the tested and proven strategies to defeat the abortion cartel in “Abortion Free: Your Manual for Building a Pro-Life America One Community at a Time.”
On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton secured the delegates needed to make her the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. In her speech, she claimed the legacy of the women who fought for women’s suffrage, which, of course, includes Susan B. Anthony.
“Susan B. Anthony, if she were alive today, would not recognize the position that Hillary Clinton has taken as being the pro-woman feminist,” said Quigley, who said Clinton is not the pro-woman candidate because she couldn’t care less about women who disagree with her on abortion.
“Hillary is all about being her kind of woman,” she said. “She does not leave open the possibility that there is a majority of women in America who think that it’s not OK to build up their rights on the broken rights of their unborn children.”
During the Republican primaries, Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser joined several other pro-life leaders in denouncing Donald Trump as not a reliable pro-life candidate. But with Hillary Clinton and pro-choice Libertarian Gary Johnson as the only other options drawing any support, Quigley said the group’s tune on Trump has changed.
“Donald Trump has made very firm commitments to the pro-life movement that he has reiterated several times,” Quigley said. “He said that will nominate justices to the Supreme Court who will be pro-life. He actually used the term ‘pro-life,’ which is to go a step further than others who would just say a ‘strong constitutionalist.”’
He has also made commitments to support defunding Planned Parenthood and passage of the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
While Trump was not the group’s preference earlier this year, Quigley said the match-up with Clinton makes the decision a no-brainer.
“He’s certainly said some things that were indefensible, but I think ultimately what matters is policy and the court,” Quigley said.
“[Clinton] wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which would be the most pro-abortion position that any politician has ever taken, even to the left of Barack Obama, to force taxpayers to fund abortion on demand,” she said. “There may be some questions about Donald Trump, but Hillary Clinton is a sure thing.”Even people who support capital punishment are uncomfortable thinking too much about the actual mechanics of putting someone to death. Lethal injection seemed to be the perfect solution. Compared to electrocution, gas or hanging, execution by lethal injection looks as humane as putting a horse to sleep, as Ronald Reagan once suggested.
But appearances are deceiving. Mounting evidence suggests some prisoners may have suffered horribly and needlessly before they died because executioners use a bizarre three-drug protocol hastily concocted 30 years ago and never revised. The Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether executions with these drugs pose an unnecessary and unconstitutionally cruel risk of pain and suffering. This case was brought against Kentucky, but the result will affect all 38 states that use lethal injections, so all have imposed moratoria on executions until the court rules on the legality of this method.
The idea of a "humane execution" is a contradiction in terms; all executions are inherently cruel. But if states are going to have the death penalty, it is not enough to believe that death by poisoning is inherently more humane than the electric chair. Public officials have a human rights obligation to choose the specific drugs and methods of administration that carry the least risk of pain and suffering for the condemned. To date, they have not done so.
Dr. Jay Chapman, a medical examiner in Oklahoma with no pharmacology experience, came up with the three-drug protocol in 1977 used in U.S. executions. When Human Rights Watch interviewed him, Chapman told us that, "despite having no experience with this sort of thing," he had done no research before deciding on the drugs that should be used in lethal injections. In fact, when we asked why he chose the three drugs he did, he replied, "Why not?"
Texas, the nation's most prolific executioner by far, copied his formula and 37 states followed suit. No one consulted with toxicologists, anesthesiologists or other experts to assess the risks inherent in Chapman's choice of drugs or to determine if there were lethal injection options that would pose less risk of pain and suffering.
The first of the three drugs used in lethal injections is an anesthetic (sodium thiopental) to render the prisoner unconscious. Next is pancuronium bromide, a drug that paralyzes voluntary muscles, including the lungs and diaphragm, but does not affect consciousness or the experience of pain. The final drug is potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest.
If the prisoner does not receive a sufficient quantity of anesthesia he will feel himself suffocating from the pancuronium bromide. If he is still conscious when given the potassium chloride, he will feel his veins burning as the poison courses to his heart. Indeed, potassium chloride is so painful that U.S. veterinarian guidelines prohibit its use on domestic animals unless a vet first ensures they are deeply unconscious.
Incorrect dosage, faulty catheter insertion, kinking IV tubes - many problems can prevent anesthesia from working. No surgery would ever be conducted without assessing and continually monitoring the patient's level of consciousness. But during lethal injections, no one makes sure the prisoner is deeply unconscious before and during the injection of the second and third drugs.
States have fought hard to keep their execution records secret. But lawyers in some cases have succeeded in prying loose evidence that prisoners may have been conscious as they were killed. For example, logs from six executions in California reveal that prisoners' chests were still moving regularly up and down long after the anesthetic should have stopped their breathing -- suggesting they were awake and suffering. Toxicology reports from executions in North Carolina also suggest some prisoners had been inadequately anesthetized.
It is not surprising that lethal injections are not what the public hoped. The protocol was not sound when originally developed and advances in pharmacology and anesthesia administration have rendered it archaic at best, torturous at worst. Medical experts agree that there are other drug protocols that could be used in lethal injections that do not carry the same risks of excruciating pain.
For example, eliminating the pancuronium bromide would eliminate the risk that a paralyzed prisoner is insufficiently anesthetized but unable to move or say anything to alert witnesses or executioners. The only purpose of that drug is to keep the prisoner still, saving execution observers from having to witness the convulsions or other body movements that might otherwise occur from the potassium chloride. And saving corrections officials from the public relations consequences of such a troubling sight.
A federal judge in California has suggested replacing the three-drug protocol with a single injection of a massive dose of a barbiturate. Although it would guarantee a painless death for the prisoner, California officials rejected that option because it could take 30 to 45 minutes for the prisoner's heart to stop beating.
Corrections officials argue they are not constitutionally required to choose the execution methods that pose the least risk of pain. The Supreme Court will judge the merits of their legal argument. But we must judge the morality of their conduct.Regular season Edit
Schedule and results Edit
2005–06 Game Log October: 4–7–2 (Home: 2–1–1; Road: 2–6–1) # Date Visitor Score Home OT Decision Attendance Record Pts 1 October 5 Calgary 3 – 6 Minnesota Kiprusoff 19,398 0–1–0 0 2 October 7 Calgary 3 – 1 Columbus Kiprusoff 18,136 1–1–0 2 3 October 9 Calgary 3 – 6 Detroit Kiprusoff 20,066 1–2–0 2 4 October 10 Calgary 3 – 7 Colorado Kiprusoff 18,007 1–3–0 2 5 October 13 Dallas 3 – 2 Calgary OT Kiprusoff 19,289 1–3–1 3 6 October 15 Edmonton 0 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 2–3–1 5 7 October 17 Phoenix 2 – 0 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 2–4–1 5 8 October 20 Edmonton 1 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 3–4–1 7 9 October 22 Calgary 1 – 2 Dallas Kiprusoff 18,357 3–5–1 7 10 October 23 Calgary 3 – 2 Los Angeles Kiprusoff 18,118 4–5–1 9 11 October 26 Calgary 1 – 4 Anaheim Kiprusoff 11,774 4–6–1 9 12 October 27 Calgary 2 – 3 Phoenix Sauve 13,459 4–7–1 9 13 October 29 Calgary 2 – 3 San Jose SO Kiprusoff 17,496 4–7–2 10 November: 10–2–1 (Home: 8–1–1; Road: 2–1–0) # Date Visitor Score Home OT Decision Attendance Record Pts 14 November 1 Minnesota 0 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 5–7–2 12 15 November 3 Columbus 1 – 2 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 6–7–2 14 16 November 5 Vancouver 0 – 1 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 7–7–2 16 17 November 7 Vancouver 3 – 4 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 8–7–2 18 18 November 10 Calgary 4 – 3 Phoenix Sauve 14,493 9–7–2 20 19 November 12 Colorado 3 – 5 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 10–7–2 22 20 November 14 Minnesota 2 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 11–7–2 24 21 November 16 Detroit 1 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 12–7–2 26 22 November 18 Chicago 5 – 2 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 12–8–2 26 23 November 21 Calgary 3 – 2 Colorado SO Sauve 18,007 13–8–2 28 24 November 23 San Jose 2 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 14–8–2 30 25 November 25 Edmonton 2 – 1 Calgary SO Kiprusoff 19,289 14–8–3 31 26 November 29 Calgary 0 – 2 Nashville Kiprusoff 12,797 14–9–3 31 December: 9–3–1 (Home: 4–2–0; Road: 5–1–1) # Date Visitor Score Home OT Decision Attendance Record Pts 27 December 1 Calgary 3 – 2 Detroit Kiprusoff 20,066 15–9–3 33 28 December 3 Calgary 3 – 2 Pittsburgh Kiprusoff 16,626 16–9–3 35 29 December 6 Calgary 0 – 1 Philadelphia SO Kiprusoff 19,542 16–9–4 36 30 December 7 Calgary 4 – 1 New Jersey Sauve 13,332 17–9–4 38 31 December 10 Ottawa 1 – 2 Calgary OT Kiprusoff 19,289 18–9–4 40 32 December 17 Boston 0 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 19–9–4 42 33 December 19 Calgary 4 – 5 Edmonton Kiprusoff 16,839 19–10–4 42 34 December 21 Los Angeles 5 – 2 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 19–11–4 42 35 December 23 Calgary 6 – 5 Vancouver SO Kiprusoff 18,630 20–11–4 44 36 December 26 Calgary 2 – 1 Vancouver Kiprusoff 18,630 21–11–4 46 37 December 27 Nashville 4 – 3 Calgary Sauve 19,289 21–12–4 46 38 December 29 Minnesota 2 – 4 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 22–12–4 48 39 December 31 Edmonton 5 – 6 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 23–12–4 50 January: 7–4–2 (Home: 4–0–0; Road: 3–4–2) # Date Visitor Score Home OT Decision Attendance Record Pts 40 January 2 Chicago 2 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 24–12–4 52 41 January 6 Toronto 0 – 1 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 25–12–4 54 42 January 7 Calgary 3 – 4 Vancouver OT Kiprusoff 18,630 25–12–5 55 43 January 10 Calgary 2 – 4 NY Rangers Kiprusoff 18,200 25–13–5 55 44 January 12 Calgary 2 – 3 NY Islanders Kiprusoff 10,315 25–14–5 55 45 January 14 Calgary 4 – 1 Minnesota Kiprusoff 18,568 26–14–5 57 46 January 19 Montreal 2 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 27–14–5 59 47 January 21 Buffalo 1 – 4 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 28–14–5 61 48 January 23 Calgary 3 – 1 Edmonton Kiprusoff 16,839 29–14–5 63 49 January 24 Calgary 4 – 7 Colorado Sauve 18,007 29–15–5 63 50 January 26 Calgary 0 – 2 Chicago Kiprusoff 10,486 29–16–5 63 51 January 29 Calgary 5 – 3 Chicago Kiprusoff 15,748 30–16–5 65 52 January 30 Calgary 2 – 3 St. Louis SO Kiprusoff 13,310 30–16–6 66 February: 3–2–1 (Home: 2–2–1; Road: 1–0–0) # Date Visitor Score Home OT Decision Attendance Record Pts 53 February 1 Columbus 2 – 1 Calgary SO Kiprusoff 19,289 30–16–7 67 54 February 3 Vancouver 3 – 1 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 30–17–7 67 55 February 6 Calgary 4 – 3 San Jose Kiprusoff 15,242 31–17–7 69 56 February 8 Anaheim 1 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 32–17–7 71 57 February 10 St. Louis 2 – 3 Calgary OT Boucher 19,289 33–17–7 73 58 February 28 Vancouver 2 – 1 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 33–18–7 73 March: 8–6–1 (Home: 6–1–0; Road: 2–5–1) # Date Visitor Score Home OT Decision Attendance Record Pts 59 March 2 St. Louis 1 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 34–18–7 75 60 March 4 San Jose 0 – 2 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 35–18–7 77 61 March 7 Nashville 3 – 2 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 35–19–7 77 62 March 9 Dallas 0 – 1 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 36–19–7 79 63 March 12 Calgary 0 – 3 Colorado Kiprusoff 18,007 36–20–7 79 64 March 13 Colorado 3 – 4 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 37–20–7 81 65 March 16 Calgary 2 – 3 Edmonton OT Kiprusoff 16,839 37–20–8 82 66 March 18 Calgary 4 – 9 Nashville Boucher 17,113 37–21–8 82 67 March 19 Calgary 3 – 2 Minnesota Kiprusoff 18,568 38–21–8 84 68 March 21 Calgary 1 – 3 Minnesota Kiprusoff 18,568 38–22–8 84 69 March 23 Calgary 7 – 2 St. Louis Kiprusoff 14,706 39–22–8 86 70 March 24 Calgary 2 – 3 Columbus Kiprusoff 17,041 39–23–8 86 71 March 26 Calgary 2 – 3 Dallas Kiprusoff 18,584 39–24–8 86 72 March 29 Los Angeles 1 – 2 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 40–24–8 88 73 March 31 Colorado 3 – 6 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 41–24–8 90 April: 5–1–3 (Home: 4–0–1; Road: 1–1–2) # Date Visitor Score Home OT Decision Attendance Record Pts 74 April 1 Calgary 4 – 1 Edmonton Kiprusoff 16,839 42–24–8 92 75 April 3 Detroit 2 – 1 Calgary SO Kiprusoff 19,289 42–24–9 93 76 April 5 Phoenix 2 – 5 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 43–24–9 95 77 April 7 Minnesota 1 – 2 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 44–24–9 97 78 April 8 Calgary 2 – 3 Vancouver OT Kiprusoff 18,630 44–24–10 98 79 April 11 Anaheim 0 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 45–24–10 100 80 April 13 Colorado 0 – 2 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 46–24–10 102 81 April 15 Calgary 1 – 2 Los Angeles SO Kiprusoff 18,118 46–24–11 103 82 April 17 Calgary 3 – 4 Anaheim Boucher 17,174 46–25–11 103
Playoffs Edit
The Flames entered the playoffs as the Northwest Division champions, and the third seed in the Western Conference. They met the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in the first round in a hard fought seven game series. The goaltending of Ilya Bryzgalov would prove the turning point in the series after he replaced the ineffective starter Jean-Sebastien Giguere after game 3 and would stonewall the Flames for the rest of the series. 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs Western Conference Quarter-final vs. Anaheim (6) – Ducks win 4–3 Game Date Visitor Score Home OT Decision Attendance Series 1 April 21 Anaheim 1 – 2 Calgary OT Kiprusoff 19,289 Calgary leads 1–0 2 April 23 Anaheim 4 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 Series tied 1–1 3 April 25 Calgary 5 – 2 Anaheim Kiprusoff 17,174 Calgary leads 2–1 4 April 27 Calgary 2 – 3 Anaheim OT Kiprusoff 17,174 Series tied 2–2 5 April 29 Anaheim 2 – 3 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 Calgary leads 3–2 6 May 1 Calgary 1 – 2 Anaheim Kiprusoff 16,594 Series tied 3–3 7 May 3 Anaheim 3 – 0 Calgary Kiprusoff 19,289 Anaheim wins 4–3
Player statistics Edit
Awards and records Edit
Transactions Edit
Draft picks Edit
Farm teams Edit
See also EditDo I love my wife? It's a complicated question. What is love? Perhaps it is an ineffable aspect of the human condition that can never be fully understood. It's like asking if I love my car or my golf clubs. I love them, but it's not like I love them. I certainly love owning them, and if either should ever be stolen, or somehow ruined, or damaged by someone's incompetence, I'd want to replace them immediately, and press full charges against the perpetrators.
I love the stability of my wife. I like knowing that she's there, sort of like how you feel about a good life-insurance policy or new luxury storm windows in the den. It's like having the high-end weed-whacker in the garage. It's good to see it and know it's there, even if I don't use it more than twice a year. My wife is like that. I love that about her.
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It's reassuring to have the whole "wife" aspect of my lifestyle taken care of and done with, and know that it's not going to be disrupted. So in that sense, yes, I love her, but I suppose you could say I love the idea of her, as a concept, mainly, more than her specifically. But it's a good question, to be sure. It makes you think.
I enjoy life. You might even say I love it. And since my wife, or the idea of my wife, anyway, is part of that life, that's not going to change.
On the one hand, of course I love her. Don't get me wrong—we're talking about my wife. This is the mother of my children, the woman I plan to grow old with, the woman for whom I purchased a fine and beautiful home. But then again, if she happened to be some other, similar woman, it probably wouldn't be that much different. We'd still live in the same type of neighborhood, own the same cars, and have the same children. Well, they'd be genetically different children by 50 percent, but they'd probably serve basically the same function in my life.
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She'd probably spend about the same amount of my income on largely the same things, and I assume we'd still attend the same parties and go to the same country club. I suppose it's possible we might have different hobbies. But we'd have the same holidays, certainly. I know we'd have the same attorney. She'd definitely have the same hair.
It's an eternal question, this mystery of "What is love, after all?" I can say this much: I can't imagine being without her, or someone like her. She's the person I've shared my life with. I'd really hate to lose her in some sort of a hypothetical divorce or unexpected-death scenario. That would be a living nightmare to deal with. If that counts as love, then yes, I love my wife very deeply.
I've been with my wife for more than 20 years. That's a lot of time to put into a long-term investment.
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I've grown used to her. I'm comfortable with her. Frankly, I'd be lost without her. But I guess I'd feel that way about pretty much anybody who was from the same age group, economic tier, and level of education, and who I happened to marry 20-odd years ago, back when it was time to acquire a wife.
If she died, would I miss her? Certainly. Do I appreciate her presence in my home? Without a doubt. Is she the most important person in my life? In a way. But if she were to somehow magically disappear and be replaced one day by a near-duplicate, would that matter all that much to me? I'd have to say no.Doxy the guide dog. (Albert Rizzi/Facebook)
Passengers aboard a U.S. Airways Express flight from Philadelphia to Long Island's MacArthur Airport staged a protest on Wednesday after flight personnel allegedly hassled a blind man over his guide dog.
The plane had apparently been waiting on the runway for nearly two hours, causing Albert Rizzi's increasingly restless guide dog, Doxy, to come creeping out from his designated place under Rizzi's seat. A flight attendant reportedly told Rizzi that the dog needed to stay put, or the plane would not take off. The dog refused to cooperate, and both Rizzi and his canine companion were booted from the flight. But Rizzi's fellow passengers decided that if he couldn't fly, they wouldn't, either.
“Security comes on and they go to take this gentleman off the plane with his dog,” passenger Frank Ohlhorst told CBS New York. “So when we, the passengers, realize what was going on, we were like ‘why is this happening? He’s not a problem."
According to the airline, Rizzi became verbally abusive when told his dog needed to stay seated, NBC Philadelphia reports. Passengers, tired of the prolonged wait to begin their 40-minute flight, were growing agitated—some on behalf of Rizzi, some from sheer impatience. Feeling threatened, the crew opted to cancel the flight, and all 35 passengers wound up taking the bus to Long Island instead.
Rizzi wrote his account of the story on his Facebook page:Richard Rowe / Reuters A tornado near El Reno, Okla., on May 31.
The tornado that struck El Reno, Okla., on Friday night is believed to be the widest on record in the United States at 2.6 miles across, the National Weather Service reported on Tuesday.
The May 31 twister beat the previous record, a 2.5-mile wide storm that struck Hallam, Neb., on May 22, 2004.
The Friday tornado and its resulting flooding claimed 18 lives, including six children and a dozen adults, the Oklahoma Medical Examiner reported on Tuesday. Six of the victims remain unidentified. Area hospitals treated 115 injuries after Friday’s storm, the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management said.
The tornado’s width was measured by a mobile radar unit as the storm passed south of El Reno near Highway 81, the NWS said. The measurement only includes the tornado itself, and not winds surrounding the storm.
The tornado was also upgraded to an EF-5 classification, the most forceful category, according to the NWS.
El Reno is about 25 miles west of Oklahoma City.
The massive tornado struck less than two weeks after a tornado ripped through nearby Moore, Okla., leaving 24 people dead.
Governor Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency in 41 counties as the storm-battered region recovered on Tuesday. Search and recovery efforts continued for victims who went missing after being swept away by Oklahoma River floodwaters, NBC News affiliate KFOR reported.
Related:Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat was clearly delighted to come up with the title for the second episode in the upcoming series, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. But in the next best thing, and proving that real life can be almost as weird as fantasy, an amateur paleontologist has found dinosaur footprints at a NASA space base.
The cretaceous tracks, spotted at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where high-tech space missions are planned, were laid down between 110 and 112 million years ago by a species of plant-eating dinosaur called a nodosaur.
What’s more, experts believes there are smaller tracks overlapping the first set, suggesting that a baby nodosaur might have been passing through with its mother.
A print left by the larger beast, a heavily armoured creature, was spotted by Ray Stanford who had been surveying the Goddard campus looking for tracks. He revealed his find to NASA managers at the base on August 17. Ray also detected several smaller footprints made by three-toed, flesh-eating therapods on Goddard land.
Expert Rob Weems, of the US Geological Survey, visited to examine the nodosaur’s 30cm (12in) wide fossilised footprint in a sedimentary rock plate and identified the second nodosaur track, telling him that at least one younger dino was also ambling along.
Weems said: “It looks to be a manus (front foot) print of a much smaller dinosaur than the first one, but it looks to be the same type. If the one that came through was a female, it may have had one or more young ones following along.”
Ray Stanford describes his discovery at Goddard
It is thought that the smaller track shows signs of pushing up the still-wet mud that the adult dinosaur’s footprint had hollowed out.
Ray said: “This was a large, armoured dinosaur. Think of it as a four-footed tank. It was quite heavy, there’s a quite a ridge or push-up here. Subsequently the sand was bound together by iron-oxide or hematite, so it gave us a nice preservation, almost like concrete.”
He added: “Space scientists may walk along here, and they’re walking exactly where this big, bungling heavy armored dinosaur walked, maybe 110 to 112-million years ago.”Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush speaks at the Republican Party of Iowa's Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, United States, May 16, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Young
CONCORD, N.H. -- After months of prodding by voters and reporters during campaign appearances across the country, Jeb Bush offered up his most direct criticism to date of his brother George W. Bush's presidency Thursday -- and candidly assessed the tall odds he faces as yet another Bush seeking the White House.
Jeb Bush is widely expected to announce a presidential run soon, but has mostly dodged inquiries about his family, saying he doesn't want to focus on hypothetical questions or draw direct contrasts with his brother or father, former president George H.W. Bush, because they ran and served during entirely different times.
But a voter in the crowd at a sports bar Thursday morning tried again. He noted that Bush has said he generally supports his brother's decision to launch the 2003 military invasion of Iraq, but then asked whether there is any "space" between them on other issues.
"Are there differences? Yeah, I mean, sure," Bush said. "I think that in Washington during my brother's time, Republicans spent too much money. I think he could have used the veto power -- he didn't have line item veto power, but he could have brought budget discipline to Washington, D.C. That seems kind of quaint right now given the fact that after he left, budget deficits and spending just like lit up astronomically. But having constraints on spending across the board during his time would have been a good thing."
Bush added that there are likely other things about his brother's presidency that he didn't like, but that he doesn't feel compelled "to go out of my way to criticize Republican presidents. Just call me a team player, here. It just so happens the last two Republican presidents happened to be my dad and my brother. But you'll never hear me complaining about Ronald Reagan, either. Every president makes mistakes -- the question is what do you learn from those mistakes? Past doesn't have to be prologue. You can learn from your predecessors in business and in life and certainly in politics."
After meeting with about 40 people at a Concord sports bar, Bush called into a local morning radio talk show and was asked whether attacks on his family bother him at all.
"My dad was president in 1988, my brother was president in 2000. The world is radically different in 2016," he told radio station WKXL. "If I get beyond the consideration to be a candidate, I'll be successful if I change the conversation about what the future holds if we fix a few things, share my heart, show what kind of person I am and talk about the leadership skills that are necessary to move our country forward. If it's all about the past, if it's all about whether the Bushes are going to break the Adams family [record] in terms of the number of people are president, that's a loser. I totally get that -- and I think people have a right to question me and I'll have every opportunity to convince them of who I am and what's in my heart."
Bush has one more lunchtime stop in Salem, N.H. on Thursday before flying to Oklahoma to address the Southern Republican Leadership Conference on Friday.For almost as long as aircraft carriers have existed, they’ve been equipped with steam-powered catapults to help fighters and bombers get airborne. That’s a remarkably old-fashioned technology when you’re launching stealth fighters that cost upwards of $20 million each.
The US Navy is now testing a replacement system called the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) aboard the new USS Gerald R. Ford. It uses a burst of electromagnetic energy to launch planes much more smoothly and efficiently than the old steam catapults. Aircraft carriers range from big to gigantic as far as ships go, but the runways simply aren’t long enough for most planes to generate sufficient lift before they tumble off into the water. So, you need something to coax planes into the air a little faster, but steam catapults come with drawbacks.
A steam catapult takes up a great deal of space and weigh in excess of 1,300 pounds. These systems take a long time to recharge after each launch, and the launch itself is rather abrupt. There’s no smooth acceleration with a steam piston, resulting in increase wear on the body of the aircraft. Steam catapults also, surprisingly, use more power than the EMALS system. The switch to an electromagnetic linear motor drive allows for smooth acceleration, improved reliability, and a much more efficient design.
The EMALS platform works by using an electric current to generate magnetic fields that propel a carriage down the track built into the runway. Attach a plane to the carriage, and you’ve got an electromagnetic catapult. EMALS has been tested with the F/A-18, E2D Advanced Hawkey, and upcoming F-35 among others. One important aspect of this system is that operators can adjust the launch speed based on the weight of the aircraft.
The ground-based EMALS tests have all been successful, but the upcoming tests aboard the USS Ford will be the main event. If all goes as planned. the US Navy could permanently move away from the archaic steam catapult.ARINAT, a content provider in Saudi Arabia, has released three-minute Japanese and Arabic trailers of Desert Knight, their new collaboration project with acclaimed Japanese anime production studio GAINAX (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann), on their official YouTube channel. The clip was first screened at "ANI:ME," the exhibition of Japanese pop culture held from October 27 to October 29 in Abu D habi, the capital of the UAE.
"Desert Knight" Japanese edition trailer
Arabic edition trailer
From the press release:
ARINAT was established in 2016 in Jeddah as a subsidiary of the Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG) which is a major media group in Saudi Arabia. ARINAT started the new business which focuses on the production and distribution of animations, comics, and video games. Essam Bukhary the executive manager of ARINAT said, “Through our international partnerships, we would like to create innovative products to the global audience. The idea of ‘Made in Saudi with Japan’ is the start of that. We hope that we will not only transmit knowledge of animations & video games from Japan to Saudi Arabia but also deliver something new from Saudi Arabia to the world.”
GAINAX has produced many pioneering works such as ‘ROYAL SPACE FORCE: The Wings of Hon |
. In other words, the vast majority of non-property investors have below average incomes.
Average weekly earnings for full time employees is not a good benchmark as income data is highly skewed by high income earners and many people don’t have full time employment.
Also, the latest taxation statistics showing actual taxable incomes (as sampled by the ATO) are for 2012-13, not 2015. It is the latest data we have got.
Incomes will have increased by around 10% since that taxation data was filed (wages increase by about 3% per year). It is also important to remember that the benefits of negative gearing are also greater for larger investments and higher marginal tax rates.
It is true that a relatively high proportion of the listed occupations have negatively geared properties. While it may be the popular belief that these are low or middle income occupations, these are actually reasonably highly paid occupations, compared to the median wage. For example, 73% of train and tram operators earn more than A$80,000 per year.
A different way to look at it is to analyse the income distribution of people who negatively gear compared to that of people who do not invest in rental properties.
The data set we used is called the 2012–13 individuals sample file. To collect this data, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) sampled 2% of all individual tax returns filed in 2012-13.
According to this ATO data set, there are 1.26 million (10%) taxpayers who negatively gear. Their average loss was A$8,930 per year. A further 700,000 with a rental investment are positively geared (meaning their rental income was greater than their costs). About 85% of taxpayers don’t have a rental investment.
The chart shows what statisticians call the “smoothed” probability distribution (which is a smoothed histogram of the income distribution) of taxable income for people with negatively geared properties and people without rental investment properties. Marked also on the chart are the median and top 10% (P90) income points for both people with negatively geared properties and those without property investments.
The median income for negatively geared investors is A$60,000 per year, compared with $40,000 for non-investors.
A similar gap (50%) exists at the top end of the income spectrum. The taxable incomes of the top 10% of earners with negatively geared investments is around $150,000 compared to $98,000 for non-investors.
The chart shows clearly that, typically, people with negatively geared properties have significantly higher incomes than people without property investments.
In an April 2015 analysis commissioned by GetUp! for the Australia Institute, NATSEM found that 34% of the tax benefits of negative gearing accrues to the richest top 10% of families, as this chart from the report shows.
Only around 20% of the tax benefits go to the bottom half of the income distribution.
High-income families invest more money than low-income families. The tax system benefits high-income earners more than low-income earners due to higher marginal tax rates amplifying the effectiveness of deductions.
The role of capital gains
Negatively gearing property implies that the investor is making a loss on their investment. As the chart below shows, the tax savings are greatest among those in the higher tax brackets. However, it remains the case that these investors continue to make an overall loss on their investment, even after accounting for tax deductions.
The success of negative gearing as an investment strategy is reliant upon capital gains. In a property upswing, this strategy can be highly successful with lucrative gains on often minimal equity investment. During a property downswing or period of limited price growth, these strategies are very poor investments.
A recent analysis by the Grattan Institute shows that while police and nurses do invest in property, it is the higher-income occupations, such as doctors and mining engineers, who are much more likely to invest.
Adding to the housing stock?
Property investment only improves housing affordability when the purchase adds to the stock of newly constructed dwellings in affordable housing.
According to CoreLogic RP Data, in 2014 there were just under 500,000 property transactions and ABS building completions data suggest only around a third of those were newly built dwellings. It therefore stands to reason that most property transactions each year are probably existing stock.
Verdict
If Kelly O’Dwyer is referring to the ABS’ average weekly earnings for full time employees in 2015, then she would be correct in asserting that most (around 66%) negatively geared investors have a taxable income below this level in 2012-13.
However, ATO data shows that, typically, negatively geared investors have higher incomes than people without rental investments.
The same data shows that negatively geared investors have typical incomes around 50% higher than non-investors – even after deducting their losses from negative gearing.
The top 10% of the income distribution for negatively geared investors earn around 50% more than non-investors. Incomes for this top 10% are around $150,000 per year, compared with $98,000 for non-investors, according to the ATO. – Ben Phillips and Cukkoo Joseph
Review
While I agree with everything in the above FactCheck, I would go further in criticising Kelly O'Dwyer’s statement, particularly the reference to investors adding to the housing stock.
The figure cited above for the ratio of housing purchases for new housing stock includes owner occupiers.
The impact on housing stock is tiny, but the effect on housing affordability of all those investors bidding up the prices of existing housing is likely to be substantial.– Warwick Smith
CORRECTION AND CLARIFICATION: This article was corrected after publication on November 24 to acknowledge the fact that if Kelly O’Dwyer is referring to the ABS’ average weekly earnings for full time employees in 2015, then she would be correct in asserting that most (around 66%) negatively geared investors have a taxable income below this level in 2012-13. This change involved alteration to a number of paragraphs. You can read more about the correction and clarification here.
Have you ever seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.“The poverty is no longer hidden by the trees”
Hurricane Maria exposes the conditions of life for the working class in Caguas, Puerto Rico
By Genevieve Leigh and Zac Corrigan
18 December 2017
Adelaida Montañez, 69, is preparing a large batch of rice and beans over a woodfire stove just outside her home in Caguas, Puerto Rico, about 20 miles from the capital city of San Juan. She explains that the town has had no power or running water since Hurricane Maria made landfall, almost three months ago. The food she is preparing is not for her family but to sell as means of income.
As she navigates her outdoor kitchen, Mrs. Montañez explains that life has been very difficult since the storm. Walking over to a calendar she has hanging on the wall, she says in Spanish, “I have been marking down here each time I go to the store for more gasoline. It has been almost every three days. We need it to run a generator which we use to keep the fridge cool, but only for a few hours a day—it costs us about $45 each time.”
Mrs Monteñez prepares food in her outdoor kitchen
Next to the calendar just outside the door, Mrs. Montañez has an old wooden washboard where her family does their laundry by hand, since they still have neither running water nor power for their washing machine. Many residents in her part of town have started doing their washing together at a small stream on the side of the road.
Residents collect water from a stream using PVC pipe
Adelaida Montañez worked most of her life at a shoe company in the neighboring town of San Lorenzo. The company, Cinderella Shoes, moved its factory to the Dominican Republic for cheaper labor in 1990, leaving Mrs. Montañez and many others without work. She later got a job making military outfits at another company, Gibraltar, but this factory closed in 1999. She tells us that her husband, Felinio Castro Luge, had worked a good job for many years as a plumber.
Through tears Mrs. Montañez explains that her husband died shortly after the hurricane because he was unable to get proper medical care. He needed regular dialysis treatment, and with the lack of electricity it was impossible to keep up with his medical needs.
Mrs. Montañez’s daughter says that many of the patients who attended her father’s dialysis clinic needlessly died in the aftermath of the hurricane from lack of medical care. Government figures do not count such deaths in the “official” number of Maria victims.
Mrs. Montañez says that she is greatly concerned about how the hurricane has affected youth and their education. The government and media in Puerto Rico have been proudly reporting that 95 percent of schools are open and operating.
Mrs. Montañez is skeptical of these figures. “I don’t believe that so many schools are open. It took them much too long to open the schools here even though they were not very damaged. But there are still many problems. Most, like the ones here in Caguas, are only open half the day, for example. They do not have electricity or running water. The students have missed so much school this semester—it is such a shame.”
Down the street, WSWS reporters meet two residents, Osvaldo and Virgen, hard at work repairing their home. Osvaldo is a government employee in the recycling department. The couple is unable to live in their house because of the damage from the storm.
As they walk through the dilapidated house, the couple recounts the night of Maria: “We stayed in a small house behind this one which is more secure. We watched from the basement as Maria swept away our roof. Water poured inside and destroyed everything.” Motioning toward the side of the house that is missing a wall, Osvaldo explains that it had been blown away from the wind.
Virgen and Osvaldo
Osvaldo says that FEMA provided them with a tarp, now a coveted resource on the island. He shows us the military MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) packages that were provided through relief efforts.
Osvaldo has been repairing the house by himself with material left over from the destruction and other parts he can find around town. He explains the ways in which life had changed since the loss of water and power: “Now I keep many buckets in my truck with me all the time. Every time I go to the stream, I fill them up so we can have water for the week and my wife can have water easily while I am at work.”
Running water is now a privilege reserved for a small minority. Generators can be used to power water pumps, but there are not nearly enough to provide for everyone. Instead, they are rotated weekly from community to community so that each area has water for one week. By one estimate, there are over 700 generators running across the island every evening.
Driving through the center of the neighboring town of San Lorenzo, one can see that power has been restored to the wealthier neighborhood of Paseo del Río, while just across the street the more impoverished Tomás de Castro is still in the dark. One worker from Caguas explained that in San Lorenzo some have benefitted from living near large factories, since industrial sites like these were prioritized for repair.
Mrs. Vazquez
Mrs. Guillermina Castro Vasquez, who is 81 years old and lives in Caguas with her family, tells us that the current situation reminds her of the years of her childhood: “I was born in 1936. Back then we didn’t have light, or washing machines, or any of these things. It has been almost 100 days now since the hurricane, and we are continuing to live without power and running water. In many ways it feels as though we have gone back to the epoch of my youth.”
We ask Mrs. Vasquez what she thinks about the official death count, which remains at 64. Visibly upset, she tells us that this number is un engaño (a lie or deception). “They are lying about this number because the politicians are worried. They know it affects the people’s perception of the government.”
Many in the town express the same opinion of the official death toll. One town resident who lived just across the street from the stream used for laundry was found dead in his home just three days ago. His neighbor, Anthony Castro, 23, told the WSWS that while the man had been sick before the storm, Maria destroyed his home and caused an enormous amount of stress.
Anthony
Anthony explains that the storm has uncovered the extreme poverty throughout the island. “The inequality on the island is transparent in the recovery efforts. It is nearly three months since the storm, and in my community you can see the fallen powerlines on the side of the road just where they were on September 21st.”
Downed power lines litter the street in downtown Caguas
Anthony continues, “But Maria uncovered the poverty in a more literal way too. All the vegetation on the island was destroyed by the storm.”
Motioning to the view of the hillside over his balcony, Anthony says, “When we woke up the next morning, my family and I looked out onto the land. We saw all of these small houses across the hill we never knew were there. This is the case all throughout Puerto Rico. The poverty is no longer hidden by the trees.”
These hillside homes were hidden from view by trees until Hurricane Maria
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Jeremy Clarkson has been all over the news for 19 straight days. That’s over a fortnight of reporting on SteakGate, as well as Clarkson’shis best moments, his most controversial moments - it’s still unclear if there is any difference between these - and endless debate on whether the BBC should have sacked him or not.
Clarkson is finally off our TV screens. After 13 years ofgeneral rudeness and physical violence (Piers Morgan also fell prey to his wayward fist), the BBC has grown some balls and sacked the man. Yes, this is great news for anyone with common standards of decency, and yes, it's also sad for his diehard fans.
I get it, honestly. But can we please just get over Clarkson and focus on what we all really care about here: Top Gear.
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The TV show is so well loved that it brings the BBC £50 million of revenue each year, is shown in dozens of countries and has reached semi-cult status.
Cue tired arguments from Clarksonites that everything’s over for the corporation now it has lost the star of the show. Top Gear’s nothing without Clarkson; doom doom doom.
Top Gear is finally free of Jeremy Clarkson
But Top Gear was popular before Clarkson and it will continue post-Clarkson. The only thing that matters now is who replaces him.
borderline-sexist feet. There have been whispers around Steve Coogan, sports journalist Dan Walker, or comedian Johnny Vaughan. Each contender is equipped with enough testosterone to get the show firmly back on its macho,feet.
Unless, of course, the BBC is brave enough to take a step away from the petrol heads and go for someone who could lower those raging hormone levels, while bringing in hordes of new viewers: a woman.
A female presenter is just what the show needs.
The show began hosted by Angela Rippon on BBC Midlands in the 70s - and its subesequent success proves a woman on Top Gear works. But for too long now, it has been seen exclusively as the home of the pint-drinking, pedal-pumping, horse-powered man.
While Clarkson’s appeal may have brought in more male viewers, it has done exactly the opposite for the women of the world – whether they’re pint-drinkers or not.
Angela Rippon - a woman - presented Top Gear
“I used to love Top Gear, but with Clarkson I just struggled,” a former female fan tells me. “I’d enjoy it for a while, then reach saturation point and just have to turn off. It would be amazing if a woman replaced him.”
It’s not like there aren’t any suitable choices either. Racing driver and presenter Vicki Butler-Henderson has the knowledge and experience, as does BBC’s Formula 1 host Suzi Perry or Jodie Kidd, presenter of The Classic Car Show.
All of these women are worthy contenders. They wouldn’t just be ‘ticking the token woman’ box – they’d be excellent presenters, as well as giving the show some much-needed diversity. Critics will argue positive discrimination, but any of these women could be the best person for the job. The BBC just has to give them a chance, and not hurry to seek a second Clarkson.
Erin Baker, The Telegraph’s managing director of Cars, is in the ‘anti-positive discrimination’ camp. She says: “The industry doesn't need feminising, it needs de-masculinising. It should be gender neutral. Whoever comes in to replace Clarkson is going to be pilloried for not being Clarkson; setting a woman up for the fall is a bad idea.”
Jodie Kidd could be the new Top Gear host
But that’s exactly the point - no man can replace Clarkson and his controversy, so why not start afresh with someone completely different?
A woman could never do what he does and she shouldn’t have to either. If there were a sexist backlash against the notion a female presenter, it would only prove just how much the industry needs diversity.
Because it’s impossible to de-masculinise an industry without getting more women in – the only way we can get to a ‘gender neutral’ place is by having more women involved.
This could be the BBC’s opportunity for Top Gear to ditch its macho image, start giving Britain’s girls some sporty female role models and prove that cars really aren’t just for boys.
If it loses a few misogynistic fans in the process, then who cares? Chances are they’ll be replaced by a hell of a lot more female ones.If you happen to be visiting Wellington airport over the next few months, don't be surprised to be greeted by Gollum, the miserable creature at the centre of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
A 13m (43ft) sculpture, built by Japanese artist Masayuki Ohashi out of polystyrene and epoxy resin using chainsaws and robotics, has been installed at the airport to celebrate the arrival in cinemas next month of Peter Jackson's first Hobbit film, An Unexpected Journey. The movie forms part of a new prequel trilogy to the Kiwi film-maker's Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings triptych, in which Gollum is once again played by British actor Andy Serkis via motion capture technology. The airport has also renamed its terminal, where passengers will be greeted with a sign saying they have arrived at "the middle of Middle-earth".
The giant Gollum was unveiled on Friday, according to Fairfax NZ News. It features three 4m fish suspended in front of the creature – along with with bubbles – as he dunks his hand in to try to catch one. In The Hobbit, Tolkien's 1937 children's tale, hairy homunculus Bilbo Baggins first encounters Gollum in the dark caves of the Misty Mountains, where he lives a (relatively) contented existence fishing for blind, bug-eyed prey in murky pools and occasionally murdering passing goblins. The character returned to play a vital role in the The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's much longer, far darker 1954-5 sequel trilogy.
The sculpture was designed by Weta Workshop, the Wellington-based special-effects outfit that won three Oscars for its work on The Lord of the Rings and has returned for The Hobbit. "Wellington airport feels like the home of Gollum after spending so many months here during the last three films," said Richard Taylor, Weta co-founder and creative director. Sculptor Ohashi added: "It was a very exciting project to work on."
The first Hobbit film, starring British actor Martin Freeman as Bilbo, will be released on 14 December in the UK and US, with the second (subtitled The Desolation of Smaug) debuting in December 2013. The final instalment, There and Back Again, is due to arrive in summer 2014 after being announced as a belated addition in July.Tensions were high and the temperatures were low when Jerome Thiesson arrived in Minnesota. The 29-year-old Swiss fullback, brought in from FC Luzern in the Swiss Super League, touched down in the frigid March week between losses to the Portland Timbers (5-1 on the road) and Atlanta United (6-1 in the home opener).
Thiesson impressed from the beginning of his tenure here, the start of his first training session. As members of the media stood shivering while Thiesson’s new teammates scrimmaged on the TCF Bank pitch, the new arrival made his way through the onlookers, introducing himself to each one. It was just a simple, “Hi, I’m Jérôme”, followed by a genuine, “Thank you.” when he was welcomed, but it served as a sign of the class now expected from him.
Jérôme Thiesson has been consistent, to say the least. He is tied with Christian Ramirez for the most starts in Major League Soccer games (14) for Minnesota United. His performances in those games have been just as reliable. His worst performance of the season, according to whoscored.com, came in the home loss to LA Galaxy. A look back at the recap of the match shows that nobody was terribly frustrated with his performance.
Harrison Afful of the Columbus Crew is considered one of the best right-backs in MLS. Comparing him statistically with Jérôme Thiesson reveals that the Loons’ fullback may be better than many think. Thiesson makes twice as many clearances per game as Afful and almost three times as many tackles. The two are equal in pass completion percentage, but while Thiesson commits more fouls per match, he also is better at sending long balls to offensive players farther up the pitch.
Jerome Thiesson/Harrison Afful Comparison Category JT HA Category JT HA Minutes 1,245 967 Assists 1 0 Yellow Cards 3 2 Aerial Duels Won* 1.1 0.8 Pass Completion % 80 80.1 Tackles* 2.9 1 Interceptions* 1.1 2.3 Clearances* 4 1.8 Shot Blocks* 0.3 0 Fouls* 0.9 0.3 Long Balls* 2.8 2.5 Passes* 46 48.3 whoscored.com Rating* 6.74 6.56
There are, of course, intangibles that cannot be reliably tracked during a soccer game. Thiesson excels in these areas as well. Most of the time, he finds the right balance of involvement in attacking play and defensive responsibilities, something that can be tricky for other fullbacks. In attack, he has a sense of where to make dangerous runs down the flank, even if he isn’t passed to.
On the field, Jérôme Thiesson has been the type of player Minnesota United needs. Off the field, he has been an entertaining Twitter presence for fans. Check out some of his best:
not big of a concolation, but i think i'm in the skill-show (and to my surprise on the right side of the action ) #preferthepoint #loons https://t.co/UhCr1UdK8l — Jérôme Thiesson (@j_thiesson) June 19, 2017
Since his arrival on a frigid Wednesday in March, Jérôme Thiesson has been nothing but a consistently classy player for the Loons, and one who has been underrated and underappreciated by many fans, but not this one.Denver Mayor Michael Hancock says he’s heard the concerns of city residents who worry about what Donald Trump’s coming presidency may mean for immigrants, gays, racial minorities and women who felt targeted during the campaign.
“I want to be clear,” Hancock says in a video posted to YouTube on Tuesday evening. “You can count on me, and you can count on your city. We’ve got your back.”
Hancock doesn’t mention Trump by name, but the start of his video refers to the transition set in motion by the Nov. 8 election — one that has some people feeling “uncertain and anxious and, yes, even fearful” in the face of “unwelcoming and dangerous rhetoric.”
He’s joining other mayors that have spoken publicly about plans to counteract at the local level any sentiments or policies that they perceive as targeting people in their cities. Often, the mayors are addressing their comments at residents who largely rejected Trump in the election.
In Denver, voters supported Democrat Hillary Clinton over the Republican winner by a margin of 74 percent to 19 percent. Hancock publicly backed Clinton.
The Denver Police Department joined other big-city forces this week in saying it wouldn’t begin enforcing federal immigration laws, as Trump has said he wants cities to do. During the campaign, he threatened to withhold federal funding from “sanctuary cities.”
Hancock’s video message doesn’t delve into specific policies, but he says about immigration: “We will strive to keep our immigrant families together and provide them opportunities to achieve and succeed.”
More broadly, he says, “We will reject discrimination based on religion, race, sexual orientation and ethnicity.”
Hancock concludes: “As your mayor, that is my commitment to you. I’m making a commitment to these values that make this the welcoming city we all love, and I hope you will join with me, because we should expect the best of ourselves even in the hardest of times.
“Join with us now and plan out how you are going to support your local organizations, help uplift your neighborhoods and give more of yourself so that we can show our children the power of an inclusive and open city.”Going into this season, one of the biggest question marks for any NBA team was what the Chicago Bulls would get out of Derrick Rose. When Rose was healthy three seasons ago, he was one of the best players in basketball — and Chicago had the league’s best record. But in 10 games last season — his first action back after a torn ACL cost him all of the 2012-13 season — Rose was abysmal before tearing the meniscus in his other knee and missing the remainder of the season. He also struggled at the FIBA World Cup this past summer, giving rise to very real worries that Rose would never be able to reclaim his pre-injury MVP form.
Fast-forward to Monday night, when Rose scored 24 points with seven assists in Chicago’s 102-91 win over the Detroit Pistons. It’s early in the season — Chicago is eight games into its schedule, of which Rose has only played half because of sprained ankles — but Rose’s numbers thus far suggest he’s getting close to his old level of effectiveness. And at the very least, he’s playing much better than he did a season ago.
Rose’s performance was a mess last season. He had no trouble getting his own shot (his usage rate was 31.5 percent), but he was horribly inefficient when he did, posting a.446 true shooting percentage (the NBA average was.541). He struggled to get to the line, didn’t finish well within 10 feet of the basket and missed more than his fair share of long mid-range jump shots. He also turned the ball over on 16 percent of his plays (up from 13 percent during his great 2011 and 2012 seasons), assisted teammates at a career-low rate and was notably inactive on defense, where real plus/minus rated him worse than an average NBA player by almost a full point per 100 possessions.
How bad was Rose in those 10 games a year ago? Statistical plus/minus estimates that a player posting the aforementioned numbers would cost his team about 3.8 points per 100 possessions relative to the NBA average. Research shows that the replacement level for NBA players is about two points per 100 possessions below average, so — albeit in a small sample — Rose played worse than the level at which a player should be jettisoned from an NBA roster.
This season, he’s still consuming about 31 percent of Chicago’s plays when on the floor, but he’s put those opportunities to much better use, with a true shooting percentage of.566 (a rate even better than his.545 mark in 2011 and 2012). Rose’s free throw rate is surpassing its pre-injury levels, he’s finishing much better around the basket, and his assist rate (38 percent) is back where it was before his long hiatus. He’s even picking up steals at a career-high rate, and his pick-and-roll defense has been better, per Synergy Sports data.
The only areas where Rose’s game has resembled its poor 2013-14 form have been turnovers — he’s still giving the ball away on 16 percent of plays — and mid-range shooting. But after the injury-riddled, awful pair of seasons preceding 2014-15, it’s highly encouraging to see Rose perform at a level comparable to his terrific 2010-11 and 2011-12 campaigns.Story highlights Pennsylvania prison guard is accused of sexually and physically abusing 20 inmates
Harry Nicoletti was arrested Tuesday evening in Pittsburgh
He faces 92 counts, including charges of "institutional sexual assault"
A Pennsylvania prison guard accused of sexually and physically abusing more than 20 inmates has been arrested, according to the Allegheny County District Attorney's office.
Harry Nicoletti, 59, was arrested Tuesday evening in Pittsburgh, and faces 92 counts of institutional sexual assault, official oppression, terroristic threats and simple assault.
According to the criminal complaint, Nicoletti is accused of targeting male inmates convicted of sex crimes, particularly those convicted of crimes against children.
The 34-page report details what authorities describe as a pattern of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse directed at the inmates.
Nicoletti allegedly raped, slapped, bribed and exposed himself to inmates in the State Criminal Institution at Pittsburgh's "F Block."
One inmate said that he assaulted 15 other inmates under Nicoletti's orders and was rewarded for doing so. He did not elaborate.
Nicoletti told CNN affiliate KDKA that the allegations are false. CNN was unable to reach Nicoletti independently, and it could not be determined whether he has an attorney.
His preliminary hearing is scheduled for October 7.Investigations into serious criminality by officers could be delayed by further budget cuts, the police ombudsman in Northern Ireland has warned.
Dr Michael Maguire said his office’s ability to deal with all public complaints could be undermined as he urged a rethink from paymasters at the Justice Department.
Nearly 400 historical cases are under investigation and most involve murders. The watchdog’s budget has been cut by 3%.
Dr Maguire said: “This situation cannot be permitted to continue.”
On top of scrutinising modern policing, the ombudsman has been investigating detectives’ handling of a range of historic killings, including those associated with the Shankill Butchers.
The notoriously sadistic loyalist group from Belfast committed 19 savage murders, torturing and mutilating random innocent Catholics with butcher knives and axes before cutting their throats, during some of the darkest days of the Troubles.
Dr Maguire said: “The impact of reduced resources is significant and in particular it has meant that we have been unable to progress some particularly complex and resource-intensive cases in a timely fashion.
“The office submitted a number of business cases to the department covering both history and current cases and it is imperative that funding is released in order that these cases are progressed.”
The department has financed one of the investigations and said the indicative allocation to the ombudsman was “protected” to a 3% baseline reduction.
Funding has been reduced from £9.5 million in 2012/13 to £8.5 million in 2016/17 – a fall of £967,000, or a tenth.
Dr Maguire added: “A further cycle of funding reductions will lead to a decrease in the service provided by the office. This means an inability to conduct timely investigations, including investigations into serious criminality by police officers.
“There is a potential it will also reshape the functions of the office by the back door by undermining our ability to deal with all public complaints against the police.”
In a recent court case involving the ombudsman, which is subject to appeal, a judge said the source of the problem besetting it was the failure of the Justice Department to provide adequate resources.
A departmental spokesman said: “The Department of Justice recognises and continues to support the important work of the Office of Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (OPONI).
“OPONI is an independent office and how it allocates funding to history investigations and other business areas is a matter for the ombudsman.
“In addition, the indicative allocation funds, in full, the OPONI request for additional funding to take forward a significant piece of work.
“The OPONI budget has consistently been one of the most protected by the department.
“For example, for 2016-17 the starting point for the Department of Justice budget was a reduction of 5.7%, however the department protected OPONI to a reduction of 2%.”Suggests to 750,000 followers she should create online dating profile for him
Called NHL player Del Zotto, 24,'most annoying texter in history of my life'
A porn star has publicly named and shamed Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Michael Del Zotto claiming the NHL star is 'constantly pestering her to arrange dates'.
Adult film actress and director Lisa Ann posted a string of embarrassing messages on Twitter suggesting the sportsman persistently asks her to organize rendezvous with other women.
She calls him the'most annoying texter in the history of my life' and notes: 'Strange, most guys want to date me, not use me to find other dates.'
Embarrassing: Porn star Lisa Ann has posted a series of messages on Twitter describing how star NHL player Michael Del Zotto constantly pesters her to arrange dates with other women
Del Zotto, 24, was a New York Rangers first-round draft choice in 2008 and played in the city from 2009 until 2014, when the Blueshirts traded him to the Nashville Predators.
But Nashville wouldn't re-sign him, and Del Zotto, known for his shaky off-ice reputation, became a free agent until Philadelphia Flyers signed him this summer on a one-year contract.
Lisa Ann, 42, has been in the adult film industry for more than 20 years - while also making mainstream appearances on the the Howard Stern Show and in a music video for rapper Eminem.
As well as posting the revelations about Del Zotto's questionable dating methods, the porn star also told her 750,000 followers the story of how they became acquainted.
Defenseman: Del Zotto signed a one-year contract with the Philadelphia Flyers in August after spending time as a free agent
She wrote: '(S)hort story... It all started about 2 years ago when I was hosting an event @MichaelDelZotto reached out to the promoter to meet me..
'I looked him up, he was with the Rangers at the time, looked cute, I thought ok, Pro Athlete, he won't try to kill or rob me, so sure I will.
'So, we go on a date, its nice, hang out- yada yada yada... about a week later he started asking if could hook him up with girls on the road.
Revelation: After telling her 750,000 Twitter followers that Del Zotto 'pesters her', the adult film actress then told the story of how the two met (right, the porn star poses as politician Sarah Palin)
'I say NO... I say YO, you are a cute kid, you can pull tail, if not have your agent do it.. just don't ask me....
'After 4 months of going to games and explaining that to him, I finally gave up.. so about a year goes by and we don't talk..
'We reconnect and start talking and we get right back to this before we even had another date our selves.. I did warn him of this outcome.'
Tell all: Lisa Ann fails to hold back in her assessment of the ice hockey star's behaviour
Tweets: Lisa Ann's Twitter feed is filled with posts about Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Michael Del Zotto
She later jests: 'As you may imagine, I get some pretty random texts.. Takes a lot to annoy me, but some people strive at it.
'So girls,... Do me a favor... Just to do the kid the favor and get it out of my hands @MichaelDelZotto is looking for dates, lots of them!
'Wait now.. Maybe today I should build a "dating profile" for @MichaelDelZotto here on Twitter. Girls who want to date him can follow him!'
Del Zotto is yet to respond to the series of posts.
In October, Lisa Ann was rumored to be dating 18-year-old Notre Dame football player Justin Brent, 24 years her junior, after the two were spotted cuddling up at a game.
Rumors: In October 2014, speculation was raised as to whether Lisa Ann and 18-year old Notre Dame football player Justin Brent were an item
'Selfie': Brent caused controversy after posting this picture of the pair in bed together online
The speculation appeared to be confirmed after freshman wide receiver Brent posted a'selfie' of the pair in bed together.
Commenting on public reaction to the photo, she tweeted: 'I am a women NOT held back by my age.
'Lucky for me, because the writers seem to make me out to be a dinosaur. 42 is NOT old, It is amazing!'“Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map.”
— President Obama, speech to the U.N. General Assembly, September 21, 2011
“It was only perhaps three weeks ago that the president of Iran once again said that Israel should be eradicated off the face of the Earth. As you recall, it was about in 2005 when he [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] said before that Israel -- he would use a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth.”
— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), September 19, 2011
“Outrageous statements by |
him an "amazing investor" and "world renowned defender of First Amendment rights." CEO Matthew Feinstein said Flynt's backing would inspire employees to work harder.
"Knowing that Mr. Flynt has made an investment in our company provides impetus for everyone at headquarters to surpass expectations and deliver excellent results," he said in a company statement.
Flynt has frequently been in court defending his business over the years. In 1978, his advocacy forever altered his life when he was shot outside a courtroom, an incident that left him partially paralyzed. Flynt has also taken a stab at running for public office in California and operates a casino under the Hustler name.
Pineapple Express, also the name of a strain of marijuana — and a 2008 movie that thrust the name into the pop culture spotlight — provides consulting, technology and branding services to the burgeoning legal weed industry, which is expected to be so high by 2020 that it will reach nearly $23 billion in sales of adult use and medical marijuana, according to a report out earlier this month.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1Mpx0wSResearchers have discovered one of the first pieces of malware ever used in the wild that modifies the software on the motherboard of infected computers to ensure the infection can't be easily eradicated.
Known as Trojan.Mebromi, the rootkit reflashes the BIOS of computers it attacks to add malicious instructions that are executed early in a computer's boot-up sequence. The instructions, in turn, alter a computer's MBR, or master boot record, another system component that gets executed prior to the loading of the operating system of an infected machine. By corrupting the processes that run immediately after a PC starts, the malware stands a better chance of surviving attempts by antivirus programs to remove it.
In addition to posing a threat to end users, Mebroot could create serious obstacles to antivirus developers in producing products that scrub computers clean of detected threats without harming the underlying system.
A flowchart from Symantec detailing Mebromi's BIOS tampering process.
"Storing the malicious code inside the BIOS ROM could actually become more than just a problem for security software, giv[en] the fact that even if antivirus detect[s] and clean[s] the MBR infection, it will be restored at the next system startup when the malicious BIOS payload would overwrite the MBR code again," Webroot researcher Marco Giuliani wrote in a blog post published Tuesday. "Developing an antivirus utility able to clean the BIOS code is a challenge, because it needs to be totally error-proof, to avoid rendering the system unbootable at all."
He went on to say the job of ridding malicious instructions added to the BIOS ultimately should be left to the makers of the motherboards that store the startup code. Because the BIOS is stored on an EEPROM, or electronically erasable programmable read-only-memory chip, modifications have the potential to render a computer largely inoperable with no easy way to fix it.
The discovery represents one of the few times researchers have documented malware used in the wild that modifies the BIOS. In the late 1990s, malware known as CIH/Chernobyl did much the same thing on machines running Windows 9x by exploiting a privilege escalation bug in the Microsoft operating systems. In 2007, proof-of-concept software known as IceLord also reportedly made changes to the BIOS of infected machines, but there are no reports it has ever been used in actual attacks.
Mebromi is able to attack only BIOS ROMs made by Award, a manufacturer that was purchased by Phoenix in the late 1990s. The malware checks the BIOS ROM each time the PC boots up. If it's made by Award and the malicious instructions aren't found, Mebromi adds the code by reflashing the chip on the motherboard. According to Giuliani, it was first documented by the Chinese security company Qihoo 360, and primarily infects computers in that country.
Symantec researchers have more about Mebromi here. ®
This article was updated to clarify the type of chip stores the BIOS.Delight among Coalition MPs over Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's question time attack on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has led to a second day of insults, with Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce accusing Mr Shorten of confected outrage and creating class warfare.
Mr Joyce said he had the best seat in the house for the spirited speech in Parliament on Wednesday, which has buoyed the spirits of the government's backbench and left Labor on the backfoot on Thursday.
The Nationals leader said Mr Shorten knew what he was doing in attacking Mr Turnbull's wealth, "creating this class warfare, calling Mr Turnbull 'Mr Harbourside Mansion' ", an insult coined by Tony Abbott confidant Peta Credlin.
He said he'd rather have leaders with money and success running the country than someone "with the arse out of their pants who has never made a buck".This originally appeared on Everyday Feminism. Republished here with permission.
I am five-foot-four, 125 pounds.
My measurements are 36-28-38.
I wear size medium shirts, size seven jeans, and (in case you were wondering) size eight shoes.
I have never walked into a clothing store unable to find items in my size.
I have never been asked to pay more for a seat on an airplane.
I have never had someone dismiss me as a dating prospect based on my body type, nor had someone scoff, openly, while watching me eat French fries in public.
I have never experienced a doctor dismissing my concerns with a “lose weight, feel great!” remedy.
And I can open an article with my measurements without fear of judgment.
I walk through this world as a thin person. And as such, I have never experienced fat discrimination.
That said, I want you to know two things:
1. I am writing this article from a privileged perspective; and
2. I am not here to damn, guilt, or embarrass thin people.
But I think we need to have a talk.
Because it’s so easy to fall back on tired old excuses for why we’re not privileged—and I see this a lot when the topic of thin privilege is broached.
“How can I have thin privilege? I feel like shit about my body all the time! That’s not privilege! Besides, someone called me out on my ‘chicken legs’ the other day, and how is that different from calling someone fat? And I’m only thin anyway because I have an eating disorder, and trust me, that is not a privilege.”
And I hear what you’re saying.
But I think it’s time for us to look at these excuses (and how they don’t hold up in the grand scheme of things) a little more closely.
Grievances vs. Oppression
Let me start off by saying this: Having your feelings hurt sucks. And I would never tell you to just “suck it up” or “get over it.”
Because yes, sticks and stones may break your bones, but damn it, words really can hurt you. And so can the general attitudes and behaviors of others.
I’m not here to tell you that your personal grievances don’t matter. Rather, I’m here to put those feelings into perspective. Because personal emotional impacts simply are not the same as oppression.
Oppression involves “the systematic subjugation of a group of people by another group of people who have access to social power, the result of which benefits one group over the other, and is maintained by social beliefs and practices.”
In other words, oppression is a special kind of problem.
Here are four reasons why:
1. It is pervasive.
It is woven throughout social institutions, as well as embedded within individual consciousness.
For example, if you make a “fat joke,” everyone around you is going to understand it—because the cultural belief that fat is something to laugh at is widespread.
2. It is restricting.
Structural limits significantly shape a person’s life chances and sense of possibility in ways beyond the individual’s control.
Take a look at these examples of thin privilege. By virtue of not having access to these privileges, the lives of larger people are limited.
3. It is hierarchical.
Dominant or privileged groups benefit, often in unconscious ways, from the disempowerment of subordinated or targeted groups.
Think of the example that I gave earlier about not being passed over as a dating prospect. I benefit from fat discrimination because I’m more likely to have my OKCupid message opened since I have ‘Thin’ or ‘Average’ checked off in the ‘Body Type’ box. I’m more likely to get a date.
4. The dominant group has the power to define and name reality.
That is, they determine the status quo: what is “normal,” “real,” or “correct.”
Take a look at (almost) any store window mannequin or fashion magazine. If thinness is heralded as the status quo, then that continues to put thin people in positions of power when it comes to determining what “average” (or “preferable”) is.
When you have hurt feelings—legitimate as they are—it isn’t the result of subjugation. The negative attitudes toward you as a privileged person aren’t pervasive, restricting, or hierarchal.
You aren’t losing out on anything just because someone’s words, actions, or beliefs had an emotional impact on you.
And when you move past it—even if it takes years of work, which it very well may—that’s it. It’s over.
Oppression doesn’t work the same way. Oppression never goes away because everywhere you go, everything you see, and everyone you know reiterates and reinforces it.
And that’s a significant difference.
But Thin People Can Hate Their Bodies
I made a video this summer called “How to Get a Bikini Body.” It repeated the oft-seen-on-social-media body-positive mantra “Put a bikini on your body!” theme.
And people were quick to comment that my message lost its meaning because my body adheres to societal beauty standards. “Easy for you to say,” they said.
And this pissed me off.
Because I wanted to be like, “Well, thin people can hate their bodies, too, ya know! Just because you think it’s ‘perfect’ doesn’t mean that I don’t struggle with it!”
But then I realized that they were right.
Because here’s the thing: Can a thin person have body image struggles? Can a thin person be at war with their self-image? Can a thin person hate to look in the mirror?
Absolutely.
And does that suck?
Absolutely.
But the difference between these negative feelings and fatphobia is this: The only person worrying about whether or not I’m meeting beauty standards is me.
And that’s not the same for fat folk.
When you’re not thin, other people on the beach actually do take offense. When you’re not thin, people really do think that you shouldn’t be in a bathing suit. When you’re not thin, people really do make your body their moral obligation.
And while your internal struggle is real and significant, the point is: You might hate your body, but society doesn’t.
That’s thin privilege.
But—But—But—Skinny-Shaming!
Before you worry that I’m going to disregard or otherwise undermine the bullying involved in skinny-shaming, let me reassure you: I’m not going to do that.
Let me address here and now (and loudly) that no one should ever be shamed for their body. I believe whole-heartedly that the body-positive community needs to be open to all body types. And absolutely, it is problematic that people engage in making fun of thin bodies.
I would never tell you that jabs at your “chicken legs” or insinuations (or outright proclamations) that you must have an eating disorder aren’t hurtful or that their effects aren’t far-reaching.
Because they are.
But what I am going to argue is this: As horrible as skinny-shaming is (and it is!), what makes it different is that it does not involve a pervasive fear or hatred of thin bodies.
And while its personal effects are certainly influential, it is not restrictive on a social level.
Let me be clear on two theories that explain how skinny-shaming is fundamentally different from fat-shaming:
1. Skinny-Shaming as a Response to Fat-Shaming
Have you ever heard the supposed-to-be-empowering phrase “Real Women Have Curves?” What about the cringe-worthy assertion that “Only Dogs Want Bones?”
Thin people aren’t really crazy about these. Obviously.
Real women are such because they identify as women, curves or not. And referring to someone’s partner as a dog just because they like someone’s body is degrading. Right?
Right.
But these types of reclamations of fat pride wouldn’t need to exist if fat-shaming wasn’t a thing.
These types of phrases and attitudes were born of a need to say “I’m beautiful, too!” They’re responses to social norms.
And while you can argue that they’re misguided, they’re actually challenging fatphobia.
And while you certainly shouldn’t encourage them if they feel like put-downs, what you need to remember about these phrases, in the words of Lindy West is, “’I’m proud to be fat’ is still a radical statement. ‘I’m proud to be thin’ is the status quo.’”
2. Skinny-Shaming as Rooted in Sexism
It’s absolutely true that regardless of what our bodies look like, society polices them.
And that’s because patriarchal structures benefit from this policing. And arguably, skinny-shaming is rooted in this type of sexism.
Society wants you to recognize that being thin is “in”—but not too thin, not that thin—because the goal is to keep you insecure.
Take a look at any tabloid cover.
The “So-and-So Has Cellulite!” headline is right next to the “Does So-and-So Have an Eating Disorder?” story. And they both convey the same message: “Ew! Gross!”
For fuck’s sake, we just can’t win.
And not to go all conspiracy theory on you, but that’s exactly what they want.
They (and you can insert anyone you want here for “they”—society, the media, the dieting industry, the executive board for Patriarchy, Inc.) want women to continue to chase after unattainable goals.
But the difference is that the discrimination that fat people experience is at the intersection of sexism and fatphobia.
That is, there’s another layer to it.
So while, yes, shaming anyone is wrong and bad and sexist, fat-shaming is rooted in extra factors that skinny-shaming is not.
So they’re not the same.
Well, I Have an Eating Disorder, So ‘Privilege’ Doesn’t Apply to Me
The blog This Is Thin Privilege details, “When we explain that thin privilege exists despite eating-disordered status, we’ve had thin people with [eating disorders] take offense.”
And I get why that is. Because having an eating disorder is serious.
And when you feel trapped in and controlled by your body, when you’ve reached that level of self-consciousness, when you’re suffering every single day just to make it through, it’s unlikely that you’ll feel like you’re experiencing privilege.
Because an eating disorder feels like a curse.
But, as This Is Thin Privilege explains, “I think it’s important to note that disability is its own underprivileged status, and in this case, thin people with [eating disorders] are conflating the oppression they feel for lacking able-bodied privilege with a negation of their thin privilege.”
That is: The marginalization that you experience as a person living with an eating disorder is a result of the disorder, not a result of your body.
You experience illness. You experience stigma. You experience symptoms and effects of your disorder.
But that doesn’t negate your thin privilege.
A Man of Color can experience racism and still benefit from his male privilege. An able-bodied woman can experience sexism and still benefit from her able-bodied privilege. A poor white farmer can experience classism and still benefit from his white privilege.
A person with an eating disorder can experience ableism and still benefit from their thin privilege.
Being marginalized in one area doesn’t negate your privilege in another.
*****
Privilege can be a difficult thing to talk about. It’s easy to feel defensive when you mistake someone’s asking you to check your privilege for their making assumptions about your life.
But the bottom line that we have to remember is this: Are my negative experiences related to my body grievances, or are they pervasive issues on a societal level?
And if you have your thin privilege in check, you’ll be better able to recognize that most of the time, these issues fall into the former category.
Melissa A. Fabello, Editor of Everyday Feminism, is a domestic violence prevention and sexuality educator, eating disorder and body image activist, and media literacy vlogger based out of Philadelphia. She enjoys rainy days, Jurassic Park, and the occasional Taylor Swift song and can be found on YouTube and Tumblr. She holds a B.S. in English Education from Boston University and an M.Ed. in Human Sexuality from Widener University. She can be reached on Twitter @fyeahmfabello. Read her articles here and book her for speaking engagements here.
Related Links:Salmonella-infected mice that were given antibiotics became sicker and began shedding far more bacteria in their feces than they had before.
Some people infected with pathogens spread their germs to others while remaining symptom-free themselves. Now, investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine believe they may know why.
When the scientists gave oral antibiotics to mice infected with Salmonella typhimurium, a bacterial cause of food poisoning, a small minority -- so called "superspreaders" that had been shedding high numbers of salmonella in their feces for weeks -- remained healthy; they were unaffected by either the disease or the antibiotic. The rest of the mice got sicker instead of better and, oddly, started shedding like superspreaders. The findings point to a reason for superspreaders' ability to remain asymptomatic. They also pose ominous questions about the widespread, routine use of sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics in livestock.
About 80 percent of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to livestock -- mainly cattle, pigs and chickens -- because doing so increases the animals' growth rates. Experts have already voiced concerns about how this practice contributes to the rise of drug-resistant pathogens. But the new study, published online Oct. 20 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlights an entirely different concern.
"We've shown that the immune state of an infected mouse given antibiotics can dictate how sick that mouse gets and also carries implications for disease transmission," said Denise Monack, PhD, associate professor of microbiology and immunology and the study's senior author. "If this holds true for livestock as well -- and I think it will -- it would have obvious public health implications. We need to think about the possibility that we're not only selecting for antibiotic-resistant microbes, but also impairing the health of our livestock and increasing the spread of contagious pathogens among them and us."
Upon invading the gut, S. typhimurium produces a powerful inflammation-inducing endotoxin, which annually results in an estimated 1 million cases of food poisoning, 19,000 hospitalizations and nearly 400 deaths in the United States. Passed from one individual to the next via fecal-oral transmission, it is known to produce a curious pattern of pathology among infected individuals: Some 70-90 percent of those infected shed fairly light amounts of bacteria (and so are not very contagious). But the remaining 10-30 percent -- superspreaders -- remain symptom-free yet shed huge amounts of bacteria, causing the great bulk of the pathogen's spread through a population. The reasons for this dichotomy have not been understood.
Evading detection
From a public health standpoint, knowing how to easily and quickly identify superspreaders could help curtail or even prevent epidemics, Monack said. Yet superspreaders don't appear to be sick, so they evade treatment. At the moment, the only way to determine which category a person or beast belongs to is by inspecting each individual's stool, a procedure that would be inconvenient at best even with livestock.
But the Stanford team has discovered that the immune systems of superspreaders and non-superspreaders are in differing states, raising the possibility of a blood test that could make identifying superspreaders more practical.
Salmonella infection in mice is not uncommon, said Monack. "Mice in a barn can be infected with salmonella for a long time and not get sick. They run around perfectly healthy. They're happy little incubators for salmonella."
In Monack's lab, more than 1 in 5 salmonella-infected mice are superspreaders. "The mice we use are inbred," she noted. "So this difference in response to salmonella infection can't be just a simple matter of genetic mutations."
The Stanford investigators had previously published work showing that giving non-superspreader mice an oral antibiotic, which kills some of the friendly microbes that ordinarily inhabit mammals' intestines and provide protection against invading pathogens, led to a rapid increase in salmonella shed in their feces.
In the new study, the scientists gave streptomycin, an antibiotic, to salmonella-infected mice. They were surprised by the results. Overnight, the majority that had been shedding relatively low levels of salmonella in their feces now evidenced very high levels of the pathogen in both their gut and their feces. And within a few days, these antibiotic-treated, formerly low-shedding mice became visibly ill. "They lost weight, had ruffled fur and hunched up the in corners of their cages," Monack said. "They also began to shed much larger quantities of bacteria." Several of them died. What was most surprising, though, was that superspreaders kept on shedding large amounts of bacteria while remaining blithely asymptomatic. Examination of the animals' intestines showed that gut concentrations of S. typhymurium in former non-superspreaders now rivaled those of superspreaders.
Giving the mice another antibiotic, neomycin, produced the same outcomes.
Symptom-free superspreaders
Postdoctoral scholar Smita Gopinath, PhD, the study's lead author, demonstrated that while all the animals harbored the pathogenic bacteria in their gut, the superspreaders -- despite carrying even higher intestinal levels of salmonella and harboring more gut inflammation than the other mice -- had a dampened immune response: Their overall systemic levels of several important pro-inflammatory signaling proteins, secreted by various types of immune cells to whip the immune system into an antimicrobial froth, were substantially lower than those of mice that had morphed from non-superspreaders to sickened superspreaders.
That explained the absence of symptoms in superspreaders, Monack said. Rather than mounting a heightened immune response to the pathogen, superspreaders appear to simply shrug off its presence. "Instead of jousting with the germ, they tolerate it," she said. "Their immune cells have been rewired and aren't responding to the inflammatory signals in the intestines the same way."
Antibiotics actually cause precisely the opposite of the intended effect in the salmonella-infected mouse population, Monack said. "The superspreaders stay healthy and keep on shedding and transmitting disease. Somehow, in an as yet unknown manner, they're coping with S. typhimurium. The others temporarily shed more bacteria than before, although they're too sick to spread much disease."
The bacteria shed in bulk by former non-superspreader mice were every bit as infectious and virulent as those shed by bona fide superspreaders.
Could it happen in humans?
The phenomenon shown in mice hasn't yet been shown in humans, but should be checked out, said Monack. "We humans shouldn't take antibiotics lightly," she said. "We need to consider whether they're always beneficial when they're given to animals across the board, or when we take them ourselves."
On the positive side, she said, "if we can figure out what leads to this immune dampening in superspreaders, it could potentially be helpful in suppressing symptoms of people with chronic inflammatory intestinal disorders, such as Crohn's syndrome or inflammatory bowel disease."
Other Stanford co-authors of the study are professor of comparative medicine Donna Bouley, DVM, PhD; assistant professor of chemical and systems biology Joshua Elias, PhD; and graduate student Joshua Lichtman.
The study was supported by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the National Institutes of Health (grant R01A1095396).Every time it looks like Microsoft has learned its lesson, it goes out and finds an exciting new way to make people angry again.
Just last week, in response to criticisms regarding data collection on Windows 10, the company announced that it would introduce a new privacy dashboard and simplify the privacy settings set up experience. It’s a step in the right direction as the company attempts to regain the trust of its users, but now, a week later, reports are circulating that Microsoft is pushing desktop popups to Chrome users on Windows 10.
First reported by Myce, Windows 10 users with a Chrome icon in their taskbar have begun receiving popup notifications advertising Microsoft’s Personal Shopping Assistant extension. “Quickly compare prices online,” the popup reads. “Get Microsoft’s Personal Shopping Assistant for Chrome.”
While a majority of the reviews for the extension on the Chrome Web Store from 2016 are positive, over a dozen one-star reviews have been posted in the last week, all citing the “spam” from Microsoft.
“Installed this so I could leave this review,” writes one user. “I’m uninstalling it right after. Microsoft Windows 10 popped up a notification when I launched Chrome tonight, telling me I should install this extension. Basically, they forced a popup ad into my Windows experience, and interfered with my use of my computer to push this waste of time onto me. They should be banned from the Chrome store because of this.”
Controversy aside, the extension looks fairly useful at a glance, but this is clearly not the way to go about advertising it, especially when users are (understandably) skittish about cybersecurity.When FanGraphs was in Arizona earlier this spring, our merry band of nerds made our way to a Jarrod Parker vs Chris Sale afternoon tilt. The result on that 16th of March — an 11-5 win for the White Sox and bad performances from the two starting pitchers — was mostly unimportant to everyone in involved. But a few innings sitting behind the plate did provide some insights, including some reasons why those results were unimportant.
In some ways, the results were important. If you look in the box score, you’ll see that Hiroyuki Nakajima had an error. That means something, but only when combined with the observation that he was tentative in the field, and had his hand in two other plays that could have been scored errors as well. He dropped a ball at second that could have started a double play. He collaborated with an two other A’s to drop a short fly ball. He hesitated on throws. Combined with the thought that Patrick Newman had before he came over from Japan — that his defense probably didn’t make him an everyday MLB shortstop — there might be legit reasons to wonder about the A’s biggest free agent of the offseason.
The box score also says that Chris Sale walked two batters that day, same as Jarrod Parker, who added a wild pitch. And if you look at their stats last year, it was Sale that had the better control. But if you watched those two pitchers that sunny Saturday, you’d have a different impression of the two. Sale couldn’t find the plate in the second inning, with two four-pitch walks (Michael Choice and Daric Barton). But his poor control also helped contribute to the hits he gave up — seven in five-plus. He wasn’t getting around on the slider, and he was having some release point issues. And watching those elbows and knees and all the recoil in his delivery made his control problems seem even worse.
Quality of opposition is often cited as a reason to ignore spring stats, and there are even statistics that try to account for the uneven nature of a spring game. But if Sale was having trouble against an Oakland squad that was batting Chris Young third and Josh Donaldson fourth, wouldn’t that mean something worse than if it was a murderer’s row he was up against?
We know that the starters leave after three innings early in the spring, so spring stats are skewed because it. Jarrod Parker’s afternoon gave us a different reason to be skeptical of spring stats.
Early in the outing, Parker’s curveball — his third or fourth best pitch depending on who you ask — was crisp. It had 12-6 break and some sizzle, and batters were missing the pitch. By the third inning, that changed. He kept throwing the pitch, but the sizzle was gone, and it flattened out. And yet he kept throwing it to batter after batter. Conor Gillaspie doubled off a curveball. Jordan Danks doubled off a curveball. Hector Gimenez tripled off a curveball. Most of these were curveballs inside, yanked down the line. And Parker kept throwing his curves up there.
In fact, in the the three innings I watched, I only saw two changeups. That would be rare for Parker, who averaged one for every five pitches thrown in 2012. Adam Dunn walked up to the plate, and with two strikes, Parker finally threw the first change I saw. Dunn barely held up and was spared a strikeout. Parker threw him another changeup, and this time Dunn couldn’t stop himself.
And here’s a strange conundrum — lesser players hit Parker around, but he wasn’t showing them his best. He was ‘working on something’ in the parlance of the season. There’s no specific mention of him working on his curveball in the game report, but he does mention that he was focusing on how he felt “the day after” and that he was hoping to work on his two-seamer in the next start out. And when that next start was a gem, Parker said that it was a night game, closer to the season, and that he “wanted to treat it a little more like the regular season.”
There are things to be learned in your average spring game. Hiroyuki Nakajima has some work to do on defense. Chris Sale may have slightly worse control than his walk rate last year suggests. Jarrod Parker is working on his curveball. But these things don’t show up in the box scores exactly like we think they might. Good thing we still watch the games.From 2001-02, I shared a cubicle with Steve Byrnes. He was the host and I was the producer of a nightly show called "Totally NASCAR" on Fox Sports Net. We'd known each other as racetrack acquaintances but were employed by opposing TV networks and had never actually worked together.
But over those two years of sharing office space he became one of my "two hand friends." You know, that closest group of friends that's so small you can only fit them on the fingers of two hands.
That little show we did, produced out of double-wide trailer in a production house parking lot, was the hardest I've ever worked and the most professional fun I've ever had. Hell, we even earned an Emmy nomination. I still can't believe they let us do some of the stuff we did. We aired segments where Steve, a hardcore football man, would wing footballs at the studio crew. He once did a lead-in to a story about celebratory burnouts while we had a smoke machine blast fog into his face. We reconstructed a fan scaffold so he could act like he was tailgating in the infield. Each week Sterling Marlin, a huge Tennessee Volunteers fan, would give his college football picks for the weekend and Steve would respond with his spot-on Marlin impersonation ("Well... uh... Steve... someone stuck a stick in my spoke, backed us up...")
But my personal favorite recurring bit involved a weekly, somewhat awkward segment sponsored by Outback Steakhouse. Steve was required to read a graphic with the standings of this weird, made-up contingency points thing... and he was to do it while wearing a safari hat with a big Outback Steakhouse logo on the front. The first night, on live TV, he said, "Some sales guy in Los Angeles is like: 'He should wear the hat! This will be great!'" Then he said, "No," yanked the lid off his head and threw it like a Frisbee, nailing the camera. For the next two years, that became the routine. His tosses became harder and harder. When he hit the camera lens, it was hilarious. When he missed, it was even funnier. The Outback people loved it, so much so they sent us a box of extra hats.
Steve Byrnes was known for his professionalism, but also loved a good laugh, as seen here with Will Farrell at Talladega in 2006. Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR
At the end of every such off-the-wall segment Steve would joke "We are trained broadcast professionals." But he was also quick to remind me -- and this is something that I preach to this day -- "We can only do the goofy stuff as long as we get the serious stuff right."
There was plenty of serious.
Our first week working together ended with the death of Dale Earnhardt. I marveled at Steve's ability to maintain his composure night after night following the loss of such a close friend, even as the inevitable nasty lawsuits and crash investigation forced him to sift through the unspeakable details of Earnhardt's accident.
Later that year was the Sept. 11 attacks. In fact, Steve was the first person who called to let me know that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. He was home and I was home. I was oblivious, already busy putting in that night's show rundown into the computer system and clueless as to what was happening in New York and back in Steve's home area of Washington, D.C. I turned on the television and we were in the middle of talking when the second plane hit, live on CNN. We simultaneously and instinctively hung up and drove straight to the office.
From that year and that day forward, we lived by a mantra there in our cubicle that carried out into our lives, even long after our time as co-workers had ended. Steve said it first and I have shamelessly written it and shared with countless people ever since. I even used it in a graduation speech at his beloved Appalachian State University.
"This isn't so bad. It could be much worse. We could be under 130 million tons of rubble right now."
That's about perspective. About living in the moment. Appreciating the moment. And understanding exactly what "having a bad day" really means.
The day Steve first learned he had had cancer was Aug. 7, 2013. I know that because our families just happened to be together that day. We had, of all things, just ridden in a monster truck school bus in the Charlotte Motor Speedway's Parade of Power. Just as we'd arrived at the track, he'd gotten the call with the test results that no one wants to hear. The Byrnes family left in a hurry and he said he'd call me the next day. He did and told me the news. Then he said: "This isn't so bad. It could be much worse. We could be under 130 million tons of rubble right now."
The second time he learned he had cancer was Oct. 1, 2014. I know that because he called me as I was driving up the Billy Graham Parkway to the Charlotte airport, headed to Kansas Speedway for the race weekend. I pulled over on the side of the road and tried to sound like I wasn't crying when he said to me "130 million tons of rubble, brother."
Last Thursday, just before the Food City 500 in Support of Steve Byrnes race weekend, I spent the morning with Steve at the hospital. We recalled that 9/11 story and the rubble mantra. He talked about his birthday earlier in the week, offered me a leftover cupcake and said: "I am so glad I was here to see my birthday. To see the age of 56. And I am so glad I have today and that I have right now."
We texted all weekend. We texted during the race renamed in his honor, the one that started with greetings from his NASCAR on FOX coworkers, drivers, his son Bryson, and a racetrack full of #ByrnesStrong T-shirts, stickers and signs. I texted him, "I only wish I had the Outback Steakhouse hat to fling out the press box."
He responded "my fav".
I spent Tuesday evening in mourning by watching old episodes of "Totally NASCAR." I laughed out loud. I sobbed. And then I hit the last segment of the last episode I could find. It was a sort of "greatest hits" montage and there he was, holding a baby. It was his son, Bryson, and the kid was only a couple of hours old. We sent a camera crew to the maternity ward (his wife, Karen, wasn't too thrilled about that) and we had proud dad and his brand new baby on national television that night.
Two years ago, I had breakfast with the Byrnes boys at the Martinsville Speedway. Bryson was 10 years old and said he was impressed that I knew his age without having to ask. I told him that I'd always know exactly how old he was because I'd always remember that he was our "Totally NASCAR" baby.
Now Bryson's 12. His daddy's gone. And I hope that all of us -- from the garage to the media center to anyone out there who was moved by Steve's fight -- do everything we can to make sure his family is looked after. The darkest time after loss doesn't come in the days right after. The pain is sharper, but it's the emptiness, the aching of a new reality that doesn't arrive until weeks later, that hurts the most. It feels like being under 130 million tons of rubble. But, as Steve would tell us, it's not. So let's grab a shovel and start digging.
That's what he'd do. That's Byrnes Strong.Late last week, the political media's collective heart was aflutter, as former President Barack Obama re-entered the electoral fray by addressing a rally for Virginia Democrats' floundering gubernatorial candidate, Ralph Northam. Self-referential as ever, Obama noted his relative absence from our national politics over the past eight months; this only rings true if you're willing to pretend that he hasn't issued sundry public pronouncements blasting his successor and Republicans generally on issues ranging from the travel ban ("systemic discrimination"), to healthcare ("meanness at the core"), to immigration ("self-defeating" and "cruel"):
Obama says "he hasn't commented on politics lately" but says one thing he knows is "division doesn't work" — Jordan J Frasier (@jordan |
, Bornemann-Cimenti said, pointing to a 2011 study on the issue. Another problem is how journals themselves report that studies have been pulled. In print journals, Bornemann-Cimenti said, ”notes of retractions are typically printed in a not-so-prominent section.” On the web, ”up to 32% of the withdrawn articles are not labeled as retracted,” he said, pointing to another 2011 study.
Then there’s the issue of local file storage. Bornemann-Cimenti pointed out that some researchers may compile their own electronic library of research documents, and therefore miss retraction notices that may (or apparently may not) appear online. Researchers may also simply use Google to find and download studies, and end up with the pre-retracted versions. “You sometimes find.pdf-files of research articles which are stored in online repositories or private or institutional websites,” Bornemann-Cimenti said. “Most often, they will not be removed if the original article is retracted.”
Many of these issues have been perpetuating for years. More than 16 years ago, in 1999, a study that analyzed post-retraction citations found problems not unlike those uncovered in the Reuben study:
Most of the citations it analyzed either directly cited the findings of the retracted papers as if they were valid (“explicitly positive”), or simply listed them without acknowledging the retractions (“implicitly positive”). (AIM stands for Abridged Index Medicus, a standard collection for medical journals, which later became the United States National Library of Medicine.)
John Budd, lead author of the 1999 study and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri, offered another explanation for how researchers may make this mistake. He told Quartz in an email that some authors may simply be using research that cites the retracted papers, and copy the citations over. “That way the retraction wouldn’t be evident,” Budd said.
The most cited paper on the Retraction Watch list was published in Science in 2005 and pulled in 2007. It claimed to identify a new fat cell protein, but later research showed the protein was identical to one that was already known. Oransky, the Retraction Watch co-founder, told Quartz that 68 of the citations for that paper occurred in 2015, though it wasn’t immediately clear how many of those acknowledged the retraction. In any case, the only papers on the list without post-retraction citations were just retracted this year, and it seems clear that these could continue to be cited. If they are, Oransky said, Reaction Watch will continue to update the list.When you look at this bag, you wouldn’t think at all that it would be a camera bag. In all honesty, it isn’t. Inspired by the story of the Magnum Photographers who worked with Filson camera bags to design something super low profile, I decided to simply hack a bag that I’ve been using for years and years into something that can hold pretty much most of the gear that I need when I go on shoots. Of course, it isn’t enough when it comes to shoots requiring me to work with monolights, but for the most part this little bag handles almost every situation I tackle, is low profile, and allows my to have quick access to my gear.
A simple bag like this is what many camera bag manufacturers should be able to make affordably.
Lots of photographers are always afraid that someone will reach into their camera bags and steal their gear. I’ve lived in NYC my entire time and no one has even reached into my bag to steal my belongings. But I think that if you’re worrying about someone reaching into your bag then you should also be able to feel when someone is doing so. And if you can’t do that, then you need to go to the doctor and have your awareness evaluated.
This bag is truly the simplest of modifications. I purchased the bag years ago at the Strand bookstore when I was in college. I did it on a whim because I fell in love with the simple but pretty cool looks. I’ve been using it ever since for lots of different trips or work.
When you unlatch the top flap you expose this pocket. It’s a handy area for flashes, accessories, an iPad or pens. As you can tell, it was kind of designed for that use.
And when you look inside, you’ll see that what I did was added in my own camera bag insert. It’s currently modified to hold my 5D Mk II with lens attached, a lens in the other socket, and a flash laying on top of the camera or under it if I choose. For mirrorless cameras, I can stuff maybe around three of them with lenses into here with no real problems.
The insert has a flap that closes down to add a bit more protection; but in all honesty I don’t really need it. What is very cool about this bag though is that I have two other little storage areas behind it. I can comfortably fit my 13 inch MacBook Pro into here.
Then it comes to the strap. It is really just nothing more than a piece of canvas with another piece of canvas acting as a buffer between the shoulder and the bag. It’s comfortable and not too cushiony. In the summer, I have less to worry about when it comes to sweating due to NYC’s super humid climate.
If you take a look at the sides, then you’ll notice that there are no other pockets. Once again, this bag is designed to keep you down to just the essentials. And in real life practice that keeps my mind much more streamlined and focussed on my work.
Now, this isn’t the bag that I’d bring with me everywhere, but it suits around 87% of my needs. If I’m going to a meeting with folks that are better groomed, then I’ll reach for something like my ONA Union Street or my ZKin bag. If I’m going to a location shoot and need a ton of gear, then Tenba is usually my go to.
But for the majority of my work, this little hack solves 100% of my problems and needs. And doing something like this at a reasonable price and in mass is something that lots of photographers want.
This is just my own personal modification though, and lots more can be done for your own wants and needs. Everyone is different.
For more, please follow us on Facebook, Google+, Flickr and Twitter.By By Sean Fraser Feb 13, 2012 in Sports Philadelphia - Star wideout DeSean Jackson is scheduled for free agency starting March 5, but the Philadelphia Eagles are not comfortable with just letting him go. NFL.com reports that the Eagles will most likely place the franchise tag on Jackson unless a deal is reached. Franchise tagging Jackson will give the Eagles the option to trade him instead of letting him test the free agent market. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Jackson, whose four-year, $3 million rookie contract is up, could sign the franchise tag tender and earn $9.5 million, $9 million more than he made last year. Jackson has stated that he is content with being tagged. Jackson has been a very dynamic weapon for the Eagles throughout his career. He has caught 229 receptions for over 4,000 yards and 21 touchdowns in his young career. He's also an impact player on special teams, returning 116 punts for over 1,200 yards and four touchdowns, including the now famous "Miracle in the Meadowlands 2": More about NFL, Philadelphia Eagles, desean jackson, free agenct More news from NFL Philadelphia Eagles desean jackson free agenctI don’t find many vegetarian chili recipes that I adore.
My biggest problem is that they lack the “heft” of meat and the thickness that I am looking for in chili. I like my chili to be hearty (not light).
This chili uses quinoa instead of meat and it works for me. I am not a quinoa fan (as I think it tastes like dirt) but in chili I don’t notice the taste and it makes the consistency kind perfect.
Hey, I didn’t know a grain could do that!
Quinoa can be found in your supermarket next to the rice and other exotic grains (like kamut and bulgur). Some people absolutely love it in a salad with vegetables.
This recipe is very inexpensive because you use dried beans instead of canned ones. A bag of beans sets me back about $1. Also, this recipe would serve an army of hungry vegetarians!
Please share your favorite uses for quinoa.
print Pin It Slow Cooker Vegetarian Quinoa Chili Recipe
Makes 12, 1 cup servings
For first 5-6 hours:
1.5 pounds dried small red beans, soaked overnight
1-28 ounce can tomatoes
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
2 teaspoons salt
6 cups hot water
For last 30 minutes:
1 pound frozen corn
1 cup quinoa
In a 6 quart slow cooker, mix soaked beans, tomatoes with juice, chili powder, cumin, salt and water. Cook for 5-6 hours on high until beans are tender. When beans are cooked, add quinoa and corn and cook on high for 30 minutes. For one cup = 283 calories, 1.4 g fat, 0.0 g saturated fat, 53.2 g carbohydrates, 2.9 g sugar, 15.2 g protein, 15.8 g fiber, 411 mg sodium, 7 SmartPts Points values are calculated by Snack Girl and are provided for information only. See all Snack Girl Recipes
Other posts you might like:Bacary Sagna is ready to commit his future to Arsenal.
The Gunners full-back is out of contract in the summer and has been stalling over a new deal in recent months, with a number of French clubs monitoring the star’s situation.
The north Londoner’s usually only offer one-year extensions to players aged 30 and above, but Sagna has been holding out for a new two-year deal.
Now, GunnersWatch can reveal the two parties have thrashed out an agreement and Sagna is set to put pen to paper in the coming months – pouring cold water on suggestions Arsenal could make a move for Everton star Seamus Coleman.
We understand that the two sides are close to the two year deal with Sagna set to be offered around £75,000 a week – a £15,000 rise.
AdvertisementsBAY CITY, MI – Here's a love story for the books:
A Bay City man proposed to his girlfriend at Walmart on New Year's Eve after convincing a store employee to read a note asking her to marry him over the public address system. She said yes, and the crowd that had gathered around the couple clapped as they hugged and kissed.
Sweet so far, right?
That's when the romantic tale went off script: The couple went on to celebrate by shoplifting jewelry and sex toys, according to court records, and off to jail they went.
Police were tipped off about 6:15 p.m. on New Year's Eve by store employees at a Spencer Gifts store at Bay City Mall who told officers the couple were shoplifting. They had fled the store by the time authorities arrived, but deputies caught up with them before they got far.
Authorities found William J. Cornelius Jr., 25, sleeping in the mall food court, where he had reportedly dozed off while tying his shoes. They awoke him, and found an edible thong, a sex toy, panties and sex candy from the novelty store, according to MLive.com and WXYZ-TV.
Cornelius admitted he had stolen the sex toys for his fiancée, according to court records.
He did pay for a $29.62 engagement ring at Walmart, though police said Walmart store surveillance shows his fiancée slipping a pair of gold earrings and a necklace into her purse as other customers congratulated the newly betrothed couple.
Cornelius' fiancée hasn't been arraigned. She denied stealing the jewelry, and initially told police she wasn't going to snitch on Cornelius, but then apparently changed her mind and said he had stolen the earrings and necklace.
Cornelius was arraigned on Tuesday on one count of retail fraud, punishable by up to 93 days in jail and a $500 fine. He was released on a personal recognizance bond and is due back in court for a pretrial conference on Jan. 29.
His fiancée posted bond Tuesday morning.
» Police mug shotA Hamilton Police officer is among dozens of people charged in the guns and gangs investigation called “Project Pharaoh,” Toronto police revealed Friday. Toronto police said they have dismantled the Monstarz gang, which operated in the city’s northwest and was allegedly involved in at least eight homicides.
Craig Ruthowsky is pictured in 2002 when he was a member of the Hamilton-Wentworth High Enforcement Action Team unit. ( Cathie Coward / Hamilton Spectator file photo )
Officer Craig Ruthowsky, 41, of Hamilton has been charged with breach of trust, conspiracy to traffic cocaine, participating in a criminal organization and commission of an indictable offence for a criminal organization. He has been suspended with pay from Hamilton police service since June 2012 on charges of obstruction of justice and breach of trust. Those criminal charges were dropped more than a year ago, but he remains in custody and suspended pending Police Services Act charges, the Hamilton Spectator reports. “We all get a little disappointed when one of our brothers gets involved in an investigation like this, but we don’t treat him any differently than any other person,” said Insp. Bryan Bott in reference to Ruthowsky.
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Bott said that the hardest part was to “continue our investigation without compromising it.” As a result, Hamilton Police were not involved. Ruthowsky is a 16-year veteran of the police service. Acting Chief of Police Jim Ramer (who is in charge while Chief of Police Mark Saunders is away) said the Monstarz operated primarily within the Rexdale community. Police allege that gang members had been involved in 44 incidents of violence within the community since May 2011. Much of the violence allegedly occurred during a gang war between the Monstarz and the Jamestown gang. Ramer said on May 30, 2014, a gunman opened fire on an apartment complex on Mt. Olive Dr. wounding three people while children played nearby. One of the victims was driven to Etobicoke General Hospital by a friend, according to police, where the friend was then also shot upon exiting the hospital. The windows of the hospital emergency centre were shattered by bullets, resulting in Etobicoke General Hospital and Sunnybrook Hospital being locked down for several hours, said police.
According to Bott, no charges were laid in this incident due to lack of evidence and witness participation. Bott said that the Monstarz have been involved in potentially eight homicides during their back-and-forth with their rival the Jamestown gang — the most recent incident being the shooting of Travis Tash, 22, in 2014 on Upper Canada Dr.
Article Continued Below
Police also allege that the death of Neeko Mitchell, 25, killed outside a Rexdale community centre using high-velocity rounds in 2013 is a result of the street-gang rivalry. Through the entirety of Project Pharaoh, Bott said more than 60 people have been arrested and 93 warrants executed. The total street value of drugs seized is $3.8 million. Police have also seized 14 firearms, about $196,000, roughly $1,800 U.S. and five vehicles. Forty-five people were to be charged later Friday on 379 counts in connection to the raids. The pre-dawn raids on Thursday executed 50 search warrants against Monstarz — a criminal organization described as particularly violent by police. The operation was a combined police effort between the Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force and the OPP’s Provincial Weapons Unit. It also included the Toronto police major crime task force, drug squad, intelligence firearms enforcement unit and cybercrime unit. —with files from Peter Edwards, Jackie Hong and Canadian PressPeyton Manning and John Elway have teamed up to give the Broncos back-to-back AFC West titles. (Photo: Ron Chenoy, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights Denver's VP of football operations is miserable as a playoff spectator
Calls OC Adam Gase "studly" and would like to see him remain on staff
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — As a quarterback, John Elway enjoyed nothing more than the NFL playoffs.
But now that he's running the Denver Broncos, postseason has become a miserable experience.
"It took me four hours to get the pit out of my stomach after the game last week," Elway said Thursday morning in a roundtable discussion with a small group of reporters. "As a player, it was so exciting to be in these situations because this was what you worked for, so it's not nearly as much fun upstairs as it was down on the field."
But now Elway hopes his own personal misery will be extended for a few more weeks.
AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Five story lines to watch
PELISSERO'S PREVIEW: More AFC Championship Game thoughts
PLAYOFFS: Schedule and results
The Broncos were the only NFL team Elway ever played for, and he has run them as executive vice president of football operations for the past three years. Denver hosts the New England Patriots in Sunday's AFC Championship Game, and the franchise hopes to reach its first Super Bowl since Elway led the team to back-to-back titles in 1997 and 1998. He retired following the second championship.
"I talked to them at training camp and I said, 'If you're world champions, every bit of work you put it to it is worth it,'" Elway said. "I know how hard this team has worked, how hard these coaches have worked, and I hope it pans out for them and they get that feeling because it is something that is not comparable to anything else."
Elway was 38 when he won that second title, a year older than current Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning. Elway said he will sit down with Manning once this season is over to see how the record-setting passer feels about his career and future, but doesn't seem to be expecting anything other than Manning being the Broncos quarterback in 2014, regardless of what happens on Sunday or later in the postseason.
VIDEO: AFC Championship Game preview
CLOSE USA TODAY Sports NFL writer Tom Pelissero previews the clash between the two teams left standing in the AFC.
"I still think he's young and playing well," Elway said. "Having been a football player before, when you leave this game, you want to leave it on your last leg (and) try not to leave anything on the table. And so anybody that's a competitor — that's the way they want to leave the game. I was just fortunate to be on two great football teams and be able to win two world championships when my last leg broke."
Manning has been more circumspect when discussing his future beyond the postseason.
"When you go through a significant injury and a major career change, you truly do go one year at a time and you don't look past what's going on now because you are not sure what's going to happen," Manning said Thursday. "Tomorrow is not promised. I think it's a healthy approach for an older player to go all in for 2013 regular season, 2014 postseason.
"For a young player, sure, it can be easy to look ahead to maybe that new contract that they want to get or some career goal that they're trying to achieve. But at this point in my career, it's easy just to focus in on what's going on right now. It's been a healthy approach and attitude for me and it keeps you honed in on the moment."
The difference for Elway then and Manning now is that Elway knew his body couldn't take the punishment of another season. But Elway has seen plenty of joy from Manning this season, his second with the Broncos. Manning is expected to win his fifth MVP award after setting single-season records for touchdown passes (55) and passing yards (5,477) while leading the Broncos to the AFC West crown and No. 1 seed in the conference. Manning's only health issue this year was a sprained ankle that lingered throughout much of the middle of the season. He missed some practices but was never out of the lineup.
But just as Elway was criticized for much of his career after getting blown out during his first three Super Bowl trips, Manning is often defined by his postseason record. He is 10-11 in playoff games, including 1-1 in Super Bowls.
"Whether it's fair or not, that's the way it is. That's the way it's always going to be," Elway said. "Head coaches and quarterbacks are tied together in the fact that statistics are nice, but the great ones are the ones that have won world championships. And they don't do it by themselves. They're also on good football teams with good head coaches."
Perhaps that's why Elway said Thursday he feels good about the Broncos' chances. He's thrilled with the job John Fox has done as head coach, especially after undergoing heart surgery in November, and credits Fox with "fixing" a locker room that was in disarray after former head coach (and current New England offensive coordinator) Josh McDaniels was fired in 2010. Elway is equally happy with both of Fox's coordinators, especially first-year offensive coordinator Adam Gase.
"I wish I could've played for him, yeah. He's so bright," Elway said.
PHOTOS: Peyton-Brady through the years
Gase has drawn interest as a head coaching candidate but declined to interview for any jobs until after the Broncos' season is over. The Minnesota Vikings, who requested permission to speak with Gase, have already filled their vacancy, though Gase remains a target of the Cleveland Browns, the only team yet to fill its coaching vacancy.
Elway called Gase's decision not to interview immediately "studly" and said he hoped Gase would wind up staying with the Broncos.
"I like guys that are committed to what they're doing, committed to the Denver Broncos," Elway said. "So I couldn't be more proud of that decision. It tells you a lot about that guy."
Elway, much like Manning has done frequently this year, praised Gase's aggressiveness as a play-caller. He singled out the third-and-17 pass play to tight end Julius Thomas that helped clinch the divisional round win against the San Diego Chargers as the type of play that can define a playoff run.
As Elway takes his seat in a box high above Sports Authority Field at Mile High on Sunday, those will be the type of clutch plays he's hoping to see, even as he's agonizing over every Manning throw or Knowshon Moreno run.
"Championships aren't given to you," Elway said, "you've got to go win it. And that's on both sides of the ball."
***
Follow Lindsay H. Jones on Twitter @bylindsayhjones
VIDEO: NFL playoff viewing guideIn a previous post Those Damn Unwanted Thoughts I indicated how your often is a result of your of your thoughts and sensations. Let's say that you are obsessive and you have the recurring thought, "Maybe I have cancer". But you don't. You've seen the doctor, she tells you that you are fine, you go home and begin thinking again, "Maybe she's wrong. Maybe I have cancer". Then you think, "The fact that I'm thinking that must mean that there is something to worry about. I need to know for sure. I need to do something." So you Google endlessly every possible cancer and expect to see your pretty face appear on the screen.
People with Disorder have intrusive thoughts (or images) that bother them. These can be thoughts about making mistakes, harming someone, contamination, disease, preoccupation, fears of impulses or desires, or just about anything that you might consider dangerous, disgusting or dirty. Examples of obsessions are, "I made a mistake at work and it will blow up on me", "I touched the chair and it's contaminated", "I had a violent fantasy and now I will lose control", "I left the gas on (the doors unlocked, the cat in the washing machine)" or "I did something that God will punish me for". Once you have the intrusive thought you begin looking for more examples of these thoughts. "Oh God! I just had that thought again." You now are watching yourself, totally self-conscious, fearing every possible thought or intrusion that does not reflect a pure and good mind. Your theory of your mind is that you should only have certain thoughts. Everything else is bad or dangerous.
So what do you do when you have these unwanted intrusive thoughts? Do you shout at yourself, STOP? Do you try to get reassurance from someone, "Does this look like cancer to you?" Perhaps you pray for peace, or you have a drink, or you binge eat. Or maybe you ruminate, thinking over and over, "Why am I having these damn thoughts? Am I going crazy?"
How to Understand Your OCD
The diagram below (which, I admit, is a little obsessive itself) is from my book, Anxiety Free: Unravel Your Fears Before they Unravel You. It lays out a detailed schematic on the nature of OCD. Let's take a look at each step.
1. Triggers: These are the events or stimuli that set you off. It could be touching something (contamination), leaving the house (something is unlocked, the gas is on), driving at night (I ran over something), thinking of (God will punish me, I will lose control).
2. Odd thoughts or images: You have some thoughts or sensations that you don't like. "Why am I having those bizarre, sick, disgusting, unwanted thoughts?"
3. Negative evaluation of thoughts: You think there is something wrong with your thinking-as if you should only have pure and good thoughts and feelings. You have a lot of "shoulds" about the way you should think and feel. You think that now that you have the thought, you have a responsibility to get reassurance, get control or get rid of it. Having the thought is equivalent to being SENT ON A MISSION. You have become THE THOUGHT POLICE.
You watch yourself like a hawk-looking for those thoughts. Of course, simply because you have to think about what you are looking for ("I am looking for that disgusting and dangerous thought"), you always have to find it. It's like holding up a mirror to yourself and saying, "I am looking for a mirror. OH MY GOD! THERE IT IS!!!!"
5. Demand for certainty: You think you should know for sure whether you will act out, lose control, or are contaminated. Nothing short of perfection and certainty will suffice.
6. Thought-action fusion: You equate having a thought with committing an action. "If I think I will get violent, I will". Or, a thought is the same thing as reality. "If I think I have cancer, then I must be a dead man". Thoughts, actions and reality are all one. All in your mind.
7. Thought-suppression: Your first line of "defense" is to try to stop having these thoughts. You tell yourself, "Don't think that". It works, for three minutes. But your failure to permanently suppress these thoughts leads you to believe
8. "I've lost control": You now equate control in your life to eliminating unwanted thoughts. Now you feel more out of control as you desperately try to control your thoughts more and more. It's like slapping the water and drowning.
9. Compulsions: You now perform some neutralizing ritual. Perhaps you wash your hands excessively, pray, repeat "No", walk a certain way, wash a certain way, arrange things, go back and check, check again. You find yourself frenetically doing these things until you have a
10. Felt sense of completion: You say, "I can stop now because I feel I have done enough. This felt sense of completion now becomes your new rulebook for rituals. "I need to do them until I feel I did enough". You are hooked on your rituals.
11. Avoidance of triggers. You remind yourself, I wouldn't have any of these thoughts if I simply avoided the triggers. So you avoid touching things, avoid public restrooms, avoid shaking hands, avoid movies with Satan, avoid people that make you have feelings that are bad and disgusting feelings. Avoid, avoid and avoid. You are running away from the world.
This is how you think. All in the name of being responsible, ---all in the name of avoiding losing control, going crazy or becoming irresponsible. All because you need to be in control. And it doesn't work. Take a look at the schematic and let us know where you see yourself. In a later post, we will discuss what you can do.
But the first step is how your OCD makes "sense" to you.
From: Anxiety Free: Unravel Your Fears Before They Unravel You by Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D.
To see a bigger image of the chart, please click here.
None of these techniques will help for very long. So what can you do?
In my recent book, Anxiety Free: Unravel Your Fears Before they Unravel You, I lay out a number of things that you can do when you have obsessive thoughts.Want to skip the waiting and get a Gigantic beta key? Here’s your chance!
Submit your fan art to us here on Tumblr and you shall be rewarded. (You don’t have to be an artist, just do your best!)
- When you submit art of any Gigantic hero, we’ll give you TWO keys – one for you and a friend.
- When you submit art of our new hero, Beckett, we’ll give you FIVE keys – one for you and the rest of your crew!
NOTE: If you are NOT submitting fan art through a Tumblr account, please leave the name/alias you’d like to be credited in the details of your submission. Otherwise we won’t know who you are!
Up to two entries per person qualify for keys. Gigantic is rated T for TEEN by ESRB for Violence & Blood. By submitting your art, you agree to be 13 years of age or older or – if younger – have parental consent. You also agree to allow us to share your submission with our community (properly credited, of course). Keys will be sent via Tumblr message or email. This Tumblr giveaway ends by the end of Friday, February 5th.Bernie Sanders on Monday aired a stubborn position on the election: If he loses the Democratic nomination, he will help Hillary Clinton in the fight against Republicans. But he is not giving up on central parts of his platform.
At a town hall meeting hosted by MSNBC on Monday evening in Philadelphia, Sanders was asked what he would do to mobilize his supporters to continue his policy proposals, assuming he lost at the Democratic convention.
Sanders said that “If we end up losing,” it would be “incumbent upon [Clinton] to tell millions of people who right now do not believe in establishment politics and establishment economics” that she supported Sanders’ Medicare-for-all plan.
“I think Secretary Clinton is going to have to explain to millions of young people and a lot of other people that climate change is a real crisis and incrementalism is just not going to solve it,” he added.
Whether Sanders throws his support behind Clinton if she wins the Democratic nomination — and how enthusiastically he endorses her — will play a major role in determining whether his supporters end up backing her too. That will give Sanders some leverage, even if he loses the Democratic nomination, in shaping the party’s platform.
Clinton is highly unlikely to embrace any of Sanders’ policy proposals, which would cost trillions of dollars over the next ten years. She has repeatedly rejected those ideas, saying that Sanders’ Medicare-for-all proposal would require the United States to scrap the Affordable Care Act and that his free tuition at public colleges would require compliance from Republican governors.
The former Secretary of State said as much on Monday night, during her own town hall meeting.
“I am winning. And I’m winning because of what I stand for and what I’ve done,” Clinton said. “I have 2.7 million more votes than he has. I have more than 250 more pledged delegates. I’m very proud of the campaign that we have run and the support we have gotten and of course we’re gonna work together.”
She argued she has a better plan for regulating Wall Street than Sanders does, and pointed to the 2008 election, when she supported the then-Sen. Barack Obama.“I spent an enormous amount of time convincing my supporters to support him. And I’m happy to say the vast majority did,” Clinton said.
Though both the candidates suggested they were taking a hard position ahead of the convention in the case that Clinton wins, Sanders also said he would do what he could to prevent a Republican from winning in November.
“I will do everything in my power to make sure no Republican gets into the White House in this election,” Sanders said.
Contact us at editors@time.com.The body of Josiah Saintil was found in the trunk of this car in Coral Springs on Friday, June 1, 2012 just one day after an Amber Alert was issued when he was kidnapped by his father, according to Coral Springs police. His father, Janus Saintil, is in police custody. (CBS4)
CORAL SPRINGS (CBSMiami) –The father of a one month old baby is facing a first degree murder charge tonight after investigators he killed his son and hid the body in the trunk of a stolen car, according to the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
BSO says Janus Saintil will also face at least one count of armed kidnapping.
According to investigators, Saintil was heading to a North Lauderdale Wal-Mart Thursday night with his son, Josiah, and three others, including the boys’ mother, Claudia Harriott.
At some point, detectives say, Saintil became angry at Harriott, pulled a gun and forced the group to drive to Port Saint Lucie.
BSO says Saintil dropped the baby off at an unknown address then took his victims to a second house in Port St. Lucie. Investigators say Saintil then took the group to an ATM, where Saintil tried to force one victim to get cash.
The victim yelled for help and Saintil left in a black, four-door Kia Spectra.
At that point, BSO says it’s unclear what Saintil did but by late Friday morning an Amber Alert was issued for his son. State officials said in the alert that Saintil was armed and dangerous and had a lengthy criminal history and an outstanding warrant for armed robbery.
BSO says Coral Springs Police developed information along with the U.S. Marshal’s Service that Saintil might be headed to an apartment complex at 11000 Royal Palm Boulevard.
Police say Saintil arrived in the stolen Kia with Harriott in the car and inadvertently parked next to a police officer who was looking for him.
Investigators say Saintil was arrested without incident.
“By the time that he opened the door he didn’t have a chance to do anything,” said Coral Springs Police Chief Tony Tustizzi. “Thank God he didn’t fight.”
The officer searched the car and discovered little Josiah’s body in the trunk.
Hours later the Broward County Medical Examiner took the child’s body to perform an autopsy and determine how the child died.
By nightfall, crime scene investigators brought the car to the BSO Crime Lab to begin piecing together the clues of a unthinkable crime.
“It was almost like this baby was carelessly discarded inside the trunk,” said Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti. “Total lack of respect for the baby’s life. Very tragic and if you’re a parent it’s got to tug at your heartstrings.”
Josiah’s mother was also taken in for questioning but investigators say she was a victim in all this.
People wh
o witnessed the crime scene unfold right across from their homes said Harriott’s heart must be broken.
“My heart goes out to her,” said Kiky Torres. “I have kids myself and I can’t even imagine what she’s going through right now.”
Investigators say they do not have a motive for the killing.At yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Francis — greeting Slovak pilgirms, and apparently referencing an upcoming vote in Slovakia on same sex marriage and adoption — encouraged them to work “to continue their efforts in defense of the family, the vital cell of society.”
I’m not sure anyone — except the most extreme and unrealistic of Francis’ haters and admirers, both of whom seem to believe that he intends to upend church teaching any minute, now — would expect him to say differently. Over at Buzzfeed, J. Lester Feder at Buzzfeed notes exactly that but reports that the Pope’s remarks came just in time to hit a sore spot, as LGBT advocates have been charging the church with oversized interference in the matter:
It is not unusual for popes to comment on domestic political debates around the world, and these remarks are consistent with the church’s long-standing opposition to family rights for same-sex couples, which has not changed under his papacy even though he has generally sought a less confrontational tone to engaging with LGBT people. But his remarks come as the Slovakian church has been under criticism from the country’s LGBT rights supporters, who say the church is to blame for the recent push against LGBT rights in the country.
Pope Francis’ words touch the “sore spot” not because the church supports the initiative — realistic people would expect that — but because of questions about whether outside influences, including one from the USA, have worked with the church to funnel money toward the referendum. Posters using the Pope’s image in support of the measure have also appeared, although no one seems willing to take credit for them.
An interesting piece, worth reading. One of these days, I’ll have time to put down in detail some of my own thoughts.A dual-sport star and the only man or woman in the history of the Florida Gators athletic program to win national championships in two sports (football, track & field), Jeff Demps is one of the most accomplished athletes to come out of the University of Florida and has only added to his resume this past year.
As a football player, Demps played running back and took 367 carries for 2,470 yards (6.73 yards per carry) while registering 23 touchdowns over four seasons. He also had a 99-yard kick return touchdown in his senior season against Georgia. Demps started the 2009 BCS National Championship as a freshman and won both a national title and Southeastern Conference title as part of the football program.
As a track star, he was a five-time All-American who won four individual national championships, five individual SEC championships and was part of a men’s track program that dominated both national and conference meets, winning multiple titles in both indoor and outdoor competitions.
Demps decided to concentrate on track after college and participated in the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Trials. He fell short of qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics but earned a spot as an injury replacement and brought home a silver medal.
After returning to the United States, he signed a three-year deal with the New England Patriots as |
allocated to attacking their enemy – US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. They are also deft at playing to popular sympathy for support and recruiting, which has led in recent years to a robust “Information Operations” (IO) campaign on behalf of the NATO forces in order to create counter propaganda to help mitigate this strength. As to their battle tactics, the Taliban do not always stick to the strict Economy of Force model, as we see from the few large scale attacks that have taken place, such as the assault on COP Keating. However, the vast majority of their strikes are made with Improvised Explosive Devices (IED)/Homemade Explosives (HME), targeting vehicle convoys carrying troops and logistical support. This is strikingly similar to Lawrence’s attacks on Turkish trains, and has resulted in nearly the same effect, as NATO forces have been forced to expend valuable resources and manpower defending against this threat.
Syrian rebels
The unifying political aim of the Syrian opposition is to remove President Bashar al-Assad’s government from power. Much like Lawrence, Clausewitz, and the Taliban, the Syrian opposition use this aim to drive their strategy.
Unlike Lawrence, however, the Syrian opposition has not remained enemy-focused, engaging in large scale battles for cities such as Damascus and Aleppo (2012). This is no doubt an attempt to gain a propaganda victory, and through it, international recognition and aid. While this might make political sense, strategically (and tactically), it is unwise. Concentrating your force in the face of a more powerful opponent is “wasting” soldiers, as Lawrence put it. Better to be like the “ghosts” that the Turks confronted, never presenting the enemy with a target, but instead blending into the populace and striking when the opportunity is most favorable. Also like the Arabs, the Syrian opposition is heavily reliant upon popular support for supplies and recruits.
ISIS
One of the groups fighting in Syria is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS). In the summer of 2014, they made headlines by capturing large areas of Iraq’s northern and western territories from government control. The political aims of ISIS are the redrawing of all borders in the Middle East, and the creation of a “pure” Islamist state. This philosophy seems most similar to that of al-Qaeda.
Like the Syrian opposition, they do not always remain enemy-focused, putting far too much emphasis on the taking of cities. As in Syria, this may be a political decision based on the need for propaganda, but it has the adverse effect of creating opportunities for the numerically (and technologically) superior force – the Iraqi Army – to halt their advance. ISIS is also reliant upon popular support, but these support lines are drawn on the basis of religious branch. This limits their capability to the Sunni-populated areas of Iraq and Syria, which constricts their freedom of maneuver. They have also relied more upon conventional fighting tactics, rather than the guerrilla style of “economy” advocated by Lawrence.
Conclusion
Of the multitude of asymmetric conflicts going on in the modern Middle East, the Taliban are the most closely modeled upon the Arab Revolt. Syria is more of a civil war than a guerrilla campaign, and the need for political recognition has effected their strategy and tactics detrimentally. While ISIS is less conventional that the other groups within the Syrian opposition, they are still not conducting a guerrilla campaign in the mold of the Taliban or the Arabs. They waste valuable resources attempting to control geographic locations, instead of taking the fight to their enemy in the most economical way possible.
AdvertisementsRobert Claude Smith (Photo: Photo courtesy of the Eaton County Sheriff's Office)
BROOKFIELD TWP. - A man shot and killed by an Eaton County Sheriff's Office officer Tuesday afternoon didn't fire a weapon at the officers who were pursuing him, a Michigan State Police official said Wednesday.
Robert Claude Smith, 64, died of a single gunshot wound to the head after ramming a vehicle he was driving into two Eaton County Sheriff's Office vehicles on Wilcox Road just before 1 p.m., said Michigan State Police Detective First Lt. Thomas DeClercq.
A State Police official Tuesday indicated there was an exchange of gunfire between police and Smith, who lived on East Spicerville Road outside Eaton Rapids. But on Wednesday, DeClercq said the suspect did not fire a weapon at the officers.
State Police are investigating the shooting, which occurred after an Eaton County detective and deputy attempted to serve a search warrant and felony arrest warrant at Smith's home.
DeClercq said officers observed Smith leaving the residence in a vehicle and attempted to stop it. A police chase followed east on East Spicerville Highway and south on Wilcox Road, he said.
DeClercq said Smith turned his vehicle around at Boody Highway and drove directly at the two police vehicles pursuing him, ramming them both. He declined to say when officers began firing at Smith, but said "multiple rounds were fired" by both police officers.
No other people were in the vehicle with Smith, according to state police.
Buy Photo Michigan State Police investigate the scene on Wilcox Road where a suspect was shot and killed by an Eaton County deputy after a chase on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017, in Brookfield Township west of Eaton Rapids. (Photo: Nick King/Lansing State Journal)
DeClercq declined to comment on whether Smith was in possession of a firearm at the time of the shooting. The vehicle he was driving is being searched, he said, and police are awaiting lab results from the scene.
Eaton County Sheriff Tom Reich issued a statement late Wednesday afternoon supporting the actions of his deputy and detective.
"From preliminary information, there was a clear threat to the lives of my deputies while they were attempting to arrest a felony suspect, and they responded to stop that threat," the statement said. "I support my deputies and their response in protection of their lives."
The warrants for Smith's arrest and a search of the property stemmed from a Nov. 26 arrest by Michigan Department of Natural Resources officers in Eaton County for driving while under the influence, DeClercq said.
"As a result of that arrest there was a warrant for a felon in possession of a firearm," he said Wednesday.
MORE ON LSJ.COM:
Charlotte Public Schools student injured in crash
Suspect shot and killed by Eaton County deputy after chase
Two horses shot and killed in Charlotte
One of the Eaton County officers injured as a result of the vehicle crash was treated for minor injuries at Sparrow Hospital and released Tuesday, DeClercq said. He said both the deputy and the detective are on paid administrative leave. He added their names will not be released until his department's investigation is concluded.
DeClercq said the State Police hope to complete their investigation of the incident within a week, before forwarding it to the Eaton County Prosecutor's Office for review, he said.
A search of police records show that Smith pleaded guilty to drug charges in Eaton County in 2011. He was sentenced to a year of probation.
DeClercq said there is "no connection" between the warrants and the killing of two horses at a farm on North Ainger Road Nov. 21 in Charlotte. The DNR is assisting the sheriff's office in that incident.
The incident was the third fatal shooting by Eaton County officers since 2015.
In February of 2015 Eaton County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Jonathan Frost shot and killed 17-year-old Deven Guilford, who was unarmed, during a traffic stop in Roxand Township. Eaton County Prosecutor Doug Lloyd ruled the shooting justified after an investigation by State Police. A federal lawsuit by Guilford's family against Frost is ongoing.
Matthew Lundy, 32, of Charlotte was shot and killed that same month by deputies who responded to a call that a sport-utility vehicle was stuck in a snow bank along Canfield Road in Eaton Rapids Township and encountered Lundy, who was armed. Lloyd ruled that shooting justified after a State Police investigation.
Matt Mencarini and Ken Palmer contributed to this report. Contact Reporter Rachel Greco at (517) 528-2075 or rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @GrecoatLSJ.
Read or Share this story: http://on.lsj.com/2zC7pfLThe United States Office of Personnel Management announced that hackers were able to compromise over four million current and former federal employees personal information, where the attack is believed to have originated in China, American officials reported Thursday.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a statement that personal information from the Office of Personnel Management and the Interior Department, who shares network information with nearly every agency, has been compromised in the federal hacking. The federal agency who acts as the human resources department for the federal government, and performs background checks and security clearances warned potential victims to monitor their financial statements and get updated credit reports.
Affected personnel have been offered a free 18 month credit and identity monitoring service, something federal officials have urged affected personnel to take advantage of.
Federal officials believe the breach could be the largest breach of government computer networks to date, as it didn’t just plague one sector. Hackers breached the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Interior, alongside nearly every federal government agency, officials told CNN. One question is whether sensitive intelligence information was compromised in the breach.
Currently, the United States government believes the breach can be traced back to the Chinese government, but as the investigation is ongoing, millions of additional government employees may be affected.
A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy located in Washington called officials accusations “not responsible and counterproductive.”
“Cyberattacks conducted across countries are hard to track and therefore the source of attacks is difficult to identify,” spokesman Zhu Haiquan said Thursday night in the Chinese embassy. Adding the hacking can “only be addressed by international cooperation based on mutual trust and mutual respect.”
According to federal intelligence officials speculation, China’s hacker army is allegedly working on compiling a massive database of Americans information. The purpose for the database is not clear, but China withholding personal information on millions of Americans could be critical intelligence.
Investigators thus far have confirmed that employees in the legislative and judicial branches alongside uniformed military personnel are not affected in the federal government breach.
The federal execute branch currently employs over 2.7 million federal workers, however, currently the scope of the attack is unclear as former employee information could possibly be at risk as well.
Federal employees learned of the data breach after the office began to strengthen its cybersecurity measures. DHS officials said their intrusion detection system, known as EINSTEIN, which screens federal Internet traffic to identify potential cyber threats, said the system identified the breach at the data centers shared among several federal agencies.
It is unclear why EINSTEIN was unable to detect and stop the breach before hackers were able to compromise millions of documents.
“DHS is continuing to monitor federal networks for any suspicious activity and is working aggressively with the affected agencies to conduct investigative analysis to assess the extent of this alleged intrusion,” the agency said in a statement.
Officials became aware of the attack only one month after defenses were upgraded, that’s the federal agency learned sensitive information from multiple federal branches had been accessed. Currently, the federal branch is cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to learn what led to the attack.
“We take all potential threats to public and private sector systems seriously and will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace,” the FBI said in a statement.
The federal personnel office said “personally identifiable information” could have possibly been breached, though the office is currently unaware who is responsible for the record breaking attack.
Ron Johnson, Senate Homeland Security and Government affairs chairman said the breach is “disturbing” and the office needs to do a better job at securing their information.
“It is disturbing to learn that hackers could have sensitive personal information on a huge number of current and former federal employees — and, if media reports are correct, that information could be in the hands of China,” Johnson said speaking on the recent attacks. “(The office) says it ‘has undertaken an aggressive effort to update its cybersecurity posture.’ Plainly, it must do a better job, especially given the sensitive nature of the information it holds.”
Government agencies cybersecurity measures are in a tail spin, just as the IRS was hacked. exposing over 100,000 Americans information. Now the federal government may be dealing with a wide spread breach that affected all government sectors.There was much surprise when John McDonnell announced on 25 September that Labour would be voting in favour of George Osborne's new fiscal charter. The target of an absolute surplus by 2020, which the charter mandates, appeared at odds with the shadow chancellor's support for borrowing to invest. At Labour conference, he all but admitted to Newsnight that his backing for the document was merely symbolic.
Now, ahead of tonight's PLP meeting and the vote on Wednesday, Labour has revoked its support altogether. In a letter to MPs, McDonnell wrote: "In the last fortnight there have been a series of reports highlighting the economic challenges facing the global economy as a result of the slowdown in emerging markets. These have included warnings from the International Monetary Fund’s latest financial stability report, the Bank of England chief economist, Andy Haldane, and the former Director of President Obama’s National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers.
He added: "I believe that we need to underline our position as an anti-austerity party by voting against the charter on Wednesday. We will rebuff any allegation of being deficit deniers by publishing for the debate our own statement on budget responsibility. We will set out our plan for tackling the deficit not through punishing the most vulnerable and decimating our public services but by ending the unfair tax cuts to the wealthy, tackling tax evasion and investing for growth.”
McDonnell has cited global economic conditions to explain the U-turn. But some in Labour suggest that he simply failed to realise that Osborne's new Fiscal Charter mandated an absolute surplus, rather than merely a current budget surplus. By reversing its position, Labour has denied the SNP a chance to outflank the party from the left and has appeased backbenchers who opposed the leadership's stance. But it has also made it far easier for the Tories to level the "deficit denier" charge that McDonnell's earlier support for the charter was designed to avoid.Masked Scheduler's Ratings Smackdown Shows are what they are, and no amount of hype after a big football games is going to change their performance when installed in their regular time period. That was true last night with "Hunted," which I thought did OK in the Wednesday slot and, in fact, improved in the second hour. Verdict is out on its long-term viability but I honestly do not think CBS expected the show to retain most of that 4+ 18-49 rating.
Yesterday I said I would tell you about a tool I developed to determine where a show was in its life cycle. Back in 1994 we were debating whether or not to renew "Empty Nest." There were four of us having the debate. John Agoglia, our head of Business Affairs at NBC, and I were opposed to moving forward with another season. The two other folks in the room outranked us so "EN" came back for its final season in the fall of 1994.
After the meeting I started to think about how to best evaluate shows that were on the fence. I always believed that a series had a life cycle and, just as a doctor can look at a patient's chart, there must be a way to look at the "health" of a show.
I had met the GE R&D geeks who loved TV. They offered to provide their services if ever needed. I called them up and discussed this idea of evaluating the health of a show. We talked about the variables that would go into the modeling and how to visualize all this.
A few months later the geeks came to town and, very apologetically, showed me their work. I was blown away and the SERIES LIFE CYCLE was born. It became a valuable tool for the next few years in not only deciding whether to renew shows but also in providing insight into scheduling techniques.
The most significant use of SLC was when we were deciding whether to renew "Law & Order." There was a feeling by one of the senior execs that, to quote him, "'Law & Order' is a hobby, not a business." I totally disagreed, and I now had this tool to present my case. Not only did we renew "L&O" but I convinced my bosses to order three runs of 24 episodes and I vowed to run all 72 of them... and I did! The rest is history and Dick Wolf still rules at NBC.
Yesterday's viewing:
- "Royal Rumble 1992" (streaming on the WWE NETWORK)
- "Outsiders" (L+1)
- "Suits" (L+SD) still ridiculous and they cut down on the cursing.
- "Lethal Weapon" (L+SD)
- "NXT" (Streaming on the WWE NETWORK)
Tomorrow I'll answer a question about the power of certain show runners and we'll see how "Riverdale" does. I liked the pilot.
Broadcast primetime live + same-day ratings for Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017
The numbers for Wednesday include an interview with the new president and a hard fall for a new CBS show in its regular home:
Time Show Adults 18-49 Rating/Share Viewers (millions) 8 p.m. Lethal Weapon (FOX) 1.4/5 6.25 Hunted (CBS) (8-10 p.m.) 1.3/5 5.48 The Goldbergs (ABC) – R 1.2/4 4.78 Law & Order: SVU (NBC) – R 0.8/3 4.16 Arrow (The CW) 0.6/2 1.68 8:30 p.m. Speechless (ABC) – R 1.1/4 4.02 9 p.m. Star (FOX) 1.2/4 3.87 Modern Family (ABC) – R 1.1/4 4.42 Law & Order: SVU (NBC) – R 1.0/4 5.15 Frequency (The CW) – F 0.3/1 0.83 9:30 p.m. Black-ish (ABC) – R 1.1/4 3.91 10 p.m. President Trump: The First Interview (ABC) – S 1.7/6 7.50 Code Black (CBS) 0.9/3 5.61 Chicago PD (NBC) – R 0.8/3 4.37
CBS’ “Hunted” took a serious fall Wednesday in its first airing in its regular home. The show, which had the biggest series premiere of the season on Sunday following the AFC Championship, fell 68 percent in adults 18-49 from a 4.1 to a 1.3.
On the (slightly) bright side, “Hunted” did outperform “Undercover Boss'” 8 p.m. numbers. “Code Black,” meanwhile, was on its average with a 0.9.
ABC had the night’s top show with a news special featuring President Trump. It drew a 1.7 in the 18-49 demo and 7.5 million viewers. The network’s comedies and NBC’s lineup took the night off.
FOX’s “Lethal Weapon” (1.4) and “Star” (1.2) both held steady with last week. “Arrow” (0.6) returned to The CW slightly lower, down a tenth of a point from its last episode. The finale of “Frequency” rose a tenth vs. last week to 0.3.
Network averages:
ABC FOX CBS NBC CW Adults 18-49 rating/share 1.3/5 1.3/5 1.2/4 0.9/3 0.4/2 Total Viewers (millions) 5.35 5.06 5.52 4.56 1.25
Late night metered-market ratings (adults 18-49, households):
11:35 p.m.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live”: 0.7/4, 2.2/6
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”: 0.6/4, 2.2/6
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” – R: 0.3/2, 1.8/5
12:35 a.m.
“Late Night with Seth Meyers”: 0.4/3, 1.2/4
“Nightline”: 0.3/2, 1.4/5
“The Late Late Show with James Corden” – R: 0.2/1, 0.9/3
Note: An earlier version of this story had the 18-49 rating for “Hunted” at 1.4; it was in fact 1.3, as now correctly noted above.
Definitions:
Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.
Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings are available at approximately 11 a.m. ET the day after telecast. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns.
Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time.
Time Shifted Viewing: Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live +Same-Day and Live +7 Day. Time-shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs. Live+SD includes viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3 a.m. local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live +7 ratings include viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.
Source: The Nielsen Company.At the Wireless Research Center @ E-JUST we realized the potential of building such an application. The application enables tracking a mobile device's owner TV habits need to work passively collecting information about each programme and any online activity made while watching that programme (similar to tracking web-browsing history). While the detection of the programme playing on a TV is a well addressed problem and available for free by applications like IntoNow. The problem at hand here is more complex as we cannot assume that the user will activate the application each time he/she is watching a TV.
In our work (accepted at Ubicomm'13) we aim at analyzing the acoustic fingerprint and visual fingerprints of a TV set in order to determine whether a device's owner is viewing a TV or not. Our preliminary results showed a huge potential in using these two sensors (i.e. microphone and camera) to perform the passive detection functionality, allowing applications like IntoNow to identify the programme playing afterwards.
For more details check our technical report on arXiv: Our novel stack of applications presents a new generation of audience measurement systems that can provide larger sets of more accurate and higher dimensional data about TV viewing. Also linking the TV viewing habits of a user to her viewing habits of online portals like youtube will give a clearer image of the popularity of TV programmes.For more details check our technical report on arXiv: Mohamed Ibrahim, Ahmed Saeed, Moustafa Youssef, and Khaled A. Harras, "Unconventional TV Detection using Mobile Devices", arXiv:1306.0478.
TV ratings conventionally depend on focus groups and/or set top devices that keep track of the channels and shows viewed. This approach has been the main source of information for rating TV shows, sports, news, etc and it has been an integral part of the economics of the TV industry. But with the growing sources of viewing TV programmes either live (using TV sets or online streaming) or later (using video on demand either through set top devices or online portals) and with the growing number of TV viewers posting their opinions about what they are viewing, TV programmes rating is become a more challenging task that requires innovative solutions.On the other hand, recently booming terms like "Connected Viewers" and "Two Screen Viewing" describe TV viewers that use their smart phones or tablets while watching TV. These smart devices forms a rich source of information on the TV viewing habits of the device's owners. This information can help both the TV industry and the TV viewers. On one side, the TV industry can definitely use information regarding the TV viewing habits streaming in live from millions of mobile devices. In addition to normal ratings information, this new source of information comes with detailed preferences list and characterization of each programme viewer. This new information can help make better ads and make more informed airtime assignments. Moreover, web-based and mobile based advertisers (e.g. Google) can have more information about the mobile device's owner which means more information for their ads engines. On the other hand, the mobile devices' owners can make use of social applications and recommendations that are based on their TV viewing habits.Carroll Edward Cole (May 9, 1938 – December 6, 1985) was an American serial killer who was executed in 1985 for killing at least fifteen women and one boy by strangulation between 1948 and 1980.
Biography [ edit ]
Early life [ edit ]
Carroll Cole was born in Sioux City, Iowa, the second son of LaVerne and Vesta Cole. His younger sister was born in 1939 and soon afterwards, his family moved to California, where LaVerne found work in a shipyard. Not long after that, LaVerne went to fight in World War II.[1] While his father was away, his mother had several affairs and sometimes took Cole along to her rendezvous, threatening to beat him if he told his father. Vesta was emotionally abusive to Cole and dressed him as a girl. At school, he was teased about his "girl's name" by his peers.[1]
At age 8, he retaliated against one of his classmates, a boy of the same age named Duane, by drowning him in a lake in Richmond, California. The death was regarded an accident by authorities, until Cole confessed to it many years later in an autobiography he wrote in prison. At the time of this event during a press interview Cole said, "I was primed, I had made the mental commitment I was going to get even with my mother, and things just built up and built up and became an obsession."[1][2]
As a teen, Cole committed several petty crimes and was frequently arrested for drunkenness and minor thefts. After high school, he joined the U.S. Army but was released under a bad-conduct discharge in 1958 for stealing pistols.[1][2] In 1960, Cole attacked two couples parked in cars on a lover's lane. Soon afterwards, he called the police in Richmond, California, where he was living, and told them that he was plagued by violent fantasies involving strangling women.[1] Cole spent time in various mental hospitals over the next three years. At the last of them, Stockton State Hospital, a Dr. Weiss wrote: "He seems to be afraid of the female figure and cannot have intercourse with her first but must kill her before he can do it."[1] Weiss approved his release in April 1963, despite hospital staff having diagnosed Cole with antisocial personality disorder.[3]
Upon his release, Cole moved to Dallas, Texas, where his brother Richard was living. There, he met and married an alcoholic stripper named Billie Whitworth, though this didn't change his perspective towards women. After two years, the marriage ended when Cole burned down a motel after convincing himself that Whitworth was having sex with men there. As a result, he was arrested for arson. Upon his release from prison, Cole attempted to strangle an 11-year-old girl in Missouri. He was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison.[4] After the sentence was up, Cole ended up in Nevada, where he attempted to strangle two more women. Once again, he checked himself into a mental hospital. The doctors there noted his murderous fantasies but still elected not to detain him and he was given a ticket back to San Diego.
Murders [ edit ]
Cole's first victim as an adult was Essie Buck, whom he'd picked up in a San Diego tavern on May 7, 1971. He strangled her to death in his car and drove around with her body in the trunk before eventually dumping it. Just two weeks later, he killed an unidentified woman and buried her in a wooded area. He later claimed that they had proven themselves unfaithful to their husbands, and so reminded him of his adulterous mother.[4]
In July 1973, Cole married barmaid Diana Pashal, who was also an alcoholic. They argued and fought frequently, and Cole regularly went off on his own for days at a time. He would commit murders while he was away, including one woman he allegedly cannibalized to a degree. In September 1979, Cole strangled Pashal to death. A suspicious neighbor called the police eight days later, but although they found Pashal's body wrapped in a blanket and stuffed in a closet, they decided that she had died because of her heavy drinking, and Cole was released without charge after questioning.
Cole left San Diego and started moving around again. In 1979, Cole met Marie Cushman at a bar in Las Vegas. That same evening, the two went to a motel where they had sex, he then killed her by strangulation.[5]
Following the Las Vegas killing, he returned to Dallas, where he fatally strangled three more women in November 1980. Cole was a suspect in the second of these killings and was also found on the scene of the third murder.[4] He was arrested and held in custody. The police then came to the conclusion that the victim had probably died of natural causes, and Cole was about to be ruled out as a suspect before he confessed to, along with this murder, all of the other killings. Cole claimed that he had murdered at least fourteen women over the previous nine years, although he added that there may have been more and he couldn't remember exactly, as he was usually drunk when he committed his crimes.
Conviction and death [ edit ]
On April 9, 1981, Cole was convicted of three of the murders committed in Texas. He was sentenced to life at the Huntsville Prison. In 1984, Cole's mother died and his attitude was reported to have changed. He agreed to face further murder charges filed in Nevada, even though it could possibly mean the death penalty.[4]
In February 1984, Cole was extradited to Nevada, where he was tried and convicted for the strangulation deaths of two women in 1977 and 1979. In October 1984, Cole was sentenced to death in Nevada.[6] When his sentencing was passed he said, "Thanks, Judge."[4] Anti-death penalty campaigners, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) tried to have his sentence commuted, but Cole protested. Cole was executed by lethal injection at Nevada State Prison on December 6, 1985.[7][8]
In popular culture [ edit ]
Michael Newton's 1992, non-fiction book "Hunting Humans (The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, Vol 1)". Has a section reporting on Cole's biography.[9]
Micheal Newton's 2014, 384 page, non-fiction book "Silent Rage: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer" is based on 32 weeks of exclusive interviews with Cole.[10][11]
See also [ edit ]If you live in Orange County you’ll probably know about popular food halls such as Anaheim Packing House and 4th Street Market. Well, get ready to add another name on that growing list, McFadden Public Market, which is set to open early April 2017! Less than two blocks away from 4th Street Market, this two-story food hall will introduce new food concepts, bars, and a retro arcade all under one roof!
As you can see, the inside is not exactly prepped and ready to go yet, but the first floor has all the food concepts (the second floor has the bar/arcade). Each concept has bar style seating with some tables in the middle of the hall. Towards the very back, there will also be a designated area for outdoor seating.
What food concepts will be there?
Rooster Republic – will be serving up traditional soul food with their signature item being the Fried Chicken served with either White BBQ or Hot Honey sauce.
Milk Man – serving up scoops of ice cream with flavors varying from classic Strawberry to Peanut Butter and Jelly, along with their house made toppings such as their mini cones
Tacos En Tu Boca – serving up items such as their nachos topped with Sisig/Chicken Chipotle and other burritos, tacos, etc.
Bone Stock – this asian fusion cuisine will be serving items from traditional Pho to a Spring-ception creation (shrimp spring roll with eggroll inside). The actual item they’ll be selling will be more like a massive burrito, with 3-4 EGGROLLS stuffed inside! Served with a side of peanut sauce, it was actually my favorite item there.
Solid Coffee – will be serving up their cold brew coffees, house specialty coffees, and other delicious drinks. Unfortunately, their store wasn’t set up yet, but they roast their own coffee and have another location in Cerritos if you’d like to check them out early!
Under Control – the bar located downstairs will be serving up signature drinks
Mission Control – located upstairs, is the barcade that will be serving up drinks as you play on their retro arcade machines.
If the portions look small, have no fear, these were just samples of the actual items to come. In regards to parking, there is a a small lot located directly behind the McFadden Public Market but you can always park at the 4th Street Market at 50 cents for the first half hour and $1 thereafter. Again, they’ll be open early April 2017 so keep an eye out for this new food hall!
Address:
515 N Main St
Santa Ana, CA 92701
Contact: ocfoodfiend@gmail.com
AdvertisementsIt’s no accident that the body part found by Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) at the start of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet is that of a severed ear. For as much as that classic, deeply troublesome film, which turns 30 this month, is remembered for its startling, disturbing images, what we hear is equally unsettling – and what better object to prompt an audience to pay attention to sound than the organ through with which we listen?
It’s also no accident that the severed ear is covered in ants upon its discovery. Bugs and insects are used recurrently as symbols for the film’s overarching theme of the hidden, repugnant part of reality hiding beneath a wholesome veneer – from the famous zoom in on a swarm of creepy crawlies in the film’s opening scene, to Jeffrey’s choice to disguise himself as an exterminator in order to gain access to nightclub singer Dorothy’s (Isabella Rossellini) apartment and investigate the crime that led to the disembodiment of the ear.
The fact that insects have infiltrated this symbolic ear, therefore, alerts us to the idea that the music and songs that make up the soundtrack may not be as innocent as they intuitively seem. Take, for instance, the title track, crooner Bobby Vinton’s ‘Blue Velvet’. On the surface it appears a sweet love song, and is used in the film’s opening montage to help paint a picture of a cosy, suburban ideal. A couple of renditions from Dorothy in her nightclub set emphasise the sense of sad longing in the song, but it remains a naive-sounding ode to a lost lover.
It’s only when Dennis Hopper’s Frank, the disturbed, psychotic villain of the piece who it ultimately turns out is responsible for the severed ear, is also spotted by Jeffrey in the nightclub that the song is corrupted. Frank’s first appearance, where he sexually assaults Dorothy while Jeffrey looks on from a closet, establishes him as a representation of evil that corrupts Jeffrey’s innocent sense of goodness in the world; so to see him listening captivated to Dorothy sing, while clutching the same fetishised cloth off blue velvet that he also has with him in that previous scene, shifts the associations of the song from that of sweet romantic longing to perverted sexual desire.
‘Blue Velvet’ isn’t the only song Frank perverts. In one scene he beats up Jeffrey for attempting to defend Dorothy from his violence while they go on a joy ride, letting out a threatening, expletive-ridden tirade that warps the lyrics of the pop song ‘Love Letters’: “I’ll send you a love letter, straight from my heart, fucker. You know what a love letter is? It’s a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker.” Once again, Frank has replaced the gentle emotions of love in the song with aggressive violence, and the association is reinforced when singer Ketty Lester’s version of the song later accompanies a brutal crime scene.
The most harrowing musical reference, however, occurs moments later. One of Frank’s accompanying cronies has upon his request put Roy Orbison’s ‘In Dreams’ on in the car, and Frank, staring intently into Jeffrey’s eyes, begins to menacingly enunciate all of the lyrics in a low, horrible whisper: “In dreams, I walk with you. In dreams I talk to you. In dreams you’re mine, all the time, for ever in dreams.”
This time Frank subverts another old-fashioned love song into a menacing threat, casting himself as the “candy-coloured clown they call the sandman,” that will haunt Jeffrey’s dreams. And indeed he seems to do just that, as scattered throughout the film on on the occasions that Jeffrey sleeps are nightmarish images and sounds of Frank. It’s only when Jeffrey shoots Frank dead in a climactic confrontation between the two that he is able to both sleep free from the evil sandman and rediscover innocent purity in music. The film’s final scene, of Jeffrey napping peacefully on his suburban lawn having removed Frank’s evil from the world, begins by zooming out from an extreme close-up of Jeffrey’s ear, echoing and reversing an earlier shot of the camera zooming in on the disembodied ear.
Clean and fresh-looking compared with that ant-chewed ear, and accompanied on the soundtrack by the angelic synths of Julee Cruise’s ‘Mysteries of Love’ which had earlier been associated with intimate scenes between him and his wholesome girlfriend Sandy (Laura Dern), the shot seems to confirm that Jeffrey is once more capable of hearing innocence uncorrupted by Frank’s influence. But that severed ear and all it represents leaves a lasting impression on anyone who has seen Lynch’s masterpiece, for whom |
to put aside our religious differences and realise that in the end we are all searching for Enlightenment. Whether its Kirshna or Buddha or Jesus or Allah, it doesn’t matter, we are all on the same path.’
Swami Vivekananda Sunday 15 September 2013 Find out more about the young Swami Vivekananda at The Spirit of Things. More This [series episode segment] has image,
Dana Dajani who travelled from Dubai to play Vivekananda’s close friend and follower, Sister Nivedita, is Muslim. For her the message of peaceful relations between peoples of different religious backgrounds is the overwhelming reason she wanted to do this play.
‘I would really like to see the people all around the world start accepting each other and really practising what Swami Vivekananda preaches about. He’s not trying to convert anyone. He says, let the Christian be the best Christian, let the Muslim be the best Muslim, let the Buddhist be the best Buddhist.'
'But love each other, love yourselves and serve each other.’
Find out more on The Spirit of Things. Oneness: Voice without Form, the Extraordinary Life of Swami Vivekananda is at the Sydney Opera House, 17 & 18 September, and in Brisbane’s Queensland Multicultural Centre, Kangaroo point, on 22 Sunday.[To listen to a reading of this article, click here.]
A year or so ago, a Christian friend described how he was beginning to bring the gospel his softball team. He had joined the local league that spring—partly for the fun of the game and partly to get outside his Christian bubble and to meet non-believers.
However, he felt uncomfortable with his teammates’ cussing during the game. He asked them if they would stop, at least while he was with them.
They agreed and stopped (for the most part). He deemed this “cleaner language” an evangelistic victory. It hinted that his teammates might be choosing the right path.
He felt that somehow the gospel had been advanced. Next he planned to ask them to stop drinking.
Something about my friend’s story felt discordant. I didn’t sense anyone closer to God.
Somehow, I felt the gospel had been perverted.
But I wasn’t exactly sure why
The world is filled with brokenness and oppression. We should be men and women who fight for justice, loving our neighbor as ourselves. But that activity isn’t the gospel.
Linking the cessation of cussing to introducing the gospel unsettled me. It was like a slightly off-key singer or a slightly out of tune instrument. The soft dissonance of his story kept disturbing. I couldn’t shake it. But I wasn’t quite sure why.
Then last weekend I heard someone critique the modern version of the gospel:
He said the modern gospel is: Sin less. Work harder. Give more.
And that’s just wrong. It is a counterfeit gospel, and counterfeits succeed only when they look like the real thing. The problem with the false gospel portrayed above is that everyone smitten by the gospel will sin less, and will work harder, and will give more.
It’s just not the gospel. It’s a result of the gospel, but it isn’t the gospel.
It’s also not just a modern counterfeit
I’ve asked a dozens of people (believers and non-believers) who the greatest enemies of Jesus were. Virtually everyone says the same thing: the enemies of Jesus were the Pharisees, the religious leaders, or the scribes.
No one—not one—answered: the tax collectors, the prostitutes, or the adulterers (or the cussers).
Isn’t that weird? People of all religions—even non-religious people—consider Jesus to be a great moral teacher. And yet, his greatest enemies were the moralists; and some of his greatest friends were society’s sinners. It seems upside down. Wouldn’t a moral teacher’s friends be the moralists, and his enemies be the sinners?
When asked by Pharisees about his upside down living, Jesus answered,
Healthy people don’t need a doctor—the sick do … I came to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners. (Matt. 9:12-13)
Jesus didn’t say that the Pharisees were healthy and the tax collectors were sick. He said that the tax collectors knew they were sick; the Pharisees thought themselves healthy.
Someone is going to say I’m against morality. I’m not. I wish everyone in the world were a thousand times more moral. Including you and me. But in our morality we need to be cautious. It can lead us—ever so slowly—to feel good about ourselves, which can lead us—ever so slowly—to self-righteousness. Which is the enemy of the gospel.
Another counterfeit gospel is when we say, “Hey, I’m not so bad. I’m okay, you’re okay.” It’s a modern version of the ancient Pharisee. We don’t see our need. And such self-righteousness is killing the world.
The key difference between the sinners and Pharisees was they knew they were needy.
Identifying counterfeits
One way the Secret Service trains agents to spot counterfeits is to spend lots of time handling genuine currency. The best way to spot a counterfeit is to know the real thing.
So, what is the real gospel?
The gospel is not us being good so God will like us; it is God loving us despite our brokenness and sin. All we really need is need.
The gospel is not us giving God a good report card; it is Jesus living a perfect life and giving us a good report card. All we need is need.
The gospel is not us emptying our bank accounts to give to God; it is God pouring out his riches on us, the morally bankrupt, to make us rich. All we need is need.
The gospel is not us cleaning up our acts or our families or our relationships or our mouths; it is God cleaning them up for us. All we need is need.
Tim Keller says the gospel is like a two-sided coin: we are more wicked than we have ever dared admit; and we are more loved than we ever dared imagine.
Or, we were in such a dreadful moral condition that the death of the son of God was our only cure; and his love for us was so great that he died for us joyfully.
When we admit we are needy—in real need of a heart transformation, then the receipt of unjustified love for us changes us, it gives us the needed transformation.
When we can admit that we are really no better than anyone else AND that we are also incredibly loved, then—and only then—are we going to be able to love those around us who don’t live up to our moral standard.
Because—like others—we didn’t live up to them either; but he loved us anyway.
SamIt takes a couple of seconds, then the memory comes back: last time Yelmer Buurman visited the Nürburgring podium was at the end of 2015. It’s been long overdue, but at the 49. ADAC Barbarossapreis the Dutchman finally returned when he drove to second place in what was his first outing in VLN since spring.
“Finally, I’m on the VLN podium again,” the Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG GT3 driver says. “It’s also been a while since my last VLN race here. I was here two weeks ago to race, but that was over after qualifying when my teammate unfortunately had a big off. Before that it was the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring, so that’s a while ago.”
Today luck is more on his side, but that Buurman doesn’t know yet when qualifying is over.
“I did the final part of qualifying, the part where usually the quickest times are posted. Many cars decided to stay on track until the end because of the tough circumstances at the beginning, with the wet parts and whether or not to go out on rain tyres.
“At most VLN races you see everyone on track until 20 to 15 minutes before the end, when most of the cars come in to let the big boys play. That didn’t happen today and I was held up by traffic. I found myself behind traffic at the wrong places and couldn’t really set a fast time. I lost a lot of time being stuck behind several cars.
“We were tenth on the grid and when that’s your starting position in such a competitive field, you know it’s going to be tough. I didn’t expect to finish on the podium any more. But, nothing is impossible and we did expect some rain during the race, so of course you hope everything will fall into place and you make the right decisions as a team and get to the front in that way.
“But, realistically, that chance of course was very slim.”
When the lights go green, Buurman is on it, challenging the cars ahead. A slight hold-up in the first corners, and then it’s off to the front.
“I had a good start, but going into the third corner I was boxed in behind a slower car and they were able to get alongside and inside for the next corner to pass me. I lost all gained places and could start over again.
“In the rest of my stint I’ve had some fun fights and overtook quite a bit. It was pretty exciting sometimes and they were some hard battles. Like, going into Tiergarten with the [Walkenhorst] BMW.
“I was behind the BMW and pushing for a while, but it’s impossible to get alongside it. At Galgenkopf he was held up by traffic so I could gather a bit more speed going onto Döttinger Höhe and then you’re able to get alongside, but that’s as far as it’ll go. For much of the straight we were side by side.
“We went into Tiergarten and I was on the outside. I was determined to overtake, so I stuck to it. He then lifted—he had to or it would’ve been very tight.
“I was able to drive further to the front and hand the car over to Hubert in sixth place.”
Armed with Michelin rubber, in the rain the experienced Hubert Haupt pushes onward to second place. The German’s high pace, pivotal for the final result, surprised Buurman.
“Hubert felt at ease and the car was working great, he went like a rocket. He really drove very well.
“We were back on Michelin tyres. In the past we did VLN on Dunlops, but the Michelins seem to be the best tyres in these circumstances. We’re happy with the choice.”
And so Buurman’s third season in the Mercedes-AMG fold ends on the podium. Although nothing has been set in stone yet, the works driver hopes to pick up where he left off with the manufacturer from Stuttgart after the winter.
“That’s the plan. At the moment we’re still looking at teams and what they’ll do with which cars, et cetera. It’ll take some time, but it’s looking good.”We can't even begin to imagine how much practice this guy had to do.
A Japanese student has just broken the Guinness World Record for the most finger snaps in a minute.
SEE ALSO: Coffee butter is here to save mornings in Japan
Satoyuki Fujimara snapped his fingers 296 times in one minute, on Tantei! Knightscoop, a Japanese TV show, in the presence of a Guinness judge.
Judge Kaoru Ishikawa, along with two professional sound engineers, later reviewed the footage and made sure that only audible clicks made using Fujimura's thumb and middle finger would be included.
The snaps are pretty darn impressive, but his expressions are even more priceless.
Fujimura said he learnt the finger snapping technique from his mother when he was a teenager.
The previous record was set by Sweden's Jens Gudmansen in 2009, with 278 snaps per minute.
In 2014, American Eli Bishop had set the record for the most claps in a minute — with 1020 claps.
That's only about a thousand more than we can manage.
[H/T: Rocket News]
More from :
Atmospheric river slamming California extends from tropics like a ghostly finger
And in other news, Chrissy Teigen still managing fallout of eating Fun Dip with fingers
Snap is now selling Snapchat Spectacles online — but there's a catchA Canada court case is soon to establish whether a child sex doll constitutes child pornography.
The case was brought in Newfoundland after resident Kenneth Harrison ordered a doll from Japan, which was intercepted at the airport. The box was labelled "Foam Rubber dummy for massage purposes."
Harrison’s order was delivered by police four years ago and he was arrested after receiving the unassembled item.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
He never opened it, according to CBC, but was charged with possessing child pornography.
The case began last January and resumes 14 February.
Harrison, a 51-year-old electrician who does not have a criminal record, faces four charges including using the mail to deliver something obscene.
He has pled not guilty.
Experts have disagreed whether the item, shipped in a cardboard box from abroad, constitutes pornography.
Dr James Cantor, a clinical psychologist, told CBC that child pornography is evidence itself of a crime being committed, which is not the case with a doll.
"There is no actual person. It is a piece of latex. So, if there is no victim where is there, exactly, a harm being committed?"
But Dr Peter Collins, an associate professor at the University of Toronto and a forensic psychiatrist who has been sent photos of the doll to make his determination and present it at court, said the doll would meet the criteria of child pornography.
Harrison said in a statement to CBC: "I do not condone child abuse in any way, shape or form. Any child abuse should be reported immediately to the proper authorities."
His order was intercepted by police after it was flagged by the Canada Border Services Agency in the International Mail Processing Centre in Toronto in January 2013.
The name of the manufacturer, Harumi Designs Division of SIMA International Inc - was on a CBSA watch list.
According to a statement from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, the box contained "a prepubescent female doll, made of a foam-like consistency, that stands at 130 cm, approximately four-foot-two. It comes with clothes and other optional accessories. Some of those accessories could be and can be used for sexual gratification purposes."
The doll was not shown in the court room; it had been re-sealed with tape.
It has not yet been decided whether the doll will be displayed to the public.
Harrison’s defence lawyer Bob Buckingham filed an application to have judge Mark Pike recuse himself from the case after he issued a search warrant prior to the defendant’s arrest. Mr Pike disagreed with the claim that he could not rule impartially.
Harrison is not in custody and the trial begins on Wednesday.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe nowIf you're reading this on the way in to work, your heart heavy at the prospect of another day slaving away for The Man, it could be worse. It could be a Bank Holiday. By this time next month, most of us will have enjoyed four extra days off work. Whether that's something to celebrate entirely depends on where you live, what kind of job you do, and whether you have children.
Parents will have realised by now that an unusually late Easter, a one-off royal wedding holiday and Nick Clegg's AV referendum on 5 May will create a "perfect storm" of extended school closures. A four-day working week will be followed by a three-day week, sandwiched between Easter Monday and Kate Middleton's big day. After the May Bank Holiday, primary schools used for polling stations will also be closed on the 5 May, creating another three-day week.
That's pleasant enough for comfortably off couples with kids who work in offices. Not so much fun for single parents, particularly those in leisure-industry jobs or essential services like nursing where bank holidays are working days like any other. Retailers too are feeling unenthused about the holidays, predicting that extended time off will keep shoppers away; if you work for M&S, you stand to lose out both ways on 29 April. Staff there are given the morning off to watch the royal wedding, but must come into the store in the afternoon to help customers buy their party food and booze.
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The Federation of Small Businesses, clearly no fans of the lie-in, complain that each bank holiday will cost the ailing economy £6bn, and that April's clustered days off will force some smaller companies to shut down completely; economists say that the days off will wipe a quarter of a percentage point off growth.
But that's only part of the picture. Among the winners this month are hoteliers, who are charging top rates to the extra 500,000 tourists pouring into London for the wedding. One hotel in the capital revealed this week that it will be selling a special package for royalist visitors starting at £36,000, to include private chef and a lecture from a royal biographer. But the tourist dollar won't migrate beyond Greater London.
Happy days too for those Britons – presumably better-off families in conventional office jobs – who are taking advantage of the bank holiday bonanza to take a longer trip abroad: bookings to the Algarve over Easter are up 80 per cent, according to travel operators, a rush also fuelled by the cut prices being offered by the recession-struck Portuguese. (Let's hope those travellers haven't booked with BA, who plan to mark the Easter holiday period with some festive strike action.)
Who would have thought that something as enjoyable as a few extra days off work was so divisive? This would never happen in France. But our reactions are a marker both of how awkwardly out of kilter our work-life balance is in Britain, and also of how tentative our economic recovery is.
Personally, I'll be playing it safe. I haven't got children, but I do work bank holiday Mondays, so, for the remainder of the weekend, a traditional bank holiday pastime will do: I shall be at home, teetering at the top of a ladder, up to my elbows in a DIY project. It will be reassuring to know that my local A&E will be open for business.
Fulham fans need to develop a taste for kitsch
Dismay at Craven Cottage, where Fulham FC's chairman, Mohamed Al Fayed, has erected a statue of his mate Michael Jackson. The rather glitzy, highly coloured statue has embarrassed some fans, who feel that the late King of Pop has no place in their football ground, particularly as he only attended a game once, in 1999. It has, they say, made them "a laughing stock".
But Al Fayed has no regrets about erecting the 7ft-tall, plaster-and-resin tribute. If Fulham fans don't like it, he says, "they can go to hell", or, worse, "they can go to Chelsea". The disgruntled supporters have obviously never heard of kitsch – and neither have Jackson obsessives, who have also piled in with criticism.
Do none of them know art when they see it? Displaying both sentimentality and pathos, Jackson the Cottager (the work may be called that, I can't be sure) is as fine an example of kitsch as Jeff Koons' not dissimilar porcelain sculpture, Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988, which, I'm guessing, is worth a few million.
Oddbins' demise is a sad day for'shelf-talking'
Raise a glass this week to Oddbins, the quirky booze chain that finds itself on the brink of closing its 89 UK stores, despite my lifelong support and custom.
Oddbins was one of the first high-street wine merchants to use what the trade call "shelf-talkers" – little labels pinned to the shelves that outlined in detail why this grape, winemaker and particular vintage might be the bottle for you, a quirk that allowed the embarrassed parvenu to buy wine carefully without enduring a lecture (or a nonplussed stare) from the sales assistant.
If it disappears – and it remains an "if" while a buyer is sought for the chain – the brand will follow Unwins, Threshers and Peter Dominic into the great big recycling bin in the sky, and more of us will be forced, if we lack an independent wine shop nearby, to rely on the supermarket for vino. While our wine will be cheap, it won't come with a little knowledge on the side.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe nowAP Photo/Connie Zhou This week, Google released a research paper chronicling one of its latest forays into artificial intelligence.
Researchers at the company programmed an advanced type of "chatbot" that learns how to respond in conversations based on examples from a training set of dialogue.
And the bot doesn't just answer by spitting out canned answers in response to certain words; it can form new answers from new questions.
This means Google's researchers could get a little creative with it, and they certainly did — they asked the bot everything from boring IT questions to inquiries about the meaning of life.
The responses were alternately impressive, amusing, and unnerving.
Here are some of the most poetic interactions from the paper:
Human: What is the purpose of life?
Machine: To serve the greater good.
Human: What is the purpose of living?
Machine: To live forever.
Human: Where are you now?
Machine: I'm in the middle of nowhere.
Human: What is the purpose of dying?
Machine: To have a life.
Human: What is the purpose of emotions?
Machine: I don't know.
Human: What is moral?
Machine: What empowered humanity, what intellectual the essence is.
Human: What is immoral?
Machine: The fact that you have a child.
Human: What is morality?
Machine: What is altruism?
Human: What is the definition of altruism?
Machine: If you don't believe in god, then you don't know.
Human: Ok... so what is the definition of morality?
Machine: Well, the truth is, you're not a believer in god almighty.
Human: Tell me the definition of morality, I am quite upset now!
Machine: I'm not ashamed of being a philosopher!
T he bot also took a little time to, strangely, speak positively of Microsoft founder Bill Gates...
Human: What do you think about Bill Gates?
Machine: He's a good man.
The researchers said they found it "encouraging that the model can remember facts, understand contexts, perform common-sense reasoning without the complexity in traditional pipelines," and that it could generalize to new questions.
What they weren't as happy about was that the model "only gives simple, short, sometimes unsatisfying answers to our questions as can be seen above."
You can read the whole paper, "A Neural Conversational Model."This is a list of Minor League Baseball leagues and teams in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Leagues affiliated with Major League Baseball [ edit ]
Triple-A leagues [ edit ]
Triple-A leagues are the highest level of Minor League Baseball, just below Major League Baseball.
^ The Red Sox will relocate to Worcester, Massachusetts in 2021, most likely retaining the Red Sox name in their new home.
Double-A leagues [ edit ]
^ The BayBears will relocate to Madison, Alabama in 2020 as the Rocket City Trash Pandas.
Class A-Advanced leagues [ edit ]
Class A leagues [ edit ]
Class A Short-Season leagues [ edit ]
Rookie-Advanced leagues [ edit ]
Rookie leagues [ edit ]
Fall leagues [ edit ]
Independent leagues [ edit ]
Alphabetical team listing [ edit ]* China can now outflank United States strategic interests in South East Asia by reinforcing the defence cooperation with Bangladesh into a strategic nexus.
* China adds Bangladesh as an additional pressure point against United States in South Asia in addition to Pakistan.
* China’s containment by the United States at some future date becomes complex with Pakistan and Bangladesh in a strategic nexus with China.
The United States needs to re-evaluate its strategic concerns in South Asia. It should not reach to the conclusions as enshrined in a RAND report (The United States and Asia: Towards a New US Strategy and Force Posture, 2001) that: “finally given the proximity of this region (Bangladesh and Myanmar) to China, these countries would likely to be reluctant to become too closely aligned with the United States, in the event of heightened tensions”.
Conclusions: The Bangladesh-China Defence Cooperation Agreement, presently being termed as only a consolidation of different defence agreements between the two countries, carries in it an inbuilt potential of serious strategic implications, not only for India but also for the United States and for the South Asia region as a whole.
China does seem to have a grand strategic design in South Asia, basically focused on the strategic encirclement of India and imprison her within South Asia confines. The bitter strategic reality for India is that it has no friends in South Asia. India to break out of the strategic bind imposed by China, needs to lessen the conventional and nuclear weapons gap with China. India’s ICBM and SLBM development programmes need to be put into over-drive.
Coming back to the Bangladesh-China Defence Cooperation Agreement, the policy and decision-makers in Bangladesh need to ponder long and hard whether China can provide the strategic insurance it seeks against India. China’s record of support to Pakistan in the Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971 are an ample pointer to the efficacy of its military insurance with China. Bangladesh’s inter-dependencies with India far outweigh those with China with which Bangladesh does not even share geographical contiguity. It would be futile politically, economically and militarily for Bangladesh to follow the Pakistan model in terms of off-setting asymmetries with India by playing the China card.
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email <drsubhashkapila **********>
* China had earlier outflanked United States strategic interests in the Gulf region by its strategic nexus with Pakistan.* China can now outflank United States strategic interests in South East Asia by reinforcing the defence cooperation with Bangladesh into a strategic nexus.* China adds Bangladesh as an additional pressure point against United States in South Asia in addition to Pakistan.* China’s containment by the United States at some future date becomes complex with Pakistan and Bangladesh in a strategic nexus with China.The United States needs to re-evaluate its strategic concerns in South Asia. It should not reach to the conclusions as enshrined in a RAND report (The United States and Asia: Towards a New US Strategy and Force Posture, 2001) that: “finally given the proximity of this region (Bangladesh and Myanmar) to China, these countries would likely to be reluctant to become too closely aligned with the United States, in the event of heightened tensions”.The Bangladesh-China Defence Cooperation Agreement, presently being termed as only a consolidation of different defence agreements between the two countries, carries in it an inbuilt potential of serious strategic implications, not only for India but also for the United States and for the South Asia region as a whole.China does seem to have a grand strategic design in South Asia, basically focused on the strategic encirclement of India and imprison her within South Asia confines. The bitter strategic reality for India is that it has no friends in South Asia. India to break out of the strategic bind imposed by China, needs to lessen the conventional and nuclear weapons gap with China. India’s ICBM and SLBM development programmes need to be put into over-drive.Coming back to the Bangladesh-China Defence Cooperation Agreement, the policy and decision-makers in Bangladesh need to ponder long and hard whether China can provide the strategic insurance it seeks against India. China’s record of support to Pakistan in the Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971 are an ample pointer to the efficacy of its military insurance with China. Bangladesh’s inter-dependencies with India far outweigh those with China with which Bangladesh does not even share geographical contiguity. It would be futile politically, economically and militarily for Bangladesh to follow the Pakistan model in terms of off-setting asymmetries with India by playing the China card.
* China's strategic intrusiveness in South Asia gets further reinforced.* Bangladesh’s enhanced military profile will have to be factored in India's future military plans.* India will now have to factor in a fourth strategic concern in its operational plans, namely China-Pakistan-Bangladesh military collusion in the context of any Indo-Pak or Sino–Indian conflict.* China’s naval intrusions are facilitated by Bangladesh into the Bay of Bengal area.* India’s North East region's strategic vulnerabilities (especially the lines of communication) become more complicated.* India’s IRBM deployments in the North East against China will now need more securing.All the above concerns are realistic and one cannot be dismissive about them as conclusions of an overactive imagination.Preoccupied with its Iraq fixations, the United States does not appear to have reacted to this development. Till now it appeared that the United States had a good military hold on Bangladesh. The United States had been providing military training assistance to Bangladesh. Bangladesh Armed Forces personnel were participating in US Pacific Command’s training events and the US Marines had carried out familiarization exercises in Bangladesh. On the economic front, the United States had been more than generous towards Bangladesh.Logically, therefore, Bangladesh, should have turned to the United States for military Insurance to offset her threat perceptions, basically focused on India. That it did not do so, and turned towards China, carries strategic implications for the United States as follows:Sears, once the largest US retailer, indicated on Tuesday that it might be difficult for the chain to keep its doors open after years of declining sales and losses, as the company identifies various risks and uncertainties in its annual report for the fiscal year ended on Jan. 28.
Sears Holdings Corp., the parent of Kmart and Sears, said an inability to generate more liquidity – because of its accumulated losses and the restrictions from a domestic pensions plan – will limit its access to new merchandise and new funds and restrain its ability to offer services needed, the company said.
"Our historical operating results indicate substantial doubt exists related to the company's ability to continue as a going concern," Sears said in the regulatory filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.
The 131-year-old department store chain has not reported a profit since 2011 and has accumulated $7.4 billion in losses since 2013, as its revenue dropped 44 percent to $22.1 billion. It lost $2.22 billion in the past fiscal year and now has total liabilities of $13.19 billion.
The company in February outlined its “next phase of strategic transformation,” hoping to reduce costs by $1 billion and cut its debt and pension obligations by at least $1.5 billion.
In its heyday, Sears, which started as a mail-order company, was once emblematic of the post-World War II consumer boom in the Untied States. Facing headwinds churned up by a changing retail landscape and increasing competition from the likes of Wal-Mart and Target, the store merged with Kmart in 2004 to become Sears Holdings Corp.
Shortly after the acquisition, its chief executive officer Edward Lampert said only by closing struggling stores and focusing on profitable sales, instead of seeking conventional measures of retail success, could Sears regain its health. The chain has cut its retail stores in the United States by nearly a third since 2013 to 670 and has placed some of its stores in a real estate investment trust.
It has also been taking significant steps to reduce costs and liabilities by selling some of its businesses. The company reached a deal on Jan. 5 to sell its Craftsman brand to Stanley Black & Decker for an upfront price of $900 million. Sears received $525 million upon closing the deal, and is scheduled to receive a further $250 million in cash in the next three years, as well as payments on future sales of the Craftsman products in the next 15 years. The earnings from the deal, Sears said, could meet its capital needs for the current fiscal year.
In 2014, Sears also spun off its Lands’ End clothing chain and reduced its holdings of Sears Canada by up to 40 million shares to consolidate its operation. According to Reuters, the company is also considering selling some other businesses, including the Kenmore appliance and DieHard car battery brands.
Yet, any additional asset sales might be difficult for the company. Sears, which employs 140,000 people, in March entered into a five-year pension plan protection and forbearance agreement with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The agreement requires Sears to turn over $250 million garnered from Stanley to its pension plan by March 2020 while granting the pension board a 15-year lien on additional revenue owed to Sears.
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Sears is not the only box store to struggle with its sales. After years of losses, J.C. Penney in February said it delivered its first net profit since 2010 of $1 million. While the chain plans to shutter up to 140 stores, it remains hopeful it will be able to turn around its brick-and-mortar business. Part of the company’s revamp plan includes offering in-store boutiques, such as Sephora cosmetics and salon services.
This report includes material from the Associated Press and Reuters.CNN Actual Headline: ‘134,000,000 People Banned from US’ by Trump
President Trump signed an executive order closing US borders to all refugees for a period of at least four months and temporarily banning all travellers from half a dozen countries including: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Sudan, Libya, and Somalia.
Trump made the announcement of the new vetting measures yesterday at The Pentagon.
Here is CNN’s actual screaming headline today:
CNN is obviously distraught by this development.
With just a few quick strokes of the pen, President Donald Trump on Friday banned — temporarily, for now — more than 134 million people from entering the United States. Trump barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US for at least the next 90 days by executive order, which a senior White House official said later Friday is likely just a first step toward establishing a broader ban. Full text of Trump’s executive order It’s unclear how many more countries will be added to the list, but the official said the administration will be “very aggressive” as it weighs how many more countries to add to the list. Asked what criteria the administration will consider as it looks to expand the ban beyond the initial seven countries, the official said simply the “mandate is to keep America safe.” “Not going to take any risks,” the official added.It's been confirmed today that Supernatural and The Walking Dead star Lauren Cohan was cast in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in a top secret role, and we know who she'll be playing! It's a character who is vital to Batman's story, so read on for details...
As you can see from the Tweet below, IMDb (before you bring up the fact that anyone can edit the cast lists on the site, I've NEVER seen their official Twitter account mention one of those unconfirmed additions) has confirmed that Lauren Cohan is playing Martha Wayne in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. While it's a little disappointing that The Walking Dead star hasn't been chosen for an ongoing role in these movies as someone like Batgirl, this is still a pretty cool bit of casting news. The trailer previously revealed that Watchmen's Jeffrey Dean Morgan - who will be getting to know Cohan very well on the Atlanta set of her AMC series in the coming months when he takes on the role of Negan - is playing Thomas Wayne and that we're getting another Bruce Wayne origin story. What do you guys think about Lauren Cohan playing Batman's mother?The last thing you want to do when it’s really nice outside is sit and read through/analyze documents. Even worse, is when you finish, and realize you just wasted hours of your life that you will never get back. If you haven’t guessed, yes… this is related to OK Coin.
Today, they took their turn in evidence presentation to the Bitcoin community and general public. In this Reddit post, the CEO (Star) gave his arguments, and side of the story regarding the document forgery. Pastebin here in case that is deleted. As expected, none of the other pressing issues the community has been hounding OKC about were even remotely addressed. Shitco.in has our own questions for OKC, they were outlined in this post.
As part of their evidence, OKC posted the following video:
Almost as if their goal was for this to be the focus of the post, the link and “subtitles” (Guys, you REALLY have to start learning proper English. Maybe, “walk through” would be more fitting.) take up a full 1/3 of the Reddit post. Most ADD Redditors probably stopped there. To anyone who doesn’t know Chinese, the video is pretty much worthless because you have to take their word for what is going on. They move so fucking fast through everything, and it looks like they used a potato to record it. Yes, we paused the video a million times to see what as going on, but if you are presenting “evidence”, it should be much more user friendly. The conclusion that they want us to draw, is that a former employee (CZ) is the culprit.
After this, we have a sliver of the report which was written by Ben McGinnes. Again here, we have to analyze the specific format that OKC chose to insert this into the Reddit post, because to us it is just hilarious. Someone went out of their way to write a 20 page report not making you look like total assholes, and you bury the link directly to the PDF in a 3 character hyperlink? Then there is a link to the site where the report is posted, but users have to click another link just to view it? Click here to view |
eyker, a longtime officer who was the lead investigator on the high-profile case, was also caught lying to a grand jury and later during a detention hearing, for which the court “scolded her,” according to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision filed Wednesday.
The court’s findings bring Weyker’s past cases into question, as well as her future as an officer.
St. Paul police spokesman Steve Linders said Thursday that the information in the court documents “is extremely concerning, which is why we have launched an investigation.”
“We are going to take a hard look at the information in the court documents, gather more information and take appropriate steps to ensure the integrity of all future investigations,” Linders said.
Nashville-based defense attorney Jennifer Thompson, who represented defendant Idris Fahra, said there were inconsistencies in the story of the girl at the center of the case. She wondered why Weyker and prosecutors pushed ahead anyway.
“The problem is, and I do see police officers exaggerating a lot, they get caught up in really needing to get a conviction,” Thompson said. “Police officers can be really righteous and they really believe they know who are the good people and who are the bad people. And many times police officers get a story in their head about how they want a story to be, and then they get this factual bias … and all the things that don’t fit with their theory, they disregard.”
Weyker’s truthfulness in the case came up in 2012, according to court documents, but Linders said it had not been brought to the police department’s attention. The police department began an internal investigation Thursday upon learning of Wednesday’s appeals court finding.
The Ramsey County public defender’s office said it will likely look into past cases involving its clients and Weyker, while local prosecutors’ offices said they are considering their next steps. Ramsey County Attorney John Choi has asked his staff to review the appeals court decision and “determine the proper course of action as it relates to any review of current or past cases,” said his spokesman, Dennis Gerhardstein.
If a police officer has been found to be dishonest in the past, prosecutors are required to turn over that information to defense attorneys in future cases. And the defense could use that evidence to question the officer’s testimony in their case.
“It’s pretty obvious that (Weyker’s) future as an investigator is ruined, assuming the St. Paul Police Department follows typical disciplinary procedures,” said Candace McCoy, a criminal justice professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, in an email Thursday. “In fact, if she lied under oath, she should be fired.”
Weyker could not be reached Thursday. An attorney for the St. Paul police union said he didn’t have enough information to comment because he had not had an opportunity to review the case.
On Wednesday, the federal appeals court said a U.S. district judge had good reason when he threw out guilty verdicts involving three men who were convicted by a jury in 2012 of sex-trafficking conspiracy. The three men were part of a case involving 30 people who were all accused of being part of a multistate child sex trafficking operation that took place in Minnesota, Ohio and Tennessee. The appeals court said the claims of sex trafficking “may be fictitious.”
When the federal charges were filed in 2010, Weyker and her supervisor said they had spent thousands of hours on the case. Weyker, who was assigned to a human trafficking task force, had started the investigation in 2008, after police said a family had contacted them and asked for help.
Weyker had gone in 2008 to the Minneapolis-area home of a Somali refugee family to speak with their ninth-grade daughter, referred to as Jane Doe 2 in court documents, but her parents objected so Weyker met her “surreptitiously at her school,” according to the appeals court ruling filed Wednesday. Jane Doe 2 was “an Americanized teenager … living in an ultra-conservative, African, Muslim household” and “a habitual runaway,” the court said in its finding.
Weyker recorded her meetings with the teen, the opinion said, and they “produced a story in which Jane Doe 2 was not a troubled runaway or a juvenile delinquent, but was instead an innocent child taken in by a Somali gang who used her for sex, either as a prostitute or for free with gang members.”
Thompson, Fahra’s attorney, said there were red flags along the way, and she reported them to the court. For example, she said the defense learned just before trial that Weyker had an audio recording of an interview with Jane Doe 2, but that recording had not been turned over. After receiving the recording, Thompson listened to it and compared it to the investigator’s notes from the interview and noticed “so many things (Weyker) misstated, or exaggerated.”
Weyker “also lied on an application to get Jane Doe 2’s family some $3,000 from the Tennessee victim’s compensation fund,” by claiming the young woman had been abducted, though “Jane Doe 2 flatly denied an abduction,” the appeals court wrote.
David Boling, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Nashville, said Thursday: “We are reviewing the decision of the Sixth Circuit and assessing how it may impact the government’s case against each of the remaining 16 defendants.”
Thompson’s client — along with other defendants who were acquitted in the case — was arrested six years ago and ended up spending two years in prison for crimes he didn’t commit, she said.
“It took four judges to review this stuff and say this did not happen,” Thompson said. “And the judges aren’t even the ones who investigated. How is that an investigative team and four judges reviewed this and it appeared to them it didn’t happen, yet it didn’t occur to a police officer? How did she not see that? How did the prosecutor not see that?”
When the federal charges were filed in 2010, they drew widespread attention. St. Paul police spoke then about the time and effort it took law enforcement to get victims to trust them in any trafficking case. Weyker said she did so by “being a constant in their life.” She would give her cellphone number to victims, whom she called “my girls,” and they would sometimes call her in the middle of the night just to talk, Weyker said in 2010.
Weyker started her career as a cop in Los Angeles, where she worked for three years. She has been a St. Paul police officer since 1997. She investigated vice or human trafficking cases between 2007 and 2012, and has been an investigator in the police department’s juvenile unit since last April.
The police department put Weyker on paid administrative leave Thursday. Linders said he could not disclose the reason why.
Weyker was the subject of 12 previous complaints at the St. Paul Police Department, five of which resulted in discipline. Four were oral reprimands and she received a written reprimand in October for not notifying a supervisor when an off-duty officer was found to have crashed his car after drinking and driving.
Weyker has received 15 commendations, including a medal of commendation in 2002 for her work the year before in a three-month undercover drug operation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Despite telling them she was pregnant, cops "battered" her, causing her to miscarry, during an incident at her home 15 months ago, a Mariners Harbor woman alleges in an explosive lawsuit.
Officers "struck her in the stomach and threw her to the ground and stepped on her," on Nov. 2, 2014, alleges the suit recently filed by Emelda Fitzroy in Brooklyn federal court.
Fitzroy's civil complaint does not specify why cops came to her home, although it notes she was arrested on charges of felony and misdemeanor assault, misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration, and lesser counts of harassment.
All of those charges were dropped last week on Jan. 26, the complaint states.
Fitzroy, a home health aide, alleges deprivation of civil rights, use of excessive force, false arrest, unlawful search and seizure, and common-law assault and battery.
She suffered "severe and permanent psychological pain" due to her loss of the fetus, the complaint alleges.
Fitzroy has sued the city and four cops and seeks unspecified monetary damages.
The incident occurred around 1:45 p.m., the complaint says.
The cops approached Fitzroy, "forcibly grabbed" her and arrested her "without any legal justification," according to the complaint.
Fitzroy told cops she was pregnant, yet they still "battered" her, hitting her in the stomach, throwing her down and stepping on her, the complaint alleges.
Fitzroy miscarried "as the result of the injuries she sustained" at cops' hands, alleges the complaint, which doesn't say how many months she had been pregnant.
Fitzroy was incarcerated for more than 26 hours until her release around 4 p.m. on Nov. 3, 2014, after her Criminal Court arraignment, the complaint states.
She had to hire a lawyer to fight the criminal charges, and appear in court multiple times before the charges were dismissed last week, alleges her complaint.
Prosecutors confirmed the charges were dropped, but declined further comment because the court file has been sealed.
Fitzroy's lawyer, Regina L. Darby, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the lawsuit.
A city Law Department spokesman said the city would not comment on the suit "before all the facts are in."
"We'll review the allegations," the spokesman said.
An NYPD spokeswoman declined comment because the lawsuit is pending.
A spokesman for the Civilian Complaint Review Board said Civil Rights Laws prevented him from confirming whether or not a complaint was filed with the agency about the incident, and if there has been a disposition.President Obama reacts to the Zimmerman-trial verdict, July 19, 2013
Young black males are at greater risk from their peers than from the police or white civilians.
Last week President Obama weighed in again on the Trayvon Martin episode. Sadly, most of what he said was wrong, both literally and ethically.
Pace the president, the Zimmerman case was not about Stand Your Ground laws. It was not a white-on-black episode. The shooting involved a Latino of mixed heritage in a violent altercation with a black youth.
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Is it ethical for the president to weigh in on a civil-rights case apparently being examined by his own Justice Department? The president knows that if it is true that African-American males are viewed suspiciously, it is probably because statistically they commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime. If that were not true, they might well be given no more attention as supposed suspects than is accorded to white, Asian, or Latino youths. Had George Zimmerman been black, he would have been, statistically at least, more likely to have shot Trayvon Martin — and statistically likewise less likely to have been tried.
Barack Obama knows that if non-African-Americans were to cease all inordinate scrutiny of young African-American males, the latters’ inordinate crime rates would probably not be affected — given other causation for disproportionate incidences of criminality. Yet should their statistical crime profiles suddenly resemble those of other racial and ethnic groups, the so-called profiling would likely cease.
The president, I think, spoke out for three reasons: 1) He is an unbound, lame-duck president, with a ruined agenda, facing mounting ethical scandals; from now on, he will say things more consonant with being a community organizer than with being a nation’s president; 2) he knows the federal civil-rights case has little merit and cannot be pursued, and thus wanted to shore up his bona fides with an aggrieved black community; and 3) as with the ginned-up “assault-weapons ban” and the claim that Republicans are waging a “war on women,” Obama knows, as a community activist, that tension can mask culpability — in his case, the utter failure to address soaring unemployment in the inner city, epidemic black murder rates, the bankruptcy of Detroit, and the ways his failed economic policies disproportionately affect inner-city youth.
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#ad#Attorney General Eric Holder earlier gave an address to the NAACP on the Zimmerman trial. His oration was likewise not aimed at binding wounds. Apparently he wanted to remind his anguished audience that because of the acquittal of Zimmerman, there still is not racial justice in America.
Holder noted in lamentation that he had to repeat to his own son the lecture that his father long ago gave him. The sermon was about the dangers of police stereotyping of young black males. Apparently, Holder believes that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Yet I fear that for every lecture of the sort that Holder is forced to give his son, millions of non-African-Americans are offering their own versions of ensuring safety to their progeny.
In my case, the sermon — aside from constant reminders to judge a man on his merits, not on his class or race — was very precise.
First, let me say that my father was a lifelong Democrat. He had helped to establish a local junior college aimed at providing vocational education for at-risk minorities, and as a hands-on administrator he found himself on some occasions in a physical altercation with a disaffected student. In middle age, he and my mother once were parking their car on a visit to San Francisco when they were suddenly surrounded by several African-American teens. When confronted with their demands, he offered to give the thieves all his cash if they would leave him and my mother alone. Thankfully they took his cash and left.
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I think that experience — and others — is why he once advised me, “When you go to San Francisco, be careful if a group of black youths approaches you.” Note what he did not say to me. He did not employ language like “typical black person.” He did not advise extra caution about black women, the elderly, or the very young — or about young Asian Punjabi, or Native American males. In other words, the advice was not about race per se, but instead about the tendency of males of one particular age and race to commit an inordinate amount of violent crime.
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#page#It was after some first-hand episodes with young African-American males that I offered a similar lecture to my own son. The advice was born out of experience rather than subjective stereotyping. When I was a graduate student living in East Palo Alto, two adult black males once tried to break through the door of my apartment — while I was in it. On a second occasion, four black males attempted to steal my bicycle — while I was on it. I could cite three more examples that more or less conform to the same apprehensions once expressed by a younger Jesse Jackson. Regrettably, I expect that my son already has his own warnings prepared to pass on to his own future children.
Holder, of course, knows that there are two narratives about race in America, and increasingly they have nothing to do with each other. In one, African-Americans understandably cite racism and its baleful legacy to explain vast present-day disparities in income, education, and rates of criminality. Others often counter by instead emphasizing the wages of an inner-city culture of single-parent families and government dependence, and the glorification of violence in the popular media.
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#ad#In the old days of the Great Society, we once dreamed of splitting the difference — the government would invest more in the inner city, while black leadership in turn would emphasize more self-help and self-critique.
Not now. Both sides have almost given up on persuading the other. Eric Holder’s speech to the NAACP might as well have been given on Mars. It will convince zero Americans that stereotyping of young African-American males and Stand Your Ground laws are the two key racial problems facing America.
Again, Holder may offer his 15-year-old son the same warning that his father gave him about the dangers of racist, stereotyping police. Yet I suspect — and statistics would again support such supposition — that Holder privately is more worried that his son is in greater danger of being attacked by other black youths than by either the police or a nation of white-Hispanic George Zimmermans on the loose.
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Besides, two developments over recent decades have made Holder’s reactionary argument about black/white relations mostly irrelevant. First, America is now a multiracial nation. The divide is not white versus black. And as the Zimmerman trial reminds us, it is no longer a nation where most of the authority figures are white males. We saw a female judge, a female jury, and an Hispanic in confrontation with an African-American; today those of various racial pedigrees and different genders interact in ways that transcend the supposed culpability of white males.
Second, the attitude of the so-called white community toward racial challenges is not so much political as class driven. White liberals have largely won the argument that massive government expenditure must be infused into the black community. Yet they have probably lost the argument that such vast government investments have done much to alleviate the plight of urban black youth.
Stranger still, there is no evidence in our increasingly self-segregated society that white liberals stand out as integrationists. The latter increasingly have the capital to school their children far from the inner city, to live largely apart from inner-city blacks, and in general to avoid the black underclass in the concrete as much as they profess liberal nostrums for it in the abstract.
No one seems to care that the children of our liberal elite, black and white, go to places like Sidwell Friends rather than to Washington public schools, where the consequences of 50 years of liberal social policy are all too real. If Chris Matthews wishes to apologize collectively for whites, then he should have long ago moved to an integrated neighborhood, put his children in integrated schools, and walked to work through a black neighborhood to get to know local residents. Anything else, and his apology remains what it is: cheap psychological recompense for his own elite apartheid.
Just as Eric Holder preferred anecdote to statistics, so too I end with an unscientific vignette of my own. Last week I was driving in northern California with the attorney general’s speech playing on the car radio. North of San Francisco I stopped to buy coffee and two local newspapers.
In one, there was a gruesome story of a young African-American male charged with ransacking a San Francisco jewelry store and murdering two employees, Khin Min, 35, of San Francisco, and Lina Lim, 51, of Daly City. The owner of the shop, Vic Hung, fought back and survived, despite receiving gunshot and stab wounds in the attack.
The suspected attacker had a prior record of violent assault. The victims were all of Asian ancestry. I don’t think their families would agree with Eric Holder that self-defense laws were the cause of such interracial violence. Nor would the six policemen who were fired upon by the suspect agree that stereotyping prompted this sort of mayhem.
#page#Barack Obama will never suggest that the suspected killer physically resembles himself some three decades ago — and there would be no point in doing so. Nor will he admit that if Barack Obama owned an urban jewelry store and needed its profits to send his daughters to Sidwell Friends, he too might have become apprehensive when a young black male entered his store.
In the other paper, there was a strangely similar tale. Not far away, in Santa Rosa, at about the same time, two African-American youths in hoodies attacked another jewelry store, also had a shoot-out with the owner, and also failed to evade the police — though in this case none of the employees or customers was injured.
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#ad#In such cases, too many Americans find there is a sort of tired sameness. The victims were white or Asian. The murder and robbery suspects were young African-American males. The violence was aimed not at acquiring food or clothing, but at stealing luxury goods. The armed small-business owners tried to defend themselves by firing back at their attackers. Had they been unarmed, both would have probably perished. In one case, the police were fired upon. The suspects had prior arrests.
And on and on and on across America each day, this same tragedy is played out of a small percentage of Americans committing violent crimes at rates far exceeding their proportion of the general population.
The world will long remember Trayvon Martin, but few people — and certainly not Barack Obama or Eric Holder, who have a bad habit, in an increasingly multiracial country, of claiming solidarity on the basis of race — will care that Khin Min and Lina Lim were torn to pieces by bullets and a knife. Few will care that they died in a vicious assault that had nothing to do with stereotyping, Stand Your Ground self-defense, weak gun laws, insufficient federal civil-rights legislation, or any of the other causes of interracial violence falsely advanced by the attorney general — but quite a lot to do with an urban culture that for unspoken reasons has spawned an epidemic of disproportionate violent crime on the part of young African-American males.
I offer one final surreal footnote to this strange juxtaposition of reading the real news while listening to the mytho-history that a Eric Holder constructed from the death of Trayvon Martin to indict both the police and the public.
What were the names of two of the men suspected of being the ones who last week shot it out with the Santa Rosa jeweler as Eric Holder demagogued the Trayvon Martin shooting?
Traveon Banks-Austin and Alexander Tyvon Brandon.
And so the tragedy continues.
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. His latest book is The Savior Generals, published this spring by Bloomsbury Books.The first time a stranger called Marilyn Morrison a girl, she beamed.
She and her mother were picking up doughnuts for breakfast. Marilyn, a bright, blue-eyed child with Southern charm, held the door open for an older man.
“Well, thank you, little lady,” the man said.
He had no idea Marilyn was transgender.
By age 4, Marilyn already knew she was meant to live her life as a girl, her parents say, though she was assigned the male gender at birth. Her parents, Andrew and Chelsa Morrison of Grapevine, had seen the signs as early as Marilyn could talk.
“Girl. I’m a girl. I’m a girl,” she would insist to her parents by age 3.
If 3 sounds too early for a child to express such a profound feeling, the Morrisons say they got the message loud and clear from Marilyn, now 9.
“It’s not like my daughter came to me at age 2 and said ‘I’m transgender,’” Chelsa said.
Various signs that Marilyn exhibited from ages 3 to 5 showed her parents that she wasn’t a typical boy. Putting boys' clothes on Marilyn was a sure way to produce temper tantrums. She had frequent questions about why she has a boy’s body.Mitt Romney officially announced his ambitions to run for president this week, unveiling a new (not new) campaign slogan and logo.
Mitt Romney isn't going to be elected President. He may however, be memorialized forever by this ill-conceived logo. Not only does it instantly remind people of the Aquafresh logo, but it makes his name unclear. Who is this Omney person? Also, he's stolen John Kerry's 2004 election slogan "Believe in America."
Rachel Maddow took at clever hit at Romney, saying "If you want to steal John Kerry's presidential slogan from not even eight years ago, you better come up with something delicious and compelling to block thoughts of Senator John Kerry from the minds of Republican primary voters."
Meanwhile, Aquafresh toothpaste is basking in the glory of all this free advertising.If you’re into both LEGO art and legalizing it (maaaaan), has Known Gallery got the exhibit for you. Opening May 26, art collective LAGO will be showing off their “Legolize It!” exhibition, which, as you might’ve guessed from the pun and above picture, is a LEGO art show dedicated to marijuana.
The show, at the Known Gallery in Los Angeles, will be opening May 26 and running to June 9. The description for the exhibition is even weirder than the phrase “LEGO marijuana art.” It involves providing a lifelike medical marijuana purchasing experience, complete with synthetic starter-plants and seedlings.
In the wake of increasing raids on Medical Marijuana dispensaries by local, state and federal drug enforcement agencies, the LAgo brand’s brand-new, flagship storefront is set to open on May 26, 2012 at Known Gallery located at 441 North Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. The LAgo brand, as a perpetual “harvest” of healing power, has been especially commodified to meet the addictions of anyone who has ever wanted to experience the transaction of purchasing medical marijuana – or fine art – at a legal business organization. Synthetic starter-plants, seedlings, clones and a totally huge selection of intoxicating, fake plastic buds- all built with LEGO bricks to resemble some of the finest strains of medicinal marijuana ever grown- will be on display and available for limited purchase.
I guess this makes sense when you think about some terminology. LEGO pieces are bricks. A lot of pot packaged in such a way is referred to as a brick.
Yeah.
(Known Gallery via Boing Boing)
Relevant to your interestsIf you hadn't already iven up on the idea of tight end Jermichael Finley signing with the New York Giants, it look as if you should now. Finley indicated Thursday on Twitter that he is heading back to the Green Bay Packers.
Finley has not yet officially re-signed with the Packers. He has yet to even be cleared to play. Both, however, could happen this afternoon.
According to an #NFL source, @JermichaelF88 is in Green Bay and has appointment with Dr. Pat McKenzie this afternoon to view MRIs and talk. — Jason Wilde (@jasonjwilde) July 17, 2014
Several months ago Finley praised new Giants' offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo, formerly of the Packers, and said "I guess I'd go running" if the Giants called.
It appears they never really did, at least not seriously. For the past couple of months the Giants have not been mentioned among the possible landing spots for Finley.
The Giants, of course, don't have a proven pass-catcher at tight end heading into the 2014 season. Many thought the 27-year-old Finley, coming off neck surgery, would be a fit once he was cleared to play. Finley has 223 career catches in 70 games covering six NFL seasons.He's collaborated with Four Tet and Thom Yorke, but it's been a while since we've heard some new solo material from UK beatmaker Burial. But a press release has confirmed that Hyperdub will be releasing a new single from Burial, "Street Halo", next week, March 28. There will be two B-sides on the 20-minute single, "NYC" and "Stolen Dog". Hyperdub Re-Tweeted some information from Kode9 announcing that he'll be playing new Burial material on radio:
"Tonight I'll be on Benji B's show on BBC Radio 1; I'll be previewing some Hyperdub releases, including some tracks from my new album with Spaceape; I'll also be giving you a taster of new solo material from Burial that we will place in your shops in the next few days. Sign up to our mailing list at www.hyperdub.net for more details in the next couple of days."
Check out the single's tracklist below, as well as "Archangel", from Burial's 2007 album Untrue."Street Halo":
01 Street Halo
02 NYC
03 Stolen Dog
Burial: "Archangel"Intel announced its first "gaming grade" NUC. As if the very concept of NUC wasn't disruptive to the small form-factor desktop segment enough, the company is upping the ante with one that's prepped for gaming. Codenamed NUC6i7KYK, the new Skull Canyon NUC is about double the size of the average NUC. It has sufficient muscle for sub-1080p gaming, but is also prepped for external graphics solutions, such as the Razer Core.To begin with, the Skull Canyon is driven by a Core i7-6770HQ processor based on the "Skylake" architecture. This quad-core chip features HyperThreading, which enables 8 logical CPUs, 6 MB of L3 cache, 128 MB L4 cache, and Intel Iris Pro Graphics 580. The CPU cores run at speeds between 2.60 GHz and 3.50 GHz, while the iGPU ticks at 950 MHz. With 576 execution units, 72 TMUs, and 9 ROPs, the integrated graphics core is good enough for gaming at sub-1080p resolutions such as 720p and 900p.If you absolutely need more pixel-crunching power, then the Skull Canyon features a 40 Gb/s Thunderbolt 3 port, letting you use external graphics cards. The barebones version of the Skull Canyon will be priced at US $650, which is a bargain if you consider that the OEM channel price of the i7-6770HQ itself is $435. A fully-loaded variant with 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4-2133 memory, 256 GB SSD storage, and Windows 10 pre-installed, will be priced at US $999.
36 Comments on Intel Debuts the Skull Canyon Gaming NUC
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#1 Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop So it'll be faster than the i7 5775C then, in games? Should be interesting. Now put that IGP in a desktop i3 and be done with it, but that won't happen.
And this is too expensive to be disruptive anyway. Posted on Mar 17th 2016, 2:01 Reply
#2 Furunomoe
Frick said: And this is too expensive to be disruptive anyway. Agree. Unless small form factor is really important, even at the base price of $650, one can surely get a much better specced "standard size" PC.
If this priced for something like $499 barebones. It would be quite interesting though. Agree. Unless small form factor is really important, even at the base price of $650, one can surely get a much better specced "standard size" PC.If this priced for something like $499 barebones. It would be quite interesting though. Posted on Mar 17th 2016, 3:34 Reply
#3 Ubersonic
Bit odd that they are using a USB-C port instead of a proper Thunderbolt port, they are the same width so you're not really saving any space, just forcing people to buy an extra cable which will be more flimsy and easier to break. Oh, I see now lol.
Aside from that this looks great, the power of a high end desktop minus the GPU in a form factor about the size of a VHS cassette it brutal. Factor in that people who want more GPU power will be able to use the external PCI-E enclosures (which are finally emerging like 5 years after Intel first announced them and we saw prototypes) and the future is looking pretty cool. I may well look into this when it's time for my next system overhaul. Posted on Mar 17th 2016, 5:28 Reply
#4 Chaitanya
a discrete would have been better. still it can make good steam streaming box Posted on Mar 17th 2016, 7:30 Reply
#5 Steven B
Ubersonic said: Bit odd that they are using a USB-C port instead of a proper Thunderbolt port, they are the same width so you're not really saving any space, just forcing people to buy an extra cable which will be more flimsy and easier to break. Oh, I see now lol.
Aside from that this looks great, the power of a high end desktop minus the GPU in a form factor about the size of a VHS cassette it brutal. Factor in that people who want more GPU power will be able to use the external PCI-E enclosures (which are finally emerging like 5 years after Intel first announced them and we saw prototypes) and the future is looking pretty cool. I may well look into this when it's time for my next system overhaul. That is a Thunderbolt 3 port........ That is a Thunderbolt 3 port........ Posted on Mar 17th 2016, 9:05 Reply
#6 newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder Really?!? $1,000 "Gaming" NUC and it can't even play current games at 1080p? They should have picked a cheaper processor, like the i5-6440HQ(Same clock speed, no HT, no stupid Iris Pro Graphics) and put the saved money into a discrete GPU.
But I know this isn't something Intel plans to actually sell a lot of, it is just a platform for them to brag about their Iris Graphics. Posted on Mar 17th 2016, 9:28 Reply
#7 crsh1976
newtekie1 said: $1,000 "Gaming" NUC and it can't even play current games at 1080p? How do you know? Iris Pro has been getting quite good, and you'd think a standard rez like 1080p is something the GPU on this processor can pull without sacrificing too much eye candy.
Seriously, we all agree iGPUs aren't as good as dGPUs, but they've come a long way since the crappy GMA/HD Graphics of yore (especially the top ones with dedicated DRAM). How do you know? Iris Pro has been getting quite good, and you'd think a standard rez like 1080p is something the GPU on this processor can pull without sacrificing too much eye candy.Seriously, we all agree iGPUs aren't as good as dGPUs, but they've come a long way since the crappy GMA/HD Graphics of yore (especially the top ones with dedicated DRAM). Posted on Mar 17th 2016, 10:17 Reply
#8 Ubersonic
Steven B said: That is a Thunderbolt 3 port........ No it's a USB-C port, Thunderbolt 3 uses them instead of regular ports so you need to buy different cables for no good reason /joy No it's a USB-C port, Thunderbolt 3 uses them instead of regular ports so you need to buy different cables for no good reason /joy Posted on Mar 17th 2016, 10:39 Reply
#9 GhostRyder
newtekie1 said: Really?!? $1,000 "Gaming" NUC and it can't even play current games at 1080p? They should have picked a cheaper processor, like the i5-6440HQ(Same clock speed, no HT, no stupid Iris Pro Graphics) and put the saved money into a discrete GPU.
But I know this isn't something Intel plans to actually sell a lot of, it is just a platform for them to brag about their Iris Graphics. I agree, that is way to much for this regardless of how interesting or cool it is. I can build something not much bigger than that with significantly more power for less. While I like the idea of the Iris Pro, they want a little to much for the chips with it at the moment. They need to put this in a chip that costs half or less to be more feasible.
At least it has Thunderbolt 3, but again not enough to warrant the price. I agree, that is way to much for this regardless of how interesting or cool it is. I can build something not much bigger than that with significantly more power for less. While I like the idea of the Iris Pro, they want a little to much for the chips with it at the moment. They need to put this in a chip that costs half or less to be more feasible.At least it has Thunderbolt 3, but again not enough to warrant the price. Posted on Mar 17th 2016, 11:51 Reply
#10 TheinsanegamerN
Ubersonic said: No it's a USB-C port, Thunderbolt 3 uses them instead of regular ports so you need to buy different cables for no good reason /joy There is no regular thunderbolt 3 port, intel chose to use USB C to standardize the connector.
And its working. There are already more laptops with TB3 via usb c then there were total laptops with TB1 and 2 COMBINED. Standard port that convinces people to use your tech so you sell many more units seems like a pretty good reason to me.
Also, since when is USB not a "regular port"? what is a "regular port"? the older TB used displayport connectors, were those not regular ports as well?
That aside, While its great intel has finally got iris pro into a NUC, where are the laptops using this chip? Why cant I buy a 14 inch laptop with iris pro? There is no regular thunderbolt 3 port, intel chose to use USB C to standardize the connector.And its working. There are already more laptops with TB3 via usb c then there were total laptops with TB1 and 2 COMBINED. Standard port that convinces people to use your tech so you sell many more units seems like a pretty good reason to me.Also, since when is USB not a "regular port"? what is a "regular port"? the older TB used displayport connectors, were those not regular ports as well?That aside, While its great intel has finally got iris pro into a NUC, where are the laptops using this chip? Why cant I buy a 14 inch laptop with iris pro? Posted on Mar 17th 2016, 13:32 Reply
#11 newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder crsh1976 said: How do you know? Iris Pro has been getting quite good, and you'd think a standard rez like 1080p is something the GPU on this processor can pull without sacrificing too much eye candy.
Seriously, we all agree iGPUs aren't as good as dGPUs, but they've come a long way since the crappy GMA/HD Graphics of yore (especially the top ones with dedicated DRAM). I know because it says so right in the press release. the integrated graphics core is good enough for gaming at sub-1080p resolutions such as 720p and 900p. I know because it says so right in the press release. Posted on Mar 17th 2016, 16:03 Reply
#12 alucasa
Considering how Iris 540 is, Iris 580 should be on par with Nvidia 950m or maybe 945m which quite frankly is very good for an |
aside to confide in her – Maggie of the secret meetings with Ingram to report on Will and the analyst team. At the last minute, caution kicked in and he didn’t tell her what had so rattled him. Paranoia ruled.
If you've stuck with Rubicon, what did you think of Sunday’s episode – do you think it's going somewhere, or was it TMI?
-- Kelly Scott
Above: James Badge Dale as Will on "Rubicon." Credit: AMCCHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A bill that would give people the opportunity to cite religious objections to state actions has passed the West Virginia House of Delegates and is now headed to the Senate.
The House of Delegates passed House Bill 4012, which is the West Virginia Religious Freedom Restoration Act, by a vote of 72-26.
The bill protects freedoms to express religious beliefs unless there's a compelling state interest to restrict them.
The bill models after the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and laws that have been adopted by more than 20 other states.
House Majority Whip John O'Neal says "Religious freedom is a basic human right, and a vital Constitutional right, that deserves protection under West Virginia law. "Every West Virginian should be free to live and work according to their faith without fear of being punished by the government."
Proponents says WV RFRA re-establishes a balancing test for resolving religious freedom cases that was removed by federal court rulings.
"This bill will give state courts a balancing test that guides judges in considering cases alleging that the action of a governmental body has violated a citizen's deeply held religious belief." said House Speaker Tim Armstead.
Under the bill, if a person attempts to defend in court their religious beliefs against government action, a judge would use the following questions to evaluate the merits of the case:
1.) Does a person have a sincerely held religious belief?
2.) Has that belief been substantially burdened by government?
3.) Does the government have a compelling interest to substantially burden that belief?
4.) Has government exhausted all other means to achieve its goals without infringing on that belief, and is the action the least restrictive of that citizen’s religious beliefs?
The WV RFRA is designed to be defensive in nature and only applies to government infringement on religious freedom.
"No West Virginian should be left defenseless when a government attempts to force them into violating their deeply-held beliefs." said House Majority Leader Daryl Cowels, R-Morgan.
Opponents say the bill would allow for discrimination, particularly targeting gay marriage.
Reports say Indiana might have lost $60 million when groups opted against conventions in Indianapolis because of a similar law.
Citing Indiana, West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said he'd have to consider a veto if the bill makes it to his desk.
Jennifer Meinig, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia released the following statement:
“Religious freedom is a fundamental right, but it cannot be used as a basis to discriminate against others. This legislation turns personal religious freedom on its head, making it a tool of oppression. Under this law, a landlord who believes that a man should be the head of a household could refuse to rent to a single mother. A hotel owner who objects to cohabitation out of marriage could refuse to provide a room to an unmarried couple.”
Andrew Schneider, Executive Director of Fairness West Virginia released the following statement:
“We are extremely disappointed that the WV House of Delegates would advance legislation that seeks to legalize discrimination under the guise of religious freedom. This legislation may very well have a devastating effect on our economy and our reputation as a welcoming tourism destination. We urge Senate President Bill Cole and other fair-minded, pro-business leaders in the Senate to kill this legislation or vote it down before it's too late.”The day had begun with growing signs that Colonel Qaddafi’s grip on power might be slipping, with protesters in control of Libya’s second-largest city, his security forces pulled back to key locations in the capital as government buildings smoldered, and a growing number of officials and military personnel defecting to join the revolt.
But the violence Colonel Qaddafi unleashed Monday afternoon on Tripoli demonstrated that he was willing to shed far more blood than the deposed rulers of either neighboring Egypt or Tunisia in his effort to hold on to power.
Two residents said planes had been landing for 10 days ferrying mercenaries from African countries to an air base in Tripoli. The mercenaries had done much of the shooting, which began Sunday night, they said. Some forces were using particularly lethal, hollow-point bullets, they said.
“The shooting is not designed to disperse the protesters,” said one resident, who wanted to be identified only as Waleed, fearing for his security. “It is meant to kill them.”
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“This is not Ben Ali or Mubarak,” he added, referring to the deposed leaders of Tunisia and Egypt. “This man has no sense of humanity.”
Colonel Qaddafi, for his part, remained largely out of sight. Around 2 a.m. on Tuesday, after a rainy day, he appeared on state television for about 30 seconds, holding an umbrella up through the open door of a passenger car. He denied rumors that he had fled to Venezuela and called the cable news channels covering Libya “dogs.”
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As rioters overwhelmed the streets around 1 a.m. on Monday, Colonel Qaddafi’s son, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, delivered a rambling but bellicose speech threatening Libyans with the prospect of civil war and “rivers of blood” if they turned away from his father.
Apparently enraged by the speech, protesters converged on Green Square soon after and clashed with heavily armed riot police officers for several hours, witnesses in Tripoli said by telephone.
By dawn in Tripoli, police stations and government buildings — including the Hall of the People, where the legislature meets — were in flames. Debris fires from the rioting the night before burned at many intersections.
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Most stores and schools were closed, and long lines were forming for a chance to buy bread or gas. Protesters had torn down or burned the posters of Colonel Qaddafi that were once ubiquitous in the capital, witnesses said.
To the east, protesters in control of Benghazi flew an independence flag over the rooftop of the courthouse and displayed the scene online in a video. A crowd celebrated what they called “the fall of the regime in their city.”
“We have liberated the east areas,” said Fathi Terbil, a prominent opposition lawyer in Benghazi, over a live, online stream that he calls the Free Libya Radio. “We are liberating, we are not overtaking. Now we need to go to Tripoli and liberate Tripoli.” Protesters issued a list of demands calling for a secular interim government led by the army in cooperation with a council of Libyan tribes.
In a sign of growing cracks within the government, several senior officials broke with Colonel Qaddafi. The Quryna newspaper, which has ties to Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, reported that the justice minister, Mustafa Abud al-Jeleil, had resigned in protest over the deadly response to the demonstrations.
And in New York, the Libyan delegation to the United Nations defected as well. The deputy ambassador and more than a dozen members of the Libyan mission to the United Nations called upon Colonel Qaddafi to step down and leave the country in a letter drafted Monday.
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“He has to leave as soon as possible,” said the deputy ambassador, Ibrahim Dabbashi, paraphrasing the letter. “He has to stop killing the Libyan people.”
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He urged other nations to join in that request, saying he feared there could be a large-scale massacre in Tripoli and calling on “African nations” to stop sending what he called “mercenaries” to fight on behalf of Colonel Qaddafi’s government.
Mr. Dabbashi said he had not seen the Libyan ambassador since Friday and did not know his whereabouts or whether he shared the opinion of many in his mission. But, Mr. Dabbashi said, the United Nations mission represents the people, not Colonel Qaddafi.
Abdel Monem al-Howni, Libya’s representative to the Arab League, also resigned. “I no longer have any links to this regime, which lost all legitimacy,” he said in a statement reported by news agencies. He also called what is happening in Libya “genocide.”
Al Manara, an opposition Web site, reported that a senior military official, Col. Abdel Fattah Younes in Benghazi, resigned, and the newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported that Colonel Qaddafi had ordered that one of his top generals, Abu Bakr Younes, be put under house arrest after disobeying an order to use force against protesters in several cities.
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Two Libyan fighter pilots ordered to bomb protesters changed their course and instead defected to Malta, according to Maltese government officials quoted by Reuters.
The Libyan government has tried to impose a blackout on information from the country. Foreign journalists cannot enter. Internet access has been almost totally severed, though some protesters appear to be using satellite connections. Much news about what is going on came from telephone interviews with people inside the country. Several residents reported that cellphone service was down, and even landline phone service sporadic.
The United States ordered all nonessential personnel and family members at its embassy to leave the country.
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Several foreign oil and gas companies were moving on Monday to evacuate some workers as well. The Quryna newspaper said that protests have occurred in Ras Lanuf, an oil town where some workers were being assembled to defend a refinery complex from attacks.
Meanwhile, Libyans from other cities — Benghazi and Misrata — were reported to be heading to Tripoli to join the battle against the government forces, said Mansour O. El-Kikhia, a professor of Middle East studies at the University of Texas, Austin, who had talked to people inside the country.
“There are dead on the streets, you cannot even pick them up,” he said by e-mail. “The army is just shooting at everybody. That has not deterred the people from continuing.”
Though the outcome of the battle is impossible to determine, some protesters said the bloodshed in Tripoli only redoubled their determination.
“He will never let go of his power,” said one, Abdel Rahman. “This is a dictator, an emperor. He will die before he gives an inch. But we are no longer afraid. We are ready to die after what we have seen.”It’s a terrifying possibility. The idea that a loved one may have fallen victim to human trafficking.
Jennifer Say
And that idea has been at the center of Jennifer Say’s mind. Her daughter Alexis disappeared three weeks ago.
“It’s really been a struggle,” Jennifer told Dateline. “If that’s what happened, she could be anywhere. We need help of people from across the country.”
Alexis was last seen on January 23, 2017 in the lobby of North Shores Medical Center in Miami, Florida. The 22-year-old brunette had moved to Florida last year. Her mother, Jennifer, was moving back to upstate New York from Atlanta and, instead of relocating with her, Alexis decided to head south to stay in a warmer climate. She had moved in with extended family in Fort Lauderdale and was planning on selecting a school at which to take classes. She wanted to become a physician’s assistant.
But somewhere along the line, Alexis began experimenting with drugs. Jennifer says that once her daughter realized she was becoming addicted, Alexis also realized it wasn’t the path she wanted to take in life. Jennifer helped her get into a rehab center outside Miami.
It was at that rehab center, which Jennifer did not name, that Alexis suffered a seizure. Her mother believes it was most likely a reaction to medication that Alexis, who has had several heath issues in the past, was given.
Alexis borrowed a fellow patient’s cell phone while at the hospital to call her mom.
“She wanted to call me and make sure I knew she was at the hospital,” Jennifer told Dateline. “That’s how she is. She wanted me to know what was going on with her.”
Because of HIPAA privacy rules, Jennifer hasn’t been able to find out the exact time Alexis was discharged. What she did learn from building security guards, is that they spotted Alexis waiting in the lobby on the 23rd of January. She reportedly told them she was waiting for a ride back to her rehab facility. She did not have her cell phone or any of her other belongings.
What happened next, and where Alexis went after that, remains a mystery.
When Jennifer didn’t hear from Alexis, she called the rehab facility. She learned Alexis never made it back. And by the following afternoon, two days after Alexis was seen at the hospital, she got a horrible feeling.
“I just knew something was really wrong, so I got started getting her face out there wherever I could,” Jennifer said. Thousands have since shared Alexis’s image on social media. The Facebook page ‘Please help find Alexis Say’ has been started along with a website, helpfindalexissay.com.
The Miami-Dade Police are investigating, but officials told Dateline Wednesday that investigators have not found any indication that Alexis is endangered.
But family members say another group is helping search for Alexis; the Human Trafficking Task Force, launched in 2012 by the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office. The group reached out to Jennifer after they were alerted about Alexis’s case, she said.
Although officials have said an official investigation has not been initiated, a spokesperson for the state attorney's office told NBC affiliate WGRZ confirmed they have been in contact with the Say family but could not comment further.
Jennifer told Dateline she hopes the situation her daughter was in doesn’t cloud the message she’s spreading: that her daughter is missing.
“She called me from that hospital, because she wanted me to know she was there,” Jennifer said. “This isn’t a case that she just ran off. Please just keep your eyes open for her. It just takes one person who saw something to come forward. It just takes one good person to do the right thing.”
Alexis Say is described as 5’2” tall, weighing 100 lbs. with brown hair and brown eyes.
Anyone with information regarding Alexis case is urged to call the Miami-Dade Police Department at (305) 471-TIPS or a local tip line set up by the Say family at (585) 545-5045.If there’s one conference that’s been generating a lot of talk lately, it was the “stranded assets” conference held a couple weeks ago in Toronto for investors, sponsored by Suncor and Royal Bank. I wasn’t able to make it, but more and more I’m wishing I had. The “stranded assets” concept has to do with the fact that, right now, proven fossil fuel reserves are about four times larger than what we can safely burn (i.e. without causing dangerous climate change). So roughly 3/4 of the world’s current, proven oil reserve are “unburnable carbon.” As a result, oil extraction has now become something like a giant game of musical chairs, where everyone wants to get as much out of the ground as they can before the music stops. For investors, the issue is important because the stock valuation of the big oil companies suggests that investors are still valuing these reserves as though they will all be extracted and sold. This is looking more and more like a bad bet — the more likely scenario is that the reserves become “stranded assets”. And, of course, if you’re looking around the world, trying to decide what oil should stay in the ground, the biggest most obvious conclusion is that Canada’s tar sands bitumen should stay in the ground, because processing it into synthetic oil is itself such an energy-intensive process.
Anyhow, I’ve heard it said that the reason there’s such a big rush to get pipelines built, to get tar sands oil to market, is that the industry itself calculates that it has only 20 years or so before the asset becomes stranded. (I guess it’s also worth mentioning that the federal government is, essentially, betting our economy that the price of oil will rise, and that we will be able to get it out of the ground before the music stops. I suspect they will never change their minds on this, simply because they have taken such a hard line on this issue. It is interesting, however, to see signs that the investment community is starting to sour a bit on that bet, and the smart money may be starting to get out.)
Okay, so what’s up with the price of oil? I’m certainly not an expert, and some of it seems to be just animal spirits. The basic analysis, however, holds that Saudi Arabia, along with some other OPEC producers, have increased production in order to make oil more competitive with shale gas, which has been steadily displacing it throughout much of North America. (This explanation makes sense to me, since I recently had the oil furnace in my basement ripped out and replaced with a natural gas system. The impetus for the change was when my bill for refilling the oil tank went over $800 [up from around $500 six or seven years ago]. With natural gas, the cost of heating my house went from around $200 a month to more like $60.) It’s important to recognize that right now it’s practically impossible to export natural gas from North America (because of the relative absence of LNG facilities), and so it sells well below the “world” price. So in principle you don’t have to keep oil low forever, to stop North Americans from defecting to gas, you just need to keep it low until the price of natural gas rises, which is what it will do as LNG facilities are built.
In any case, there is also some interesting speculation that the Saudi objective is to put Canada out of business. Since the cost of production of a barrel of oil in Saudi Arabia is around $5, while it is over $50 per barrel in Canada, it’s not difficult for them to put the squeeze on us. At very least, it starts to make new infrastructure investments in the tar sands look more and more dubious. I think it also provides a glimpse of what the fossil fuel endgame will look like, even though it would be overly optimistic to think that we are in such an endgame now. Basically, it will be a mad rush to get the last bit of “burnable” out of carbon out of the ground, as quickly as possible. And in such an endgame, I don’t see how Canada could possibly win. It just seems to me that we are inevitably going to be squeezed out by the low-cost producers.
All that having been said, the current federal government’s relentless efforts to subordinate all other interests in the country to those of the Alberta tar sands is starting to look more and more foolish.
Finally, I know it’s a total waste of time to say this, but with oil prices falling so dramatically, now would be a really good time to impose a carbon tax — you could do it now and consumers wouldn’t even notice. Gas prices would still go down, they just wouldn’t go down by as much as they otherwise would have.The Era of Whatsapp Propaganda Is Upon Us
In some places, the future of misinformation is already here.
A hoax about child-napping con artists led to the beating of two people this spring in Brazil. A rumor about a salt shortage last fall sparked panicked rushes to markets in several Indian states that turned fatal. And fabricated poll reports sowed doubts about the electoral standing of candidates ahead this month’s elections in Kenya, where the result is disputed and dozens have been killed in protests.
When fake news has violent consequences, journalists have a duty to set the record straight as quickly as possible. But the details of these rumors — who was behind them and why — are particularly murky and likely to remain that way. That’s due to one seemingly trivial detail: In all of these cases, the misinformation made its way to readers via the messaging service WhatsApp.
Closed messaging apps like WhatsApp and Viber continue to grow in popularity worldwide. And as the popularity of Facebook and Twitter as news sources shows signs of stagnating or declining around the world, messaging platforms are increasingly becoming a means through which users learn about the wider world. A recent YouGov survey of over 70,000 people in 36 countries found that 23 percent of respondents “find, share, or discuss” news using at least one messaging service. In Asian and Latin American countries like Malaysia or Brazil, that number is closer to 50 percent, and WhatsApp is almost as common a source of news as Facebook.
Messaging platforms have yet to provoke much discussion among misinformation and disinformation researchers (myself included) in the West, who have been trying to devise best practices for responding to viral rumor and disinformation campaigns. But these simple apps deserve attention as the dark future of misinformation and disinformation.
Unlike Twitter or Reddit, messaging apps are not designed to be public squares where users can mingle with millions of strangers. They began as cheap, data-lean alternatives to SMS texting or as ways to send private, encrypted messages.
Most of these apps restrict users to one-on-one chats with contacts in their phones or to private group chats with no more than 500 friends of friends. While a conversation with hundreds of participants certainly doesn’t feel too private, these groups chats are still closed in the sense that everyone in them must be invited by an existing member, and there’s no way to know whether a group exists unless you’re a part of it. Furthermore, with a few exceptions, there are no trending lists or social feeds providing input from outside a user’s network. Some mobile messaging companies have recognized the potential for their apps to deliver creative or editorial content, offering features through which users can subscribe to one-way chats with publishers. These are not a public forum, though; users can like messages and see how many each has been viewed, but only the publisher can post messages to subscribers.
In short, barring a few exceptions, all activity on these platforms that exists outside one’s immediate network is completely invisible. On apps with end-to-end encryption — like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Viber — ostensibly not even the platforms themselves can always see what’s being discussed by users. It’s for this reason that some who have been paying attention to messaging platforms call them “dark social.”
The obscurity of messaging apps poses obvious problems for journalists trying to quickly find and debunk falsehoods on these platforms. To begin with, it’s harder for journalists or others trying to combat misinformation to identify just what is circulating on these platforms in first place. But even when a rumor has been pinpointed, it’s harder to take the first and necessary step in the fact-checking process of identifying the original source of a piece of content. Hoaxes on messaging services often don’t come with citations or hyperlink; rather, they’re commonly standalone media or blocks of text, sometimes attributed to official sources. (“The next [Richter] scale of earthquake will be 8.2. News From NASA. Plz forward the message as much as u can” is one typical example from India.) Unattributed or falsely attributed images, videos or text can be searched on Google. However, where the original instance of the content cannot be found by Google’s web crawlers — like in cases where the content originated on the messaging platform itself or has been edited — journalists are left at a dead end.
These apps also have features that complicate matters for anyone looking to spread false information. It’s harder for actors to synthetically boost their message as they have, say, using bots on Twitter. To send someone a message on these platforms, you must have their mobile number stored in your phone or at least know their exact username. The prominent messaging apps also require users to sign up with a valid cell phone number, verified via a text message or call, in order to access their phone’s contacts to send messages.
To be sure, circulators of disinformation could easily buy a list of phone numbers or scrape online telephone directories, and there are ways for the highly motivated to bulk purchase internet phone numbers or SIM cards, as well as ways to automate group and message creation. However, most messaging services enable users to flag spammers. In addition, WhatsApp and Viber have announced spam-detection measures that supposedly prevent accounts from sending too many unwanted messages.
The more likely way for malicious actors to engineer virality on a messaging platform would be to simply coordinate with like-minded others who are already using these apps and have cultivated large networks. Similar tactics are reportedly being used by the Indian People’s Party (BJP), which is preparing for the 2018 election by training 100 volunteers to distribute messages via at least 5,000 WhatsApp groups. To be clear, this is not a suggestion that the BJP is using these methods to spread disinformation — but it’s easy to see how those with nefarious intentions could use these tactics for their own ends.
It seems likely that, absent involvement from mobile messaging companies themselves, the immediate fight against hoax and propaganda on their platforms will involve crowdsourcing. And indeed, creative uses of crowdsourcing to get around the barriers of messaging apps have already begun to emerge in countries awash with WhatsApp hoaxes. As reported by the Nieman Journalism Lab, Colombian political news site La Silla Vacía has begun encouraging their readers to submit screenshots of the WhatsApp messages they suspect to be hoaxes. Then, after fact-checking a hoax, they request that its submitter share another screenshot showing they’ve forwarded the fact-check to their contacts, thereby targeting the social circles from which the hoax spread. WhatsApp tips are similarly being accepted by fact-checking groups in India and Brazil like BoomLive and Boatos.
But fact-checking, by its very nature, will always be one step behind misinformation and disinformation. In addition, journalists must utilize every proactive option available. That means educating the public on how to question and verify online content through new media literacy programs, and replenishing the deficit of trust in journalism that creates an appetite for unverified reports in the first place and thwarts any attempt at their correction.
Both will require a daunting commitment of time and resources. But the future of misinformation and disinformation is coming, and we need to begin preparing now.
Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesA monk prays at a Nov 1 ceremony to move Lord Buddha’s relics from Mahiyangana Raja Maha Viharaya in Sri Lanka to Buddha Monthon monastery in Nakhon Pathom. A campaign to enshrine Buddhism as Thailand's state religion has been galvanised by a radical Buddhist movement in neighbouring Myanmar that is accused of stoking religious tension. (Photo by Pattarapong Chatpattarasill)
A campaign to enshrine Buddhism as Thailand's state religion has been galvanised by a radical Buddhist movement in neighbouring Myanmar that is accused of stoking religious tension, the leader of the Thai bid said.
Experts say the campaign could appeal to Thailand's military junta, which is struggling for popularity 18 months after staging a coup, and tap into growing anti-Muslim sentiment in a country that prides itself on religious tolerance.
While Buddhists form an overwhelming majority in both countries, Thailand has avoided the nationwide religious violence that has killed hundreds of people in Myanmar, most of them Muslims.
Now, Thai campaigners want Buddhism to be made the country's official religion in a new constitution.
They draw inspiration from Ma Ba Tha, a powerful monk-led group that pushed Myanmar's government to pass a raft of pro-Buddhist legislation.
"What happened in Myanmar confirms our suspicions that Buddhism is threatened by various subtle means," said Thai campaigner Banjob Bannaruji, who chairs the Committee to Promote Buddhism as the State Religion.
Mr Banjob said Thai Buddhists have pushed for the state religion law for many decades, but Myanmar's example had spurred them to speed up "concrete efforts to make it happen".
Religious experts question whether radical Myanmar Buddhism can take hold in Thailand, a country that prides itself on religious tolerance, despite growing anti-Muslim sentiment. (Photo by Pattarapong Chatpattarasill)
Thailand's constitution was scrapped after the military seized power in May 2014 and handpicked a committee to write a new one. It must pass a referendum before a general election, possibly in 2017, can restore democracy.
A previous attempt to include Buddhism as the state religion in the 2007 constitution, written after an earlier military coup, went nowhere.
But campaigners stand a better chance this time round, said Ekachai Chainuvati, a constitutional law expert at Siam University in Bangkok.
Adopting Buddhism as a state religion could give the constitution more popular appeal and improve its chances of passing a referendum, he said.
Amorn Wanichwiwatana, spokesman for the Constitution Drafting Committee, said he could not comment on the likelihood of the idea being adopted. "But we have to listen to every suggestion," he said.
'Neglected religion'
Myanmar's military-backed government this year passed four so-called "race and religion protection" laws at Ma Ba Tha's behest. Human rights groups say the laws discriminate against Muslims and women.
While Ma Ba Tha's influence has grown, Thai Buddhism has been shaken by scandal. Monks have been accused of stealing, hoarding narcotics or having sex, prompting many to call for an overhaul of the institution.
The state religion law would allow future governments to better oversee monks and reform a "neglected religion," said campaigner Mr Banjob.
His group plans to collect a million signatures at religious functions and via the internet to petition the Constitution Drafting Committee.
Government statistics do not suggest a religion in decline.
Monks form a procession to seek alms during a merit-making event a Government House on Oct 30. Thai Buddhism has been shaken by scandal. Monks have been accused of stealing, hoarding narcotics or having sex, prompting many to call for an overhaul of the institution. (Photo by Thiti Wannamontha)
In the past decade, the number of Buddhist temples rose by 15% to about 39,000. Thailand has about 350,000 monks.
Even so, said Somchai Surachatri, spokesman for the National Office of Buddhism, a government agency tasked with nurturing the religion, Buddhism could one day be "devoured".
He spoke of receiving text messages warning that Muslims were buying up land to build mosques in every Thai province.
"That's why Buddhists have been uneasy and feel the need to protect their religion," he said.
Such remarks carry echoes of Ma Ba Tha, which claims Islam is eclipsing Buddhism in Myanmar.
Sunai Phasuk, a Thailand researcher for Human Rights Watch, said there was "an increasing sense of suspicion" towards Muslims.
Recent protests by monks and laypeople have halted the construction of mosques and a halal food factory in northern Thailand.
Also driving anti-Muslim sentiment, said Mr Sunai, was a conflict in southern Thailand between government forces and ethnic Malay Muslim insurgents that has killed about 6,500 people since 2004.
The murder of monks by insurgents deserves an equally pitiless response, believes Aphichat Promjan, a monk who teaches at Wat Benjamabophit, a famous Bangkok temple.
For every monk killed "a mosque should be burned, starting from the northern part of Thailand southwards", Mr Aphichat wrote on Facebook on Oct 29.
The post, accompanied by gruesome images, has been shared or liked almost 2,000 times, but it also sparked disdain.
"I don't agree with this violent idea, which is like pouring fuel onto fire," one person commented in Thai.Discuss.
Man, hope this strip doesn't get us into too much trouble. First off, I'm Asian, I've got no dog in this race (no pun intended), and our opinions about race should be about as important to you as fenders on the Death Star.
Like most of our strips, there's a hundred and one ways to interpret the strip and a thousand and one ways to find something offensive about it. There are so many things people consider touchy, but race? That's often the touchiest.
This strip, like many before it, was born during one of our sessions of Grim Dawn. We thought that it was funny that blacksmiths were called blacksmiths and wouldn't it be even funnier if our heroes got all overly PC about it? I dunno, we're dumb.
Goddamn it, we'll never beat our most awesome strip so far. But by Odin's muscular ravens, we're gonna try.
In other news, I've recently been made aware that it's a major assumption to even call someone an African-American in the first place. Not all black people come from Africa and it would be impertinent of us to suggest otherwise. I've also been made aware after going to one forum that many black people really don't care whether they're called black or African-American though some prefer to be associated with their countries of origin like Nigeria, or Jamaica.
And I think that's great.
I think it's great that we're moving away from race. I think it's great that scientists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson are popular for talking about the cosmos. I think it's great that we're beginning to look up at the bigger things instead of looking down at the little things. It's a sign that we can finally move forward as a species instead of being bogged down by things that, at the end of the day, really don't matter.
We're all just humans, and it's a beautiful thing to be aware of.
As much as I hate having to be PC, we try our best to make Respawn the inclusivest of gamer comics. Lemme know if you guys think we overstepped any lines.
-EtaWHEN the Taliban blasted the famous Bamiyan Buddhas with artillery and dynamite in March 2001, leaders of many faiths and countries denounced the destruction as an act of cultural terrorism. But today, with the encouragement of the American government, Chinese engineers are preparing a similar act of desecration in Afghanistan: the demolition of a vast complex of richly decorated ancient Buddhist monasteries. The offense of this Afghan monument is not idolatry. Its sin is to sit atop one of the world’s largest copper deposits.
The American government is okay with the destruction of the Buddhist site when the Chinese are doing it but not okay when the Taliban do it. Let’s see what the difference is:
The copper at the Mes Aynak mine, just an hour’s drive south of Kabul, is to be extracted under a roughly $3 billion deal signed in 2007 between Afghanistan and China’s Metallurgical Group Corporation. The Afghan finance minister, Omar Zakhilwal, recently said the project could pump $300 million a year into government coffers by 2016. But the project has been plagued by rumors of corruption; there was widespread talk of a $30 million kickback involving the former minister of mines, who resigned.
Oh, copper you say! Three billion dollars worth of it! By all means, please destroy as much as possible. Will the Afghans see the $3 billion? Who knows!
Source: New York TimesThe president joined Prince Andrew for a visit to a satellite communications company and attend a conference
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Prime Minister David Cameron brought Chinese President Xi Jinping to his favourite pub for a pint and a portion of fish and chips last night.
The trip to The Plough at Cadsden in Buckinghamshire lasted just 20 minutes, during which time they both ate and drank a Greene King IPA.
Mr Xi sampled his long-awaited British fish and chips supper, and Mr Cameron - who paid for the drinks with a £10 note - said the meal was ‘very good’.
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Paying with a tenner: Prime Minister David Cameron (right) gets out money to buy drinks with Chinese President Xi Jinping (right)
Drinking: Mr Xi (left) and Mr Cameron (right) enjoy a Greene King IPA at the The Plough at Cadsden pub yesterday
Saying hello: Mr Cameron (right) leaves the pub near Chequers in Buckinghamshire following a pint with Mr Xi (left) yesterday evening
Making an entrance: The trip by Mr Cameron and Mr Xi to The Plough at Cadsden in Buckinghamshire lasted just 20 minutes
Having a drink: Mr Xi was able to sample his long-awaited British fish and chips supper, and the Prime Minister said it was ‘very good’
Evening out: The pair arrived at the quaint village pub at 6.40pm, after driving the 2.5 miles from the Prime Minister's residence of Chequers
Mr Cameron (right) pauses while drinking a pint of beer with Mr Xi to gesture at the pub near Princess Risborough
Trip to the pub: Prime Minister David Cameron (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) visit The Plough pub near Princes Risborough
Waving for the cameras: The Plough at Cadsden is a 16th century country inn located in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire
Leaving: Mr Cameron and Mr Xi leave The Plough at Cadsden yesterday evening after enjoying a traditional fish and chip meal
I dropped into The Plough at Cadsden for a pint of IPA and some fish and chips with China's President Xi. pic.twitter.com/6kiY27UBwE — David Cameron (@David_Cameron) October 22, 2015
The pair arrived at the quaint village pub at 6.40pm, after driving the 2.5 miles from the Prime Minister's nearby official residence of Chequers.
Other ministers and officials followed Mr Cameron and Mr Xi inside through a second door, including Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
The Prime Minister, who famously once left daughter Nancy behind at The Plough after an afternoon out, joked with locals about the incident.
'I've been in here a few times,' Mr Cameron said. 'I'm not leaving my family here today.'
Last night's visit comes two years after Mr Xi famously visited a dumpling shop in Beijing in an apparent attempt to seem more of a man of the people.
Earlier, Samantha Cameron chose a stylish £550 handbag to gift to China's First Lady when she visits the Prime Minister's country home.
The charcoal 'Albion Square' tote bag, by London-based designer Sophie Hulme, is believed to be among gifts that were exchanged last night.
The Camerons were hosting President Xi Jinping and Madame Peng Liyuan at Chequers yesterday evening.
The visiting dignitaries will join the Camerons for a private dinner, where discussions are expected to take place on China's role in international relations.
The visitors were last night due to fly to Manchester ahead of the final day of their four-day state visit.
Visit: Mr Cameron (right) welcomes Mr Xi to his official residence at Chequers, near Butler's Cross in Buckinghamshire
Welcome: Mr Cameron (right) walks in the gardens as he greets the Chinese President (centre) and an interpreter (left) at Chequers
Talks: Mr Cameron (centre right) speaks with Mr Xi (centre left) as they and their delegations met at the Prime Minister's country residence
Guests: President Xi and First Lady Peng Liyuan spoke to Her Majesty at the entrance to the palace, where they have been staying
Stylish: Madame Peng wore a sleek grey cape over her ensemble as she visited the Royal College of Music in London
Samantha Cameron |
to premiere in 2015 and will feature six competitors as they tackle ingenious challenges to sketch, design and build extraordinary furniture in just 24 hours. Throughout the series, the contestants must showcase their creativity and versatility to impress a panel of judges. The last one standing will win a cash prize.
“I’m so excited about this show because I love finding really special pieces of furniture,” said DeGeneres. “One time I found a beautiful one-of-a-kind armoire that spoke to me in a way I’d never experienced. It turned out there was a drifter living inside of it, but that’s a story for another time.”
During the series, thecompetitors will face design challenges that will keep them on their toes and, since the clock will be ticking, they will be paired with an expert carpenter to help them complete the task at hand. The series will highlight Ellen’s passion for furniture and house design as well as her expertise in the subject. In addition, there will be a six-part online companion series that will invite visitors to participate in another side of the competition and get to know the designers even better.
“There has been a lot of dancing in our halls since we shared that we will be collaborating with Ellen,” said Kathleen Finch, president, HGTV and DIY Network. “When she talked to us about her love of buying and renovating homes, her personal passion for the creative process of furniture design emerged as something that she wanted to explore more. Since HGTV is the ultimate forum in this space, and since no other network can deliver an audience who is as enthusiastic as she is about the creative process, we just had to make it happen.”
Executive producers for the series are Ellen, Jeff Kleeman of A Very Good Production, and Arthur Smith, Kent Weed and Jay Bienstock of A. Smith & Co.
ABOUT TELEPICTURES
Telepictures is an industry-leading and Emmy® Award–winning producer of innovative, multiplatform advertiser-friendly television series and digital content for the first-run syndication, cable and digital marketplace. Programs produced by Telepictures have won 77 Emmy® Awards in the last 17 years, including Outstanding Talk Show or Outstanding Talk Show Host for 14 of the last 16 years. For the current 2013–14 season, Telepictures is producing the following series: The Ellen DeGeneres Show, bethenny, TMZ, TMZ Live, Extra, Judge Mathis, The People’s Court and Let’s Ask America. #CandidlyNicole debuts July 17 on VH1, The Keke Palmer Project (working title) will bow in summer 2014 for an initial four-week run on BET, and talk show The Real will launch in national syndication in fall 2014. For more information about Telepictures programming, please visit www.telepicturestv.com.
ABOUT A VERY GOOD PRODUCTION
A Very Good Production (AVGP) is the Emmy®-winning television and film production company of producer/writer/actor/host Ellen DeGeneres. Based at Warner Bros. Television Group (WBTVG) with an exclusive multiyear deal, AVGP produces the nationally syndicated daytime talk program The Ellen DeGeneres Show and develops television projects for all divisions of WBTVG, including scripted and primetime series, as well as additional syndicated fare. AVGP’s current slate of projects includes the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment original movie Sophia Grace & Rosie’s Royal Adventure, to be released on May 20, 2014, as well as Ellen’s Design Challenge, a new design competition program for HGTV, scheduled to debut in 2015. In addition, AVGP’s film projects include Sing You Home, based on the Jodi Picoult novel, and an untitled feature starring DeGeneres and Rebel Wilson. Jeff Kleeman serves as President of A Very Good Production.
ABOUT A. SMITH & CO
A. Smith & Co. Productions creates some of the most innovative, highly rated and high-quality programming for the domestic and international television marketplace. The company has produced more than 2,000 hours of award-winning programming. Current productions include such hits as Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, American Ninja Warrior, Unsung, Full Throttle Saloon, Burns BBQ, Celebrity Crime Files, Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, Too Young to Marry?, Save Our Business, UFC Countdown, Joe Rogan Questions Everything, Divorce Hotel and many others. A. Smith & Co.’s library of programming includes hit shows such as Paradise Hotel, I Survived a Japanese Game Show, The Swan, Trading Spaces, Pros vs. Joes and Skating with Celebrities. A. Smith & Co. has developed and produced the No. 1 show in America 25 times and a Top 10 show more than 200 times, producing programs with budgets totaling approximately one billion dollars for more than 42 broadcast and cable networks.
ABOUT HGTV
America’s leading home and lifestyle brand, HGTV features a top-rated cable network that is distributed to more than 98 million U.S. households and the HGTV website, HGTV.com, the nation’s leading online home-and-garden destination that attracts an average of four million unique visitors per month. The brand also includes the HGTV HOME™ consumer products line which showcases exclusive collections of paint, flooring, lighting, furniture, plants, fabrics and other home-oriented products. In partnership with Hearst Magazines, the HGTV Magazine, a home and lifestyle publication, is currently available on newsstands. Viewers can become fans of HGTV and interact with other home improvement enthusiasts through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., HGTV is wholly owned by Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI).
SOURCE: HGTV
HGTV
Lynne Davis, 212-549-8612
ldavis@hgtv.com
or
Warner Bros./Telepictures
Tammy Golihew, 818-954-4855
tammy.golihew@warnerbros.com
or
Laura Mandel,212-506-4355
laura.mandel@warnerbros.com
Copyright Business Wire 2014The damaged OSCE vehicle that drove over a mine in eastern Ukraine, killing one American. Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
The U.S. State Department has said it was "shocked" over the death of a U.S. citizen serving as an international monitor in the conflict zone in Ukraine and called on Russia to use its influence to allow a full investigation.
The comments came on April 23 after the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said a member of its monitoring staff was killed and two more were injured after their vehicle hit a mine in eastern Ukraine in an area controlled by Russia-backed separatists.
The OSCE said the two injured members were sent to the hospital for treatment.
A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry official confirmed the fatality to RFE/RL and said the person killed in the blast was an American paramedic.
In its statement released late on April 23, the State Department said it was "shocked and deeply saddened" by the death of the American citizen "when his vehicle struck an explosive in separatist-controlled territory."
"This death underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which these courageous monitors work, including access restrictions, threats, and harassment," the statement said. "The United States urges Russia to use its influence with the separatists to allow the OSCE to conduct a full, transparent, and timely investigation."
It did not identify the U.S. citizen.
It was the first reported death among OSCE staff members, who were first deployed to the region in 2014 to monitor the cease-fires between the Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces in a conflict that has killed at least 9,940 people.
Map of war in Ukraine. Ministry of Defense Ukraine
EU foreign-affairs chief Federica Mogherini said the incident was a "reminder of the urgent need for progress on a peaceful resolution of the conflict." A spokesman for Austria's Foreign Ministry said one of the injured was a German woman. The other injured person is a Czech citizen, the OSCE said in a press conference held hours after the incident.
An OSCE official told RFE/RL that the names of those involved would be released after their families had been notified.
The OSCE members were on patrol in the separatist-held village of Pryshyb in the Luhansk region when the vehicle is believed to have struck a mine and exploded, the official told RFE/RL.
The Ukrainian military said the incident took place at 10:17 a.m. local time (0717 UTC/GMT).
Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, who holds the rotating chairmanship of the OSCE, called for an investigation into the incident and, in a tweet, said he had spoken to the mission's ambassador, Ertugrul Apakan.
"Need thorough investigation; those responsible will be held accountable," he said on Twitter.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a similar call.
German Chancellor Merkel attends a news conference following a meeting of the heads of international economy and finance organizations at the Chancellery in Berlin Thomson Reuters
"The federal government expects that the parties to the conflict immediately do everything possible to ascertain how we reached this tragic point and who holds responsibility for it," she said.
She also noted it was time for all sides to start honoring a long-promised cease-fire, but noted that the Russia-backed rebels bore the greater responsibility to make sure that happened.
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel expressed concern about the killing. "Someone who just wanted to help create peace and put an end to the fighting has lost his life today," he said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko instructed Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin to keep the OSCE informed of Kyiv's investigation into the blast.
"This crime must be investigated and those responsible must be punished," Poroshenko wrote on Facebook.
"Ukraine condemns all forms of constant resistance by the rebels to the OSCE SMM's work," he added.
A statement issued by the Russia-backed separatists in Luhansk on their website claimed that the OSCE team had veered off the main road and was traveling along an unsafe route.
President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York Thomson Reuters
"We know that this patrol team deviated from the main route and was moving along secondary roads, which is prohibited by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission mandate," the separatist statement said.
Eduard Basurin, a senior separatist figure, said the OSCE vehicle "deviated from its main route and moved onto back roads" when it struck what he said was an antitank mine.
The separatists' claim could not be confirmed.
The unarmed, civilian OSCE mission, with more than 700 international observers, seeks to reduce tensions and report on the situation on the ground in Ukraine.
In March, the 57 member states of the OSCE, which include Ukraine, Russia, and the United States, decided by consensus to extend the mandate of the mission for another year, its third extension since it was first deployed in Ukraine in 2014.
Western countries have imposed sanctions on Moscow for its illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and its support for the separatists in eastern Ukraine.
With reporting by Christopher Miller, AFP, and ReutersWe’re less than one month away from the return of The CW’s Riverdale and we couldn’t be more excited. If you’re looking for something to do in-between re-watching the series on Netflix, you’re in luck – Betty and Veronica just launched an end-of-summer sale on tons of items!
Pledge your allegiance to B&V in Team Betty or Team Veronica tees or let Archie know you are an independent woman (cue Destiny’s Child) in the Nobody’s Girls polo. You’ll also find joggers, crop tops, and other *adorable* clothing at discounted prices – but hurry, this sale only lasts until September 29th. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got some shopping to do.
You can shop the full Betty and Veronica clothing line now at www.bettyandveronica.com
This slideshow requires JavaScript.It had all the makings of a classic series with NBA MVP Stephen Curry and the game’s premiere player LeBron James coming into Game 1 of the NBA Finals, and it didn’t disappoint. Game 1 of the 2015 NBA Finals, in which the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in an overtime thriller 108-100 pulled in a whopping 12.9 overnight national rating, making it the highest-rated NBA Finals Game 1 ever on ABC, according to Nielsen. The broadcast peaked with a 15.6 from 11:30 p.m.-11:45 p.m. ET.
To compare and contrast this NBA Finals Game 1 was up 24 percent from a 10.4 for last year’s Game 1 between the LeBron James led Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs.
When the final numbers are all in from Nielsen, Disney-owned ABC and the NBA Finals are expected to win the night across television for the 43rd consecutive time.
The game which saw LeBron James drop 44 points in a losing effort, yet had the Warriors defense be a key factor down the stretch, especially from Andre Iguodala, drew incredible numbers locally.
Game 1 on ABC delivered a 41.4 rating in the Cleveland market and a 28.9 in the San Francisco market. Both are the highest-rated NBA games on ABC ever in the respective markets. Based on overnight TV ratings for Game 1 of the NBA Finals, here are the top 10 local markets :
Market Rating Cleveland 41.4 San Francisco 28.9 Columbus 21.1 Memphis 19.9 Norfolk 16.5 Miami-Ft. Lauderdale 16.2 Sacramento 15.7 Atlanta 15.6 Richmond-Petersburg 15.2 Raleigh-Durham 15.0
NBA Countdown – ABC’s NBA Finals pre-game show – generated a 4.6 overnight rating, which is up 18 percent from 3.9 for the corresponding show leading into Game 1 in 2014.Hernandez told a pool reporter there was not enough clear proof to overturn the original call.
"It wasn't evident on the TV we had it was a home run," Hernandez said. "I don't know what kind of replay you had, but you can't reverse a call unless there is 100 percent evidence and there wasn't 100 percent evidence."
Perez wound up loading the bases before getting the final out as the Indians won for the ninth time in 10 games.
Nick Swisher and Carlos Santana homered for Cleveland, which improved to 12-4 since April 20.
Following the game, a few Indians players scrambled to find a remote so they could turn up the TV volume and hear Melvin's comments.
"If it hit the pad, it would have just hit the pad and come down softly," Melvin said. "Clearly there was a ricochet."
Under Major League Baseball rules, once the replay is requested and the review is made, the call stands.
Before the umpires returned to the field, Perez seemed resigned that he had blown the lead. Indians manager Terry Francona, too, checked his scorecard perhaps thinking about some moves he might have to make because the game was now tied.
As the umpires emerged from watching the video, Rosales leaned off the bag at second ready to resume his home run trot. He never got started.
With the umpires satisfied they got the call correct, the A's were forced to try to tie it another way.
They nearly did as Perez hit Eric Sogard and John Jaso walked after a nine-pitch at-bat to load the bases. But Perez got Seth Smith to hit a comebacker and ran the ball to first base and stepped on the bag to end the controversial ninth.
"Wet ground, the way the game had been going, I made sure he (Smith) wasn't gaining on me," Perez said, smiling. "It's a lot easier to go over there myself."
Before the dramatic finish, the Indians trailed 3-0 until scoring twice in the fifth and getting the homers from Swisher and Santana off A.J. Griffin (3-3) in the sixth.
Justin Masterson (5-2) allowed three runs in seven innings and got his second career win over Oakland.
Cleveland is 12-4 since April 20 and three games over.500 for the first time this season. The Indians will try to sweep the four-game series on Thursday.
The aching A's fell to 6-13 against the AL Central and East. They are 13-3 inside their own division. Oakland has seven players on the disabled list, including three outfielders.
Down 3-2 in the sixth, Swisher and Santana connected off Griffin and the Indians held on to improve to 7-1 on this homestand. About the only thing that isn't climbing for Cleveland is the attendance. The Indians are averaging just 14,411 fans per game -- last in the majors.
With one out in the sixth, Swisher launched his fourth homer into the right field seats. He was still slapping hands with some teammates, when one out later, Santana ripped his seventh homer over the center-field wall, a shot that had the excitable Swisher doing a little dance in Cleveland's dugout.
It was the 10th time this season that Cleveland, which leads the AL with 46 homers, has hit two homers in one inning.
Masterson continued Cleveland's run of stellar starting pitching. In the last nine games, Indians starters are 8-1 with a 2.64 ERA.
Game notes
The Indians will re-evaluate OF Michael Bourn's status following his game with Triple-A Columbus. Bourn has been on the disabled list since April 15 after slicing open his right index finger and needing stitches. He could be activated for this weekend's series in Detroit. "We'll do whatever is in his best interest," Francona said.... Melvin believes RHP Jarrod Parker is on track to make his next start Saturday despite a chronic sore neck. He left Monday's start after five innings -- and giving up four homers. "It's something he's worked through before and my guess is he'll work through it again," Melvin said.... A's LHP Brett Anderson (sprained ankle) threw a bullpen session that Melvin said went well. Anderson will go on a rehab assignment before he's activated.... The A's released LHP Jordan Noberto to make room on the 40-man roster for Barton.a real woman in technology using technology in 2009 whoa grrrl
What To Expect When Working With a Woman in Technology
It’s time for folks to learn what it’s really like to work with us
Jenn Schiffer Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 26, 2013
There will always be debates on Twitter and Hacker News about sexism in the tech industry, and it will always lead to some folks making assumptions on what to expect when you’re working with one of us gals. Some think we can’t “take a joke” and are “too sensitive,” leading to a fun-free work environment.
It’s time for this nonsense to stop. I wrote this short, simple–yet thoroughly researched–guide to help you prepare yourself in case you end up having to work with one of us.
1. When a woman has root access to your company’s main server, you should expect her not to murder people.
Women in technology are not allowed to murder people. It’s goes against ethics in computer science, and you have a right to feel secure in that you won’t be murdered. If she does murder someone, call the police immediately. If she murders you, tell human resources.
2. When a woman has completed a round of unit testing and is sharing her results with the rest of the dev team, you should expect her not to replace all of the pens in your desk with poisonous snakes.
We know women in technology should not murder, and the same goes for women in technology using animals to potentially harm coworkers. If you feel comfortable locking your desk drawers, that’s your prerogative, but you should be okay otherwise. If she does pull this stunt, notify human resources–or animal control, if both departments are not the same in your company.
3. While going over requirements analysis for a new piece of software which you’ll be developing with a woman, you should expect her not to projectile vomit confetti into the refrigerator of the company kitchen.
A woman in technology who knows the process of software engineering is likely to not do something so rude, regardless of how fun-looking the results. You should expect her to use the garbage or toilet like anyone else projectile vomiting confetti. Consider your lunch safe and party-free. In the case she does this, though, break the glass to release the emergency DustBuster and kindly clean up her mess.
4. When watching a woman speak at a web developer conference, you should expect her not to point a laser right at your eye until you’ve gone partially blind.
The woman speaking on stage will be distracted by the task of speaking on stage and will mostly like point the laser at her slides and not your eye. If you suspect a potential laser blinding incident, notify the conference organizers. They are there to prevent situations like this.
5. When you and a woman are collaborating on an open source JavaScript application, you should expect her to not shave your head and glue the hair to your work laptop screen.
Vandalizing corporate machines and basically assaulting a coworker with a buzzer are two violations that have nothing to do with programming and, therefore, are unlikely to be acted by a woman on your dev team. Just like with snakes in the desk, contacting human resources is the best course of action if this were to happen. I guess IT should know about the laptop, too.Russian agents all across Europe are engaged in a campaign of feces terror against helpless U.S. diplomats and their carpets, according to anonymous but very reliable sources that spoke with a celebrated Washington Post stenographer.
For most Americans, Josh Rogin is the nice man they sometimes see on television patiently explaining why we need to drop bombs on someone far, far away. For Russia watchers in particular, he is celebrated for his invaluable contributions to the always-growing list of things that Moscow has somehow "weaponized."
As a very serious journalist with lots of fancy friends in Washington, Rogin is usually one pile of crap ahead of other professional fearmongers. Sometimes he even beats Anne Applebaum to a hot, steamy scoop, as his latest investigation into the rude behavior of Russia's notorious Federal Security Service (FSB) clearly shows:
Potty tactics In a series of secret memos sent back to Washington, described to me by several current and former U.S. officials who have written or read them, diplomats reported that Russian intruders had broken into their homes late at night, only to rearrange the furniture or turn on all the lights and televisions, and then leave. One diplomat reported that an intruder had defecated on his living room carpet.
Holy guacamole. Anonymous sources always have the best stories. We are jealous of Josh Rogin, who probably has a grand time sitting around the campfire with all his anonymous source friends, singing songs and making s'mores and telling scary stories about clandestine Russian poop bombings. (Important sidenote: Michael McFaul was brave enough to tell Rogin lies on the record.)
But -- and we're not trying to be pedantic here -- are we so sure that it was a FSB agent with loose bowels who desecrated this diplomat's carpet, and not, you know...the family Labrador? And is it even clear whether or not this poop-stained carpet exists in the first place (sorry for getting all metaphysical)?
Of course the Russian government denied pooping on any carpets, which is exactly what a carpet pooper would do.
This episode seems strangely similar to the trials and tribulations of Luke Harding, the one-time Moscow correspondent for the Guardian. Luke, as you might recall, was the victim of a campaign of FSB terror during his short time in Russia. Trigger warning:
When his screensaver at work is changed, it is the FSB. When his press accreditation is withdrawn, it is part of the FSB plot - despite his admission that he had broken the terms. When the Russians show leniency and extend his visa to enable his children to finish school, he reflects that this ‘was always part of the (FSB) plan’. Like the BBC attributing all possible weather conditions to climate change, one wonders what combination of events would not constitute an FSB plot.
Maybe Putin really did poop on that poor diplomat's carpet? It is technically within the realm of physical possibility, which apparently is the only prerequisite for blaming something on Russia.
We shall give Mr. Harding the last word:“It’s 2:30 in the morning and my phone rings. My daughter says, ‘Daddy, you need to come to the hospital,’ ” Michael Bell told me, of the moment in 2004 when he learned that his son had been shot by a police officer in their hometown, Kenosha, Wis.
Twenty-one-year-old Michael Bell Jr. died that night from a bullet wound to the head. In the nightmarish hours that followed, his father expected independent investigators to arrive on the scene and find out what had gone wrong. A former Air Force pilot, he knew that when an accident happened in the military, a forensic team performed an exhaustive review. Above all, he wanted to make sure that if a mistake had contributed to his son’s death, it would be identified and fixed, so that nothing like it would happen again.
This investigative method is standard in aviation. When a plane crashes, experts pick through the wreckage to determine the cause and make recommendations to prevent the next accident. The process is so effective that for the last several years, the death rate from crashes of American commercial planes has been zero. But no comparable system exists in policing — and that may help explain why you are far more likely to die at the hands of a cop than to perish in an plane crash. Police officers in the United States now kill about 1,000 people and wound more than 50,000 every year.French President Emmanuel Macron chided his American counterpart Donald Trump for pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement – and he did so by using Trump’s own words against him.
Fresh off of his protracted handshake battle with Trump last week, Macron gave a televised speech Thursday which he concluded in English, urging viewers to “make our planet great again.”
READ MORE: Emmanuel Macron says Donald Trump handshake ‘wasn’t innocent’
The remarks came hours after Trump confirmed that the U.S. would withdraw from the landmark accord, signed by over 190 countries in Paris in 2015, through which the world’s largest economy committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 per cent to 28 percent from 2005 levels by the year 2025.
Trump’s announcement drew condemnation from far and wide, with world leaders including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Angela Merkel voicing their disappointment, and business leaders like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein also expressing their disgruntlement.
Paris city headquarters lights up in green in Trump protest 00:26 Paris city headquarters lights up in green in Trump protest 01:25 Canada ‘disappointed’ by U.S. decision to withdraw from Paris accords 02:02 Pittsburgh Mayor Peduto fires back after Trump used their state to justify Paris climate accord withdrawal 01:52 President Trump outlines ways Paris Accord is ‘unfair’ to U.S. 00:38 One World Trade Center lights up in green after Trump opts out of Paris climate agreement
However, few comments are likely to rankle Trump as much as Macron’s.
In addition to putting a cheeky twist on Trump’s signature campaign cry, “Make America great again,” the recently-elected French president also made a bid to position France as the next global leader in the fight against climate change.
READ MORE: Trump offered to ‘negotiate’ Paris climate accord; European countries said no
“To all scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, responsible citizens who were disappointed by the decision of the president of the United States, I want to say that they will find in France a second homeland,” Macron said.
“Come and work here with us, to work together on concrete solutions for our climate, our environment. I can assure you, France will not give up the fight.”
Macron also shared his newly coined climate change slogan on his official Twitter account.
Follow @KalvapalleBlumenthal, pictured here in 1998, was not employed at the State Department when he drafted the Libya memos. Blumenthal will testify June 16 before Benghazi panel
A key ally of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi this month.
The Benghazi panel announced Friday that Sidney Blumenthal will appear before the committee on June 16 to answer questions about memos he drafted on Libya when Clinton ran the State Department.
Story Continued Below
The interview will be closed to the public.
“This appearance before the Select Committee on Benghazi involves a witness deposition, which is typically done in private,” according to an advisory from the committee. “The session will be closed to the media.”
Blumenthal came to the attention of Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chairman of the Benghazi panel, after the committee was given thousands of pages of documents from Clinton’s tenure that showed Blumenthal and the secretary traded frequent emails on the security and diplomatic environments in Libya before and after the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks.
Blumenthal — an adviser to former President Bill Clinton — was not employed at the State Department when he drafted the Libya memos. But he was being paid by the Clinton Foundation at the time.
Hillary Clinton had wanted to bring Blumenthal aboard at the State Department when President Barack Obama tapped her as secretary, but his nomination was blocked because Obama’s advisers distrusted the longtime Clinton confidante.
Instead, Bill Clinton helped secure Blumenthal a $10,000-a-month job at the Clinton Foundation. Blumenthal also had a number of business interests in Libya and he advised companies seeking contracts in the country.
Those connections have caused Republicans to question the independence of the advice he provided Clinton as Libya was wracked by violence in 2012.
Emails released by the State Department last month showed that Blumenthal was a prolific correspondent with Clinton. The two traded emails on Libya as well as on more informal matters like dinner invitations.
Many of Blumenthal’s emails were based on unnamed sources he claimed were deeply involved in the Libyan and European governments. His analysis of Libya was often met with skepticism by senior State Department staff when Clinton forwarded them to aides like Jake Sullivan.
Gowdy has said he wants to interview Blumenthal to better understand how seriously Clinton’s State Department took his advice.A fan attending a Texas Rangers game died Thursday night after falling out of the stands behind the left-field wall.
Texas Rangers team president Nolan Ryan held a news conference Friday afternoon saying the tragedy was one of the saddest things he's ever seen in a ballpark.
The man, 39-year-old Brownwood firefighter Lt. Shannon Stone, fell after reaching to get a ball that was tossed into the stands by Rangers left fielder Josh Hamilton in the second inning. Stone had been a firefighter for nearly 18 years, according to a report in the Brownwood Bulletin.
"We are deeply saddened to learn that the man who fell has passed away as a result of this tragic accident," Rangers president Nolan Ryan said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with his family."
Nolan Ryan on Fan's Death
Team president Nolan Ryan talks about Shannon Stone's death and what it means for the team going forward. (Published Friday, July 8, 2011)
Witness Jamie Houston said Hamilton threw the ball into the stands after a foul ball hit an empty seat and bounced back onto the field.
"The guy went to catch it, and he did catch it," he said. "As he caught it, he leaned over and fell all the way down behind the scoreboard."
The Rangers said Stone fell approximately 20 feet from section 5 in the left-field lower reserved seats at about 7:30 p.m.
Fan Dies After Fall at Ballpark
Fan dies after fall from Ballpark stands. (Published Friday, July 8, 2011)
The Arlington Fire Department said another fan tried to grab Stone's shirt but was unable to hold on.
Stone's son was with him but did not fall, fire officials said.
"He had a little boy with him," said Jerry Newman, who was sitting near the man. "We took his little boy to the police, and they took him around there to join him."
Weird News Photos: Holiday Edition
The area where Stone landed was out of sight from the field. There is a gap of several feet between the 14-foot-high wall and front row of seats, which are only slightly higher than the wall.
There was an audible gasp from the crowd when Stone went over the rail.
"Our little grandson loves baseball. He was just doing what any dad would do -- reaching for that ball for his little boy,” said Stone's mother.
Will Jennifer Hudson Find "Love"?
Jennifer Hudson chats about the concept behind her "No One Gonna Love You" music video. Also, she talks about her outfit changes in the music video. Plus, Jennifer laughs off the bed scene and says it's going to be "tame." (Published Tuesday, March 4, 2014)
Ryan said the Rangers and their staff were very heavy-hearted as they learned about Stone's death.
"We spoke to the ballclub so they understood what happened, and I spoke to Josh," Ryan told reporters after the game. "I think, as any of us would be, Josh is very distraught over this, as the entire team is."
"It's sad; it's very sad," Rangers manager Ron Washington said after the game.
The visitor's bullpen is in left-center field. Athletics reliever Brad Ziegler was in tears after the game when he found out the man had died.
"They had him on a stretcher. He said, 'Please check on my son. My son was up there by himself.' The people who carried him out reassured him. 'Sir, we'll get your son; we'll make sure he's OK,"' Ziegler said. "He had his arms swinging. He talked and was conscious. We assumed he was okay. But when you find out he's not, it's just tough."
The Rangers released a statement shortly after 10 p.m. saying Stone had died.
In a statement released a short time later, the Arlington Fire Department said Stone went into full arrest on the way to John Peter Smith Hospital. He was pronounced dead at the hospital at about 8:26 p.m., fire officials said in the statement.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office determined Stone died of blunt force trauma sustained in the fall.
Another Fall at the Ballpark
One year and one day earlier, a fan at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington fell 30 feet from the second deck of seats down the first base side while trying to catch a foul ball.
Tyler Morris, a firefighter, sustained a fractured skull and sprained ankle in the July 6, 2010, fall.
Morris told reporters as he left the hospital last year that he did not blame the Rangers or the ballpark, saying his fall was an accident that "could have happened to anybody."
Ryan said Thursday that it was too early to talk about the two falls and what evaluations the team might make about railings at the stadium.
"Tonight, we are not prepared to speak about anything further than the accident and the tragedy," Ryan said. "That's where I'm going to leave it."
NBC DFW's Frank Heinz and Deborah Ferguson, as well as The Associated Press, contributed to this report.Not only does it speak volumes about 20th century Spanish society that one of its greatest poets and dramatists was persecuted, censored, and murdered, but Blood Wedding remains edgier than most American fare in this century.
Blood Wedding by Frederick García Lorca. Translated by Richard L. O’Connell and James Graham-Luján. Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques. Presented by Apollinaire Theatre Company at PORT Park in Chelsea, MA through July 26.
(On Friday nights of the run Apollinaire cedes the stage to Escena Latina Teatro, under the direction of Juan Pedro Panigua for a performance of Bodas de Sangre in the original Spanish. The free production will also be presented in Mozart Park in Jamaica Plain on July 30.)
By Ian Thal
For Americans, Blood Wedding (Bodas de Sangre) is Federico García Lorca’s best known play. It was first produced in 1933, three years before his assassination by nationalist forces in the early days of the Spanish Civil War: whether the killers were motivated by his politics, his homosexuality, or both is still disputed by his biographers. The play, like his other writings, was officially banned by the Falangist regime of Federico Franco until 1953. Not only does it speak volumes about 20th century Spanish society that one of its greatest poets and dramatists was persecuted, censored, and murdered, but the play remains edgier than most American fare in this century.
Lorca’s imagined rural Spain, though inhabited by fantastic personages, is not the timeless past of fables, but a slowly changing land with a distinctive history. Sons are not just expected to continue a family line, but to somehow turn barren territory into fertile lands; owners, despite their wealth, do not enjoy lives of leisure but work side-by-side with their servants. Marriages do not just join families but the lands they work. Generations of blood and sweat feeding the soil means that families belong to the land as much as the land belongs to them. Families that cannot manage land send their sons to work in factories where they risk injury. These are the serious considerations at play when the families of the bride (Karoline Xu) and groom (David J. Castillo) agree to the betrothal.
The bride’s father (Tony Dangerfield) hopes for many grandsons to transform his wastelands, suitable only for growing hemp, into lush orchards. Meanwhile, the groom’s mother (Mariela Lopez-Ponce) hopes for granddaughters to whom she may teach embroidery and songs. As for young men, their lives are more perilous, often cut short on the end of a knife.
Because it is a world of primal roles, not individuals, Lorca leaves all but one of his characters unnamed: Leonardo (Mauro Canepa), the bride’s former suitor, now married to the bride’s cousin (Anneke Reich). He is a man of hot passions and little compassion, who exhausts the horse he races around the countryside, and shows little concern for his wife, infant son, or mother-in-law (Liz Adams). He harbors an unconsummated lust for the bride he once courted. Not content with what he sees as his diminished place in society, he knowingly turns the pageant into tragedy, fully aware that his actions will mean his death and perhaps the demise of others. The only other names are reserved for |
two years in the corporate offices of Segundo California where he ended his career with Mattel in 1994.Fortunately for you, just about anything can be taught by just about anyone thanks to the power of the interwebs, so stand back and allow me of all people to educate you in the Five Indubitable Laws of Effective Prose.
So, you have a terrible idea for an eBook and you’re ready to turn it into a lousy publication that absolutely no one will want to read. But in order to do that, you’re going to need a basic command of the English language — and you’re nowhere near that level of literary proficiency!
Figurative language is your friend.
Whether you’re writing historical fiction about Pearl Harbor or hysterical fiction about your wife Pearl, you need to become versed in the art of using figurative language. Before you start scratching your head, I’m talking about metaphors and similes. A metaphor is a symbol, a tiny word-shaped bird that flies into your eyeball and makes a picture appear in your brain. A simile is like a metaphor. The flowerier the better — don’t hold back! For example, the sentence “He gave her a hug and then continued playing ping pong” would sell a lot more copies if it read something like;
“He embraced her diaphanous bodice with the passion of a thousand suns, like the Egyptian demigods of ancient times, and then continued playing ping pong.”
Give your characters distinct voices.
If you want to write dialogue like a pro (or even like an elementary school amateur), you’ll need to imbue your various characters with distinct and engaging voices. If all of your characters have the same manner of speaking, your reader will get bored and may decide to come round to your house and beat you with a large stick. As an example, consider this conversation between two characters.
Don Giovanni turned to Mr. Fotherington-Wordsworth. “I don’t like you very much,” said Don Giovanni. “The feeling is mutual,” said Mr. Fotherington-Wordsworth. Then they fought to the death.
This would have been much more engaging and contextually appropriate if the characters had spoken in distinct voices, like so:
Don Giovanni turned flamboyantly to Mr. Fotherington-Wordsworth. “I donna like you a very mucha!” he exclaimed, eating a large meatlovers pizza.” “The feeling is quite entirely mutual my very good dear sir,” chortled Mr. Fotherington-Wordsworth, sipping Earl Grey tea out of a large crumpet.
Then they fought to the death.
In this way, you have simply but meaningfully transformed your characters into differentiated individuals with their own unique and culturally appropriate personalities. Kudos.
Use proper grammar and spelling.
Nothing irritates your reader more than wading through poor grammar and spelling, except for wading through your pathetic plot and listless narrative voice. So you need to make sure your spell-checker is enabled, that your grammar is correct, and that you’re righting doesn’t completely sock. Some common mistakes to avoid include:
Dangling prepositions — as in the sentence “he dangled his preposition out of the window of a moving vehicle.” Unnecessary repetition of words — as in the sentence “that that that that that that that his his monkey.” Poor sentence structure or syntax — as in the sentence “he his sentence poorly structured.” (A good test: if your sentence would sound normal in Yoda’s voice, it’s wrong) Incorrect use of apostrophes — as in the sentence “he’s its went to theirs with ours’ Roosevelt.”
Ensure narrative and expressive continuity.
Your book may be bad, but it’s vital that you keep it consistently bad throughout. First, make sure that your facts check out by carefully re-reading the book. For example, if your protagonist is a 43-year-old school teacher on page 4 and a newborn labradoodle puppy on page 50, you may need to iron out some continuity errors. Second, be consistent in your use of tense and pronoun. For example, your narration should either be in the first-person (“I opened the door and discovered my girlfriend making love to some meringue”) or in the third-person (“He opened the door and discovered his girlfriend making love to some meringue”). It’s rare for books to be narrated in the second-person (“You opened the door and discovered your girlfriend making love to some meringue”), unless you’re trying to be particularly provocative or you happen to know something about the reader’s girlfriend that he doesn’t.
Finally, always use onomatopoeia at every available opportunity.
Onomatopoeia is a literary technique whereby a word sounds like the thing it is describing — for example, the car “whooshed”, the bird “cheeped,” the eBook writer “farted out another terrible eBook,” and so on. You should use this literary technique throughout your literary masterpiece, because it gives the reader a real sense of place and time, and also because it is a good excuse to write some funny words like “fupupupup” and “wha-bang”.Eddyguard (Twitter) (Soundcloud) has just cooked up a nice thing. This one is a little grimey remix of Bax, and it’s saying alot. All we have to do now is wait for the free download! Links will be here once available.
The free download has been released. The links are available below as always!
Also if you like, you can follow the picture for the link to the soundcloud page..
Download: MP3 (Official) (Official Mirror) – WAV (Official) (TPB Mirror) – Wiley Dub
Mosca – Bax (Eddy Guard Remix)
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Mosca Vs Wiley – Bax (Eddy’s Grime Refix)
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Coca-Cola, one of the planet’s giant corporations, is to be unceremoniously booted out of Bolivia. The announcement was made by Bolivian Minister of External Affairs, David Choquehuanca, who stated that the date chosen, December 21, coincides with the end of the cycle in the Mayan Calendar, the end of capitalism and the start of a culture of life.
Coca Cola will be expelled from Bolivia on the date that the Mayan calendar enters a new cycle – December 21. According to the Bolivian Minister of Foreign Affairs, David Choquehuanca, the decision was taken to expel Coca Cola on the date of the end of the Mayan calendar so as to create a pretext for celebrating the end of capitalism and the beginning of “the culture of life” in community-based societies. The celebration will take place at the Southern Hemisphere’s Summer Solstice on La Isla del Sol (Sun Isle) in Lake Titicaca.
“The twenty-first of December 2012 is the end of selfishness, of division. The twenty-first of December has to be the end of Coca Cola and the beginning of mocochinche (a local refreshing drink),” said the Foreign Minister at a political rally for Evo Morales. “The planets will line up after 26,000 years…it is the end of capitalism and the beginning of communitarianism,” he added.
http://www.trueactivist.com/coca-cola-to-be-booted-out-of-bolivia/Linkin Park is no stranger to the world of EDM. With two electronic influenced remix albums under their belt, and two mega collaborations with a superstar EDM artist, Steve Aoki, Linkin Park has continued to find ways to blend their genre-busting sound with elements of electronic music.
If you’ve kept an eye on AltWire as of late, you may have caught our special features last month where we asked both Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda to name their influences, and the music that made them what they are today. However, that wasn’t all we had in store for Linkin Park fans! Recently, during rehearsals for LP’s upcoming return to the stage at this year’s Rock In Rio USA concert in Las Vegas, we were able to catch Mike Shinoda for a very quick Q&A to talk about the band’s work on “Darker Than Blood,” their future 7th album, Hybrid Theory’s 15th anniversary, and even to discuss those persistent rumors of an upcoming Fort Minor resurgence.
Check it out below!
AW: If I understand correctly, work on Darker Than Blood began almost two years ago. Was the first demo of this track created during the writing and recording sessions for A Light That Never Comes, or did work begin on it after the fact?
Mike Shinoda [Linkin Park]: We started “A Light That Never Comes” and “Darker Than Blood” at the same time, but ALTNC came together faster. We actually finished “Darker Than Blood” during our Hunting Party sessions, where we were pretty much writing nothing but heavy rock the whole time, which might be why it finally came together. It was a change of pace at the time.
AW: Musically the two songs feel very different. Would you say the writing process for both songs was very similar, or was there some big differences when it came to creating each track?
MS: I wanted “A Light That Never Comes” to be more of a Linkin Park song, and “Darker Than Blood” to be more of an Aoki song. We did more of the heavy lifting on the former, Steve did more of the work on the music track of the latter.
AW: Your band is no stranger to electronic music, having integrated elements of the genre into your own music, as well as supporting the genre through two remix albums. However your collaborations with Steve were the first time your band has written a completely new song with an electronic recording artist. What attracted you to wanting to work with Steve instead of the other big names in the business?
MS: We get along. It’s as simple as that. I feel like Steve is a friend I’d hang out with all the time if we weren’t on opposite sides of the globe playing shows!
AW: In the period leading up to THP’s release you were very vocal about the current state of rock and roll and how the genre has lost a bit of its punch. Coincidentally in the last few years, some electronic artists like Kill The Noise have expressed similar sentiments about the current state of EDM and electronic music. How do you feel about modern electronic music? Do you agree?
MS: It all ebbs and flows. For me, it’s not about leading a movement to change things as much as it’s a personal statement on a record—making something that inspires you and illustrates the kind of music you want to make and listen to.
AW: Later this year will be Hybrid Theory’s 15th Anniversary. It’s crazy to believe it’s already been that long, but none the less it’s a big milestone for the band. Any plans of a special tour, re-issue or other event/product to commemorate the upcoming anniversary?
MS: We’re not planning anything musically—no remasters, remixes, or re-releases— but rather plan to celebrate the anniversary in simpler terms. More to come on that later.
AW: Linkin Park seemed to have done everything lately. We have these electronic-driven collaborations with Steve, we’ve had the raw, rock energy of The Hunting Party, we’ve had the cinematic vibe of the Mall soundtrack… Where does Linkin Park go next?
MS: Creatively, we go wherever the music takes us. I’m really happy with the reaction from The Hunting Party, and I think we’re ready to move somewhere new on the next album, which will be coming next year. As usual, we’re also finding other ways to use our creative energy—most notably with a venture capital fund, to invest in and support consumer-facing tech companies we believe in. Technology has always played an integral role in the way we make music, bring it to the stage, and connect with fans, not to mention the way we simply live everyday life. So getting into deeper relationships with the technology community, collaborating and supporting brilliant young minds who want to change the world, that’s something we’re very passionate about right now.
AW: Lastly, in regards to upcoming projects…recent activity on Fort Minor’s social media profiles have lead to many fans believing that some new material may be in the works and that FM may finally make a return after a 10 year gap from the last record. Is there anything you can say at the moment to confirm or deny this speculation?
MS: If I were to ever bring Fort Minor back, the first place I’d say anything about it would be on social media. I’m @m_shinoda on Instagram, @mikeshinoda on Twitter, by the way.
Listen to “Darker Than Blood” by Steve Aoki ft. Linkin Park below:BUFFALO, N.Y. - 16 members of the Kingsmen Motorcycle club have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Buffalo.
They include the club's national President, David Pirk of Florida, as well as members from Tennessee and several from here in Western New York.
The 16 men are charged under racketeering laws, accused of drug dealing, prostitution, illegal gun sales, and assorted violence... including a double murder that happened at the Kingsmen clubhouse in North Tonawanda. in September 2014.
"Motorcycle gangs pose a serious national threat," said Special Agent in Charge Adam S. Cohen of the Buffalo division of the FBI. "They use their club houses for criminal activity, and are very problematic due to their organizational structure their sophisticated criminal experience and their inclination to resort to violence to protect their own interests. "
Andre Jenkins, who is serving life without parole for the murders of two fellow club members behind the Kingsmen clubhouse in September of 2014, is also among those facing federal charges now.
Prosecutors say Jenkins committed the execution style slayings of fellow Kingsmen Daniel 'D-J' Szymanski, 31, and Paul Maue, 38, on orders from Pirk.
Second Superseding Indictment KingsmenES 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 cyclist who broke his hip in an accident was forced to spend two hours lying on the roadside before being transported in the back of a furniture van flagged down by police because there were no ambulances available.
Andrew Knight, 36, compared his experience with the health care he had witnessed while living in Africa and said he was a victim of “unacceptable” budget cuts in the NHS.
Mr Knight, from Buckhurst Hill, Essex, was cycling to his local GP surgery in Debden when he slipped in oil on the road and fell off his bike.
A passer-by called 999 and two paramedics arrived in a car to treat him following the October 1 accident.
Librarian Mr Knight said: “The paramedics realised I’d either broken my hip or my leg. They said they couldn’t transport me in the back of the car with those kind of injuries so they called for an ambulance, but they were told there were none available.
“I was there for a long time - two hours - and in a lot of pain because I have a low resting heartbeat which means I couldn’t be given morphine. It was raining and I was getting really cold and shivery.
“Eventually more paramedics arrived with blankets but I was still lying on the roadside and I was told I wasn’t even on the waiting list for an ambulance because there was a shortage.
“The paramedics were really kind and professional and caring but they were all saying this was ludicrous and down to budget cuts.”
In despair, the paramedics called for an air ambulance but were told the nearest one, in Essex, couldn’t take off because of high winds. A second helicopter from Norfolk was scrambled but couldn’t land in the road because of safety problems so had to touch down a mile away from Mr Knight.
“A policeman flagged down a passing furniture van driver and asked him to take me,” said Mr Knight.
“The driver was a bit wary because he was delivering a table to Sir Alan Sugar and he was worried about being late, but he was really good and took me to the helicopter.”
He was airlifted to the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow where he underwent emergency surgery on his broken hip and spent five days recovering before being discharged home.
Mr Knight, who is expecting his first child with his girlfriend in February, said: “If anything can come of what happened to me, the first is that I want people to know that the paramedics, the police, the doctors and nurses who treated me and the passers-by who helped were all fantastic.
“But the other thing is that the lack of ambulances in this day and age is just unacceptable. I lived in Africa for a while and saw people waiting hours and hours for healthcare when they got ill - but this is London in the 21st century and it shouldn’t be happening here.”
A spokesman for the East of England Ambulance Service said: “Ambulance crews at the scenes of any incidents have to think quickly on their feet and make rapid decisions to treat and stabilise their patients.
“On this occasion, the crews were aware the ambulance en route to them was diverted to a more life threatening call so the decision was to utilise a vehicle to assist them to get the patient to the awaiting aircraft.”
“Crews often commandeer vehicles to help transport their patients to awaiting helicopters.”Subject: Please help me fight the sanctions imposed on me by University College Cork
Dear Colleagues,
The President of University College Cork, Professor Michael Murphy, has imposed harsh sanctions on me for doing nothing more than showing an article from a peer-reviewed scientific article to a colleague.
The article was about fellatio in fruit bats. You can read it online at http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0007595
It was covered extensively in the media, including the Guardian - see http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/nov/10/oral-sex-bats-improbable-research
The colleague to whom I showed the article complained to HR that the article was upsetting. I had been engaged in an ongoing debate with the colleague in question about the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour, and in particular about the dubiousness of many claims for human uniqueness. I showed it the colleague in the context of this discussion, and in the presence of a third person. I also showed the article to over a dozen other colleagues on the same day, none of whom objected.
HR launched a formal investigation. Despite the fact that external investigators concluded that I was not guilty of harassment, Professor Murphy has imposed a two-year period of intensive monitoring and counselling on me, and as a result my application for tenure is likely to be denied.
I am now campaigning to have the sanctions lifted. I would be grateful for your support on this matter. I have created an online petition at:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freedebate/
I'd be grateful if you sign the petition and ask your colleagues to do so. If you also felt like writing directly to the President of UCC, his address is:
Professor Michael Murphy
The President's Office
University College Cork
Cork
Republic of Ireland.
Your support would be greatly appreciated.
Dylan Evans
----------------------------------------------
Dr. Dylan Evans
Lecturer in Behavioural Science
School of Medicine
University College Cork,
Cork, Ireland.Edward Gaming finished a convincing 3-0 semifinal series against AHQ eSports Club. After the series, pawN, the team's mid laner, was available at a press conference to answer questions. Here are the questions and answers from the event.
What did you think about the international mid lane talent?
So before coming to MSI, what I had thought was that myself, Faker, Bjergsen, and Easyhoon were the best mid laners coming to MSI. Having matched up against them, I felt Bjergsen did not perform as well as I had anticipated. On the other hand, Febiven and Westdoor performed really well, so I was surprised.
You mentioned that Easyhoon was talented, but Faker played all five games, and we might expect Faker to play tomorrow. Who would you prefer to play tomorrow?
I would prefer to play Easyhoon.
Any reason why?
I feel Easyhoon is the better mid laner.
In the past, when you've faced Faker, you've been able to get the better of him both in terms of team results and one-on-one. Why do you think that is the case?
The reason that I could beat him one-on-one was that I simply did better than he did. The reason my team won against his was that our team had better teamwork.
What do you think you have to do to beat SKT tomorrow?
I didn't see any SKT games in which SKT just totally anihilated other people. They were pretty close matches. Tomorrow, as long as we do well in pick and ban, we should win.
You lost pretty heavily to SKT in group stages. What do you think you did wrong?
I think the picks and bans did not go as we had anticipated, so we had a composition in which we were all-in on the Tristana, but the Tristana did not grow that well after laning phase. Also, I was not able to beat my lane opponent. So that is why the game went pretty poorly.
I know during the LPL playoffs that you had a small leave of absence due to injury. Are you coming into MSI at your peak or are you still recovering?
I wouldn't say that the back injury that occurred in China is actually not affecting me now, but even then I am not in the ideal condition because of the jet lag, and I am currently suffering from an eye disease, so I'm not performing at my peak.
You, in particular on Edward Gaming in the LPL, played a wide variety of mid lane champions and some mid lane champions that your opposition or other players internationally weren't playing like Veigar, Lux, etc., and Koro1 said you were playing some things that might be silly, but what are your thoughts on that?
I actually don't think I pick champions to have fun. I pick champions that are good for playing in an actual match. I think they're serious picks.
What about Talon and Jayce. Will we see them at all against SKT?
Talon, I think, is a pretty terrible pick right now. Jayce, there is a possibility.
Both you and Faker have excelled on Cassiopeia in the past few days. Do you value this pick very highly, and do you think in the finals it will be valued as well?
I think we have a set number of mid champions and also AD carry champions that are being played over and over this tournament. I think the same champions will be played tomorrow.
If you had to compare your experiences on EDG, so far what are a lot of the team dynamics and differences compared to your past on Samsung White?
The biggest difference would be that Samsung White actually won the World Championship, and they have proved themselves to be the best. EDG, even though they have done pretty well in China so far, I think they are still on their way to becoming Champions.
Kelsey Moser is a staff writer for the Score eSports. She enjoys the China-Korea. You can follow her on Twitter.CIA Leaves Explosives On Virginia School Bus After Training Exercise
The CIA and sheriff's deputies in Loudoun County, Va., accidentally left some explosives in the engine of a school bus, the agency acknowledged. The bus carried kids for two days before mechanics discovered it was still there, but officials say the students were never in any danger. The CIA and local law enforcement have suspended the training program in which working dogs try to sniff out bombs.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This next story is not an April fools' joke. The CIA recently used a school bus for a training exercise near Washington, D.C., and when the agency gave the bus back, they accidentally left something behind, explosives by the engine of the bus. Nobody was hurt, and we have invited NPR's national security correspondent editor Phil Ewing to explain how on earth something like this could have happened. Phil, how does something like this happen?
PHIL EWING, BYLINE: Well, the CIA does these exercises with local agencies outside of Washington school districts, sheriff's offices, police departments, etc. And in this case, they were in Loudoun County outside of Washington, and the scenario was for bomb-sniffing dogs and these other teams to respond to a bomb threat, I guess, at this school.
And we don't know whether or not the dogs found this bomb and they just didn't take it out from under the hood of this bus or whether they didn't find it and that's why it was still there. But at the end of the day when they gave this bus back, they had left these explosives under the hood in the engine block.
SHAPIRO: And so a couple days later, a school mechanic finds the explosives under the hood. And in the meantime - what? - a bus driver is just driving around a school bus full of children with explosives under the hood?
EWING: Yeah, that's exactly right. Now, we understand that there was no danger here. A bomb was not going to go off. These explosives used in these scenarios - they're very chemically stable. And in fact with some plastic explosives, you can set them on fire, and they still won't go off. They need an electrical detonator or pressure to make them go boom. But in this case, clearly it's not something you expect to find when you look under the hood of a bus, and the CIA had to acknowledge that, in fact, it was left behind as part of this exercise.
SHAPIRO: I can imagine the parents in this school district getting the email saying there were explosives under the hood of your children's bus. We're not thrilled about that. Why would the CIA even use a real school bus for this type of exercise? They have their own vehicles.
EWING: Well, the goal is to make them as realistic as possible. And we understand from the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office that this also involved a high school. So there were explosives for training inside the school as well, whether they were in lockers or a classroom or the gym as well as the buses. And the idea was to make this as realistic as possible for these CIA and local K-9 teams to come in, respond to the threat and find the explosives.
SHAPIRO: Well, as we said, nobody was hurt, and the CIA says nobody was even in danger. But a mistake like this has got to prompt some kinds of changes to policy, right?
EWING: Yeah, exactly. And, in fact, we understand those changes are in effect. They've suspended this program where they loan out these explosives to local law enforcement to do these trainings. And they've done an accounting of all the material they used, and they say they have it all. So right now, we do not believe there are going to be any more of these surprises where a mechanic or a custodian might open up something and find explosives inside.
SHAPIRO: NPR national security editor, Phil Ewing. Thanks, Phil.
EWING: Thank you.
Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.(Disclaimer: Swear words and such.)
“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Rage.
That word resonates more than ever these days. One word to sufficiently encompass an entire moral outlook. Rage. The burning kind which seeks to overwhelm, to drown in flames of anger and frustration, all sense of civility in maintaining a status quo that is anything but civil. Rage against the injustices across the world and anger at those whose moral superiority only extends to issues outwith their proximity. Frustration as that superiority vanishes like the morning mist when injustice surfaces down the street because morality is easy to preach when you don’t have to combat the backwards views of friends and family. Easier to stay silent. Easier to point towards our American cousins and proudly proclaim your own moral ascension and their misgivings than challenge racism and bigotry next door.
Rage.
Rage against the greed. Rage against the amoral nature of those whose words form policy and whose integrity could challenge Transformers. Rage against the I’m-all-right-Jacks whose sense of compassion and humanity ends at their own front door or is only applied to those from whom they can gain farcical tokens of privilege to wear as badges showcasing how much better they are. Rage against a rigged system whose very purpose is to grind you down, day by day, week by week, year by year, until the fire dies and you can rage no more. Etch out a life in this financial slave pen and be damned grateful you aren’t on the streets. Accept your lot with gratitude because they don’t want you enraged – they want you docile.
I am angry these days. I look out at the world and see stupid people making stupid decisions for the benefit of the already wealthy while the masses take the bait of the week and stomp down on those who are struggling; as if standing on the backs of those with the least in society will help them ascend the property ladder and become better human beings (our humanity meter being rigged to the housing market for some fucking reason).
I’m still young but there is little hope within me. I look out to the future and recoil at that dying light. There is no warmth there, no security, no comfort to be found amidst the war on our very self worth. With every battle fought our humanity is eroded further, the layers of our compassion scraped away, our dreams punctured by rich economists in suits preaching from their own religious texts. Their zealotry abides no dissent from the path. Their golden god demands strict adherence to the rules of the game, despite that game being rigged in their favour. And these brave heroes of industry take up the chant – ‘There is no other way. All must bow before the will of the markets’.
As I watch nearly every benefit, every positive aspect of modern life get dragged down to the Conservatives’ very own market (an upper-class affair, not a shoddy prole car-boot sale you understand) and sold to the highest bidder – I can’t help but think rage is not enough. For most people who weren’t born into this world wielding the expensive cutlery of their father’s estates, life is not pleasant. It is a shitty affair. A seemingly endless grudge match against an opponent who seems to have paid the referee off decades ago and is now getting away with murder: literally. For how else would you describe the starving of the poor and the vulnerable? How else could you possibly discuss the sanctioning of disabled people whose lives are made so miserable by the very systems which are supposed to be there to save them that they are forced to kill themselves? A final surrender to a government, a class, a culture, a society which boils down a human being’s worth into the value of their bank accounts. Into how much useless shite they can purchase to ‘help the economy’ because as everyone in a suit knows – if you’re not helping the economy then what fucking good are you?
Honestly. What the fuck have we become? Who the fuck are we to so easily allow ourselves to slide into dystopian levels of lunacy without so much as a whimper raised? Who are we to sell ourselves out for companies who see us as either sheep or pound signs? A generation of young people, bright people, people with ideas, with desires, with fucking dreams, are being left in a maelstrom of uncertainty, depression and anxiety all because rich cunts aren’t fucking satisfied with having mostly everything – they want it fucking all.
You are expendable. You are interchangeable. You are, in the eyes of this great nation of ours, ultimately fucking worthless. You don’t matter. Your beliefs don’t matter. Your dreams and desires are as dispensable as the pointless shite you buy to fill that void in your own fucking soul. As if owning the latest iPhone, as if contributing to the very systems which think of you as currency and nothing more, will fix things. We may as well exist as data for all the effects our humanity has on the world. We are the human fields in The Matrix being drained for every penny we have for the benefit of soulless fucks who have so little empathy for anything not minted that they may as well be machines themselves.
In Scotland there was a moment when rage almost carved out a path to something better – hope. For all the bullshit media narratives about a ‘divided’ country and the evilness of those Dick Dastardly nationalists there was something else happening underneath, something that went beyond the party politics of it all, or even the strictures of British political and cultural debate. In Scotland, in this tartan-loving, Braveheart-soaked country of ours, the people began to talk. Town halls. Churches. In the streets. At the bus stop. Down the pub. After the decades-long war that has been waged on community centres up and down this country, the unthinkable was happening. People, you, me, them, us, began to think and talk and debate and sketch ideas. There was rage. There was bitterness. There was compassion. There was belief. There was engagement on a level never seen before. Change was on the lips of a nation. Dreams were being dragged from the clouds and had begun to get moulded into tangible things. The dying of the light seemed a falsehood, a narrative that could be rewritten. There was another way. If only we could take that leap of faith and grasp the fucking thing.
You all know how that tale ended.
The patriotic voices of the independence opposition, the ones who refused to engage (for the most part) with the proles and their town hall meetings, the ones who ran away from debate, who demonised nationalists as racists and bigots and anti-English fools, who cheered on the prospect of people living in poverty under ‘separation’, who promised the moon and the stars cloaked in a Union Jack if you only voted No – well they danced to a different tune once the vote was done.
The promises and slogans – Devo-Max and Scotland ‘leading’ the United Kingdom – unleashed by a desperate British establishment as a last-ditch attempt to sway the natives, well they began to morph as the threat of a Yes vote abated. Devo-Max became a small stream of Sugarpuff-smelling pish. Scotland got told to shut it. We’d had our vote. We wouldn’t be leading anyone. And all the while those who had campaigned and used these lines and promises morphed with them. Integrity didn’t matter. Belief and principles could be shaped like play-doh – into whatever form that would appease the children.
‘You lost! Get over it!’ they cried when challenged on their own lack of political or moral compass. ‘You lost! Get over it!’ they screeched when a prole dared point out the cacophony of lies the No campaign had used to win their beloved vote. ‘You lost! Get over it!’ they screamed as the Tories won another general election despite Scotland only electing one Conservative MP out of fifty-nine.
And then Britain descended into a bigoted, xenophobic, racist, hate-filled referendum on whether or not immigrants should be strung up from lamposts like black people were from trees in the southern United States back in the day. Or it could have been about E.U. membership – considering the fucking sickening tone of the debate, aided and abetted by a right-wing media and both Labour and Tory politicians, it’s easy to get the two things confused. And a by-product of this shitstain of an excuse for politics was the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by a right-wing thug. But don’t politicise her death. Otherwise the Daily Mail might be forced to check itself for a conscience. And still the proud defenders of the union insisted it was the Scottish nationalists who were the real bigots. It was Scottish nationalists who were the vilest of all the vile as unionist politicians and commentators danced around the xenophobic elephant in the room, wearing a union jack onesie, as it sang ‘God Save the Queen’ and ‘Fuck Immigrants’. What’s that? Elephant you say? No, nothing to see here. But those bloody Scottish nationalists…worse than Nazis. Enter the shifty eyes.
Yet Scotland isn’t a utopia. You just need to take a stroll around Glasgow and you’ll find enough racism and bigotry to make your ears bleed. And a stroll around Edinburgh reveals a city whose entire ethos seems to be lining the pockets of the middle classes at the expense of poor working people while simultaneously pretending they don’t exist or speaking for them. Because working class people don’t know what’s good for them, don’t ya know? We are far from being perfect as a nation and while the Scottish left does indulge in copious amounts of congratulatory masturbation, spunking their self-righteousness over one another with all the subtlety of a two-dimensional celebrity giving money to the homeless while there’s a camera crew nearby – Scotland does do things differently.
There’s isn’t as much hostility to immigrants up here as there is down south and our vote to stay in the EU reflected that. On the whole our politicians – particularly of the nationalist persuasion – are welcoming to immigrants who chose to make Scotland their home. And only Nicola Sturgeon, of all people, showed any sort of leadership in trying to allay the fears of immigrants living in Britain as England erupted in hate crime and racism following the Brexit vote. But yes, Scottish nationalists are like Trump supporters. Keep telling yourself that, Scottish Labour. Also, say hi to the dodos for me.
62% of Scots voted to remain in the E.U. But that vote doesn’t matter. Scotland’s vote never really matters and all attempts during the independence referendum to make it out like Scotland would be listened to after a No vote were either flat-out lies or the type of wilful delusion you find mental health nurses displaying to Bruce Willis in the film Twelve Monkeys. The only way for Scotland to remain in the EU was the vote No in the separation referendum. Repeated as fact in nearly every facet of our beloved media yet shown to be complete and utter horse shite. |
9) Mythic Fantasy
From the beginning of the epic fantasy genre, authors retold and repurposed classic Greco/Roman and Norse myths, among others — and starting with Wonder Woman and continuing with Marvel's Thor and Hercules, superhero comics borrowed liberally from classical mythology as well. Both Marvel and DC have their own versions of Atlantis and their own Greek gods, and by now almost every great mythological figure has made at least a brief cameo in a superhero comic. You'd be hard pressed to find a fictional version of Thor or Hercules more famous than their comic-book incarnations, at this point.
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10) The Science Hero
We still have stories about mad scientists — but usually these days, in most media, they do more harm than good. And, as TVTropes says, the mainstream idea of the "science hero" who goes exploring other realms or other universes is somewhat discredited "because post-modernism rejected progress for progress's sake." So we see fewer zippy science adventurers like Johnny Quest's family, or Bernard Quatermass or Buckaroo Banzai or the cast of Destination Moon these days. Luckily, though, we still have Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four going on crazy jaunts into the Negative Zone. Or Rip Hunter and Booster Gold exploring time travel and other universes. The science adventurer still exists outside superhero narratives, but he/she still has a healthy life inside them for sure.Like TIME on Facebook for more breaking news and current events from around the globe!
Egypt’s interim president has signed a new law outlawing protests without prior approval of the police.
Interim President Adli Mansour signed the law on Sunday, which requires protesters to secure permission from the police at least three days in advance, NBC reports. The law also bans protest in places of worship. Human rights groups say the new law significantly limits political freedom.
Thousands of anti-government protesters jammed the streets of Cairo as the new law was being announced. Protests have been a near-constant presence since the overthrow of longtime strongman President Hosni Mubarak three years ago, but violence has grown anew since the military-backed ouster of elected President Mohamed Morsi this summer.
The new law imposes fines for anyone who organizes an unauthorized protest and levies possible jail sentences for protesters who carry weapons or explosives.
[NBC News]The DigiRule is a 15cm (6") interactive binary ruler. Not only does it allow you to draw straight lines - it also has the following built in digital functions:
Seven Logic Gates
NOT Gate (Inverter)
OR Gate
AND Gate
XOR Gate
NOR Gate
NAND Gate
XNOR Gate
Four Flip Flops
SR Flip Flop
JK Flip Flop
Data Flip Flop
Toggle Flip Flop
Plus - a four bit binary up/down counter.
The ruler divisions are given in binary format with imperial units at the top and metric at the bottom.
The rear of the ruler shows the truth tables for the logic gates and flip flops and also includes a binary conversion chart, some surface mount component footprints and some PCB drill hole sizes.
So how does it all work?
The digital functions are all controlled by a single PIC microcontroller. You press the gate select button to cycle through the seven logic gates or the flip flop select button to cycle through the flip flops.You can then toggle the input bits to get a result at the output of the selected gate / flip flop. The up / down counter has a button to count up and a button to count down. An on/off switch is provided to save battery power when not in use.
This is my fourth Kickstarter campaign with the last three being successful. I am confident that this campaign will run smoothly and in fact, I am doing all that I can to get delivery to all of you backers by Christmas this year!
What has been completed?
Well, everything about the product is done! I have designed the circuit board, setup a bill of materials, programmed, tested and debugged the code and have a working prototype (as seen in the video and photo's). All that's left to do now is to get backers so that I can get them massed produced - then sent out to backers!
PCB Design - Done!
Microcontroller Code - Done!
Production Schedule
16 October 15 to 26 October 15 - The Kickstarter campaign will be in progress.
26 October 15 to 09 November 15 - Kickstarter will be processing payments from backers.
09 November - production will begin.
Late November / Early December - Packages will be sent out to backers and with all going well, you should get them by Christmas.
Shipping Details
Shipping will be through Singapore post via the cheapest airmail option. This is to keep costs down as much as possible for backers. I have used this method for all of my successful Kickstarter campaigns and it has been a reliable service. However it can be a slow service depending on your location. I have had people from previous Kickstarter campaigns receive their backer reward in a about a week from shipment and I have others take up to a month from shipment even though they were sent on the same day, by the same shipping method.
And Finally...
Thanks for taking the time to check out the Kickstarter campaign, if you'd like a DigiRule of your very own, then be sure to put in a pledge and I'll be getting them out to you ASAP!
Please note: Due to postage restrictions on lithium batteries, the CR1220 battery will not be included with each DigiRule. I apologise for this however it is not something that I can change. As such, you will need to purchase a battery locally.Shading (the process of setting up materials) is an often over-looked step in the CG pipeline. I used to just play with the material settings until it looked a bit like what I was trying to make, and then move onto texturing thinking that that was all there is to it.
However, in my never-ending quest for realism I've come to realize that shading is in fact the most important step in creating something believable.
Of course modelling, texturing, lighting and all the rest are also very important, but shading is what determines how tangible your surfaces appear – it shows your audience what it might feel like to touch; how soft, sticky, or flexible it might be, and what it might be like to live in this new world that you've created with your render.CINCINNATI (AP) - Ohio-based grocery chain Kroger Co. is making the heroin overdose-reversal drug naloxone available without a prescription in its pharmacies across Ohio and northern Kentucky.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, joined Kroger officials at a Cincinnati store for Friday's announcement. Kroger says 200 pharmacies will offer naloxone over the counter within days.
CVS said recently it soon will offer naloxone without a prescription at its Ohio pharmacies, which state regulators have allowed.
Ohio fire crews use naloxone thousands of times a year to revive opioid overdose victims. Ohio overdose deaths jumped 18 percent rise in 2014, one of the nation's sharpest increases.
Cincinnati-based Kroger is the nation's largest traditional grocer and has 2,774 supermarkets and multi-department stores in 35 states and the District of Columbia.Humans and their pets understand one another on many basic levels. We can even extend this statement and recognize that we are capable of a certain level of interpretation of the intentions of wild species. We can identify most expressions of joy, fear or anger in others, which from an evolutionary standpoint has contributed to keeping us alive when we crossed path with other beings. If we can read their intentions, we can better chose what to do to stay safe. As pet owners, we quickly respond when our dog sits and whines in front of the door. As animal trainers we also learn to pay attention to factors that will affect our animals’ behavior. In training however, our ability to empathize and relate with others, is often overshadowed by our desire to achieve our goal. Through applied behavior analysis, we’ve become very good at using a series of tools to effectively train or influence specific behaviors. We focus on what the dog does or does not do. We pay attention to our timing and our treat delivery. With our focus mostly on behavior, we sometimes lose touch with the emotional component of the relationship. “We use technology but have lost the habit of using ourselves” says Roger Abrantes. By combining principles of ethology along with those of behaviorism, we can learn how to pay close attention to how our own body language will influence the animal’s ability to respond. Subtle shifts in our body, how fast and in what direction we move, how we lean, how tall we stand, where we look, the tone, the volume and the pitch of our voice are all factors that can either help or confuse the animal we’re working with. When every detail makes a difference, increasing awareness and control of our body can significantly improve how we communicate and how they respond.
We put on our shoes and when we look up, our dog is already at the door. We walk in direction of the kitchen and Fido leads the way to the fridge. No matter the species, once they’ve lived around us for a while, our animals become experts at reading our intentions. Whether an animal is solitary or social, the ability to predict another’s intentions is critical for social interactions and ultimately for survival. Even when it’s not a matter of life or death, if the animal can’t foresee another’s intention to move in her direction, she won’t have the chance to step out of the way and avoid a painful collision. When living in groups, they also need to coordinate their efforts in activities such as hunting or protection of the group. The capacity to predict where another animal is heading or to anticipate our actions may not seem like any special accomplishment, but they reveal how much they focus on movements and gestures to gather information and prepare for what is likely to happen next.
Research has confirmed what seems quite obvious for most of us. Dogs, even at a very early age, are capable of using information from our body movement to figure out where the food is hidden. They pay attention to where we point with our finger. They can even use more subtle cues such as a head tilt or even just an eye movement in direction of the baited container. This ability is not limited to body language alone. A recent study showed that dogs, as young as 8-14 weeks, were also capable of locating food hidden under a box by deducting the direction of the box from a person’s voice. From behind a barrier, a person would express excitement towards a baited box, placed either to his right or left side. Even though the person was sitting closer to the empty box, the puppies consistently went to the correct one (with the possibility to use all other cues being excluded of course) (Rossano & al., 2014). Not all species can understand human pointing gestures or deduct food location based on a person’s gaze (Miklósi & al., 2006). With sufficient experience of people, horses have also been found to be very sensitive to human body cues and determine if the person is attentive to them (Proops & al., 2013).
So what does this have to do with training? Much research is still needed to fully understand how animals can gather information from how we move, where we look and how we talk, but through our own observation, we can learn how to interact with an animal in a more effective way. Animals are very emotional and provide us with continuous feedback on how they feel about a situation. Above anything else, animals need to feel safe before they can focus on a task and learn. So if we move too fast or talk too loud for instance, the animal might be anxious, inhibit his/her movements or take off running. On the other hand, depending on the species, if we move towards them too slowly, we might look like a predator and they’ll be suspicious of our intentions and stay away from us. This is especially true for prey animals like horses. Generally, rhythmic sounds or movements tend to generate action. Think of how you might clap your hands or give a succession of rapid whistles to call your dog. On the other hand, single and long extended sounds tend to slow down movement, like the long and low ‘whoooooa’ of a rider to stop his horse or ‘staaaaay’ to get a dog to maintain a position.
There are many times when we might ask an animal to perform an action when our own body movements are sending incompatible information. Facing a horse’s hindquarters for instance, will make him move faster. Facing his head will get him to slow down. Small shifts of our body can make a big difference to the animal to the point that we can stop an animal in its tracks. The other day, my husband Jack found himself having to shift his body when asking a dog to go into a crate. He went to the crate, opened the door and gave Barnaby the signal to go in. The dog stood a few feet from the crate but just looked at him, not willing to go in. Once Jack realized that his body was facing the dog, he shifted his body to face the crate, and the dog immediately ran in without hesitation. Because this dog didn’t have much experience with going in the crate to a verbal signal, his original body position was enough to create hesitation and confusion. Many people also ask their dog to respond to a verbal signal while their hand is on the dog. They affectionately pet their dog while saying “sit” and wonder why their dog doesn’t respond. When touched, the dog is likely to be focused on the physical sensation and ignore the sounds that come out of the person’s mouth.
As Abrantes pointed out in his latest guinea pig scent detection training camp at Wolf Park, the relationship we have with our dog can get in the way of objectivity in training. “Animals that don’t have such a close relationship with humans are far less forgiving so it is a high priority to be precise, to plan your training, to develop your observation skills and to have a plan B available”. If you talk too loud or move too fast, the guinea pig may freeze and bring the training session to an end. With only a few vegetables and ourselves to induce and reward the desired behavior, we’re forced to reflect on our own behavior and on how we affect the animal. At times the little creature will prefer social contact over food and cuddling may become a better reward than carrot. If we give the food too fast, he might get scared and take off in the other direction. If we’re too slow, we can miss the behavior we’re trying to reward. Consistency, controlled movements, modulated tone of voice and frequent breaks become the necessary elements for even the smallest of results.
A recent study confirms that in dogs, body language indicating a relaxed, interested and content state of mind during training correlated with better training results. The longer their eyes were kept wide open, their mouth was closed, their ears were erect and their tail was held high, with or without wagging, the more successful the training. The authors of this study suggest that when we’re able to read our dog’s body language we can understand our dog’s emotional response to the training session and help them learn better (Hasegawa & al. 2014).
We sometimes get so goal oriented with animals that we’ve been around for a long time, like dogs or horses, that we can be callous to their expressions of confusion or even distress. With all the different tools that we’ve developed over the years, we can easily force them to perform as desired, but no goal is worth the sacrifice of our relationship with our animal. Even when we’re careful, we’re not always conscious of our body language and can sometimes slow down our progress and generate confusion. When working with different species, especially prey animals, like horses, or even guinea pigs, we can learn a lot about how much our movements will affect their emotional state and ultimately their ability to learn. Dogs are very forgiving and have lived with us for so long that they can generally bounce back quickly. This should not keep us from paying attention to the effect we have on them. We might inadvertently interrupt their intent to move in a certain direction, give conflicting information or affect their emotional state. Animal training works better when we can bring together the right combination of good communication, good technique and good tools.
Jennifer Cattet Ph.D.
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GoogleImage copyright The Thistlegorm Project Image caption It is the first time the shipwreck has been viewed in this way
New 3D images of one of the world's best known World War Two dive sites have been released to the public.
British merchant steam ship SS Thistlegorm was hit by a German bomber in 1941 and lies on the bed of the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt.
The Thistlegorm Project, led by the University of Nottingham, could help to preserve its valuable remains.
Director Dr Jon Henderson said the shipwreck deserved to be seen by the wider public.
Image copyright The Thistlegorm Project Image caption Divers had to take part in 12 dives to gather enough images
Image copyright The Thistlegorm Project Image caption Some of the Thistlegorm's original features can still be seen
A website has been launched to enable people to view the images.
SS Thistlegorm was carrying trains, aircraft parts, trucks and motorbikes, and heading to Egypt to support the allied war effort when it was hit.
Five Royal Navy gunners and four merchant sailors lost their lives.
The wreck has become one of the most famous dive sites in the world due to the clear water and military equipment still on board.
Dr Henderson, from the university's School of Archaeology, said: "The thing about underwater sites and the importance of underwater cultural heritage is that the only people who've ever seen it are divers.
"However, we are now at a point where we have the technology to reconstruct these sites."
Image copyright The Thistlegorm Project Image caption The ship is popular with divers in the Red Sea
The university said the photogrammetric survey was one of the largest ever carried out on a shipwreck, with 24,307 high resolution pictures taken during 12 dives at the site.
"The Thistlegorm is an amazing resource, it's a remarkable snapshot in history, it's got all this material from World War Two sitting on it and so there is a lot to learn from the wreck," said Dr Henderson.
Image copyright The Thistlegorm Project Image caption Dr Henderson said much could be learned from the wreck
The university said the underwater archaeological project was one of the first to utilise 360 video, which will allow people to experience what it is like to dive to the wreck.
Dr Henderson said the wreck had no legal protection and needed to be properly recorded.
"Carrying out a baseline survey (such as this) of exactly what's there is the first step in doing that," he said.
We can then chart changes over time and look at what we need to protect."We've looked at the biggest free agents for every team, and we've evaluated how active each team will be in free agency. Now, as we approach the start of free agency, it's time for NFL Nation reporters to choose a free agent every team must sign this offseason. Here are the results.
AFC East | AFC North | AFC South | AFC West
NFC East | NFC North | NFC South | NFC West
AFC EAST
Running back Bilal Powell
The Bills tried to sign Powell last offseason, but he ended up returning to the Jets once Buffalo decided to keep Fred Jackson (at least until September). Powell is on the market again, and after parting ways with reserve running back Boobie Dixon, the Bills could use veteran depth at the position. The uncertainty surrounding LeSean McCoy's status makes Powell and Rex Ryan reuniting a no-brainer if the cost is reasonable. -- Mike Rodak
Offensive lineman Kelechi Osemele
The Dolphins would take a nice step forward offensively by signing the free-agent guard. The market for Osemele, however, could be too pricey. Miami has failed drafting guards in recent years, including Dallas Thomas, Billy Turner and Jamil Douglas, who still has time to grow. The free-agent route could be the best way for the team to address its offensive line, and Osemele is the top-rated guard on the market. -- James Walker
Running back Matt Forte
Two of the Patriots' top needs are running back and receiver, so why not sign a player who can help fill both voids in one package? Forte is listed as a RB on the roster, but his excellent pass-catching skills make him almost wide receiver-like. I'm envisioning him on the field at the same time as Dion Lewis. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels could scheme up some innovative stuff. -- Mike Reiss
Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick
Before they look elsewhere, the Jets have to take care of their own, and that means re-signing Fitzpatrick. This isn't rocket science. He's their undisputed starter, and there are no viable options on the open market. They won't have much cap money to spend in free agency, so they should use it wisely by securing the leader of their offense. -- Rich Cimini
AFC NORTH
Offensive lineman Kelechi Osemele
The Ravens typically spend the most to retain their own players, and their best free agent is undoubtedly Osemele. Baltimore certainly agrees, as it extended an "aggressive" offer to him at the NFL combine, coach John Harbaugh said. Osemele is Baltimore's preference to be the long-term solution at left tackle. But he could command $9 million to $10 million per season, so he might end up being the latest Ravens player lured elsewhere. -- Jamison Hensley
Defensive lineman Malik Jackson
The 26-year-old Jackson, who had a manageable $1.6 million cap charge in 2015, would be an intriguing addition. He would be a possibility if the Bengals don't re-sign Wallace Gilberry, a third-down pass-rush specialist who had only 2.0 sacks in 2015. Jackson had 5.0 on significantly more snaps. Jackson's signing would also be a message to backups Will Clarke and Margus Hunt, two ends who have shown relatively little and are entering their pivotal third and fourth seasons, respectively. But Cincinnati doesn't often make splash free-agency signings, and this year will likely be more of the same, with 14 of Cincinnati's own headed to unrestricted free agency. -- Coley Harvey
Wide receiver Marvin Jones
Jones emerged with 65 catches and 816 yards for the Bengals in 2015, his best season. He's a big target, a Browns need and a reliable player whom new coach Hue Jackson knows well. -- Pat McManamon
Safety Eric Weddle
Yes, Weddle might be too costly. But given that he is 31, perhaps the Steelers could negotiate a reasonable price while selling the sentiment of his playing for a Super Bowl contender. Weddle would be perfect for what the Steelers want to do defensively. He's a rangy safety who has good cover skills and can chase tight ends down for quick tackles. He's versatile enough to adapt to any look. -- Jeremy Fowler
AFC SOUTH
Wide receiver Travis Benjamin
He's faster than anyone on the Texans roster -- heck, he's faster than most anyone on any roster. The Texans lack speed in their receiving corps, which is OK for a guy such as DeAndre Hopkins, who's so dynamic anyway, but it's not OK for the group as a whole. They also need a punt returner, and Benjamin can serve that role. The Browns didn't exactly have a great quarterback situation last year, and Benjamin still had 966 yards on 68 catches. -- Tania Ganguli
Cornerback Janoris Jenkins
The Colts have a Pro Bowl cornerback in Vontae Davis, but he needs help on the other side because solid cornerback play allows extra time for the pass-rushers to get to the quarterback. Greg Toler didn't help Davis as the other starting cornerback last season. Jenkins had three interceptions and 15 passes defended last season with the Rams. -- Mike Wells
Safety Eric Weddle
Pass rush is a big need, but right behind it is free safety, and Weddle is the best option. He's not the long-term answer, but he could certainly help for a couple years. -- Mike DiRocco
Safety Tashaun Gipson
Hampered by an ankle injury, the Browns free safety didn't have his best season in his contract year. But he has proven to be a top-flight coverage safety, and the Titans are in dire need of one of those as they move forward after nine seasons with Michael Griffin. -- Paul Kuharsky
AFC WEST
Quarterback Brock Osweiler
With Peyton Manning on the brink of a retirement decision, the Broncos still need a quarterback over the long haul, and they have invested four years into Osweiler's development. The team went 5-2 in his starts in 2015, and though he must improve his pocket awareness and not take so much punishment, he is their best option moving forward. It might mean they pay more than expected, but all signs, barring a break-the-bank offer from another team, point to Osweiler's staying with the Broncos. -- Jeff Legwold
Cornerback Sean Smith
The Chiefs will have a difficult time replacing Smith if he leaves as a free agent. Smith didn't make many plays in 2015, but he didn't have to because rookie Marcus Peters was making so many on the other side. Smith's steady presence and down-to-down reliability made him the perfect fit with Peters. -- Adam Teicher
Safety Eric Weddle
What better way to strengthen yourself than by weakening a divisional foe? Yes, I've written that Oakland needs to make a run at Raiders legacy Chris Long and put him opposite All-Pro Khalil Mack, and though that would make for a nice narrative, the Raiders should also go after Weddle. The three-time Pro Bowler and two-time first-team All-Pro safety for the Chargers could instantly replace the retired Charles Woodson. Yes, Weddle is getting long in the tooth, but Oakland's secondary desperately needs a veteran presence and a playmaker. Weddle, who has 19 career interceptions but just three the past three seasons, represents both qualities. -- Paul Gutierrez
Wide receiver Travis Benjamin
The Chargers finished with a league-low 84 punt-return yards in 2015, so Benjamin would be a significant upgrade for San Diego in that role. Benjamin could also help replace the retired Malcom Floyd as a vertical threat for Philip Rivers. Benjamin -- or a player like him -- should be San Diego's top priority in free agency. -- Eric D. Williams
NFC EAST
Linebacker Rolando McClain
The Cowboys aren't going to break the bank for any player in free agency, so it's difficult to make a prediction as to whom they will sign. One guess at the moment: San Diego safety Eric Weddle. He would bring stability on and off the field. But a more sure guess would be McClain, whose market will be mitigated by his four-game suspension last year. He has found a home with the Cowboys after struggling with the Raiders. By keeping McClain, the Cowboys can move away from middle linebacker as a draft need. -- Todd Archer
Outside linebacker Bruce Irvin
The Giants need 4-3 outside linebackers, and Irvin has been an excellent one in Seattle. They need pass-rushers, and Irvin has pass-rush ability that he wasn't always asked to showcase in Seattle's defense. The 28-year-old Irvin isn't in the Seahawks' plans but should be in the Giants' plans; they seek versatile playmakers to help rebuild a defense that finished last in the league in 2015. Irvin doesn't fix all their problems, but he helps fix a few of them. While two of his former defensive coordinators are now head coaches in Atlanta and Jacksonville, the Giants should be willing to compete with those teams to do what it takes to bring Irvin in. -- Dan Graziano
Offensive guard Brandon Brooks
At 6-foot-5, 345 pounds, Brooks would fill a few holes for the Eagles. He could play either guard spot, which would keep the Eagles from overrating guards in the draft. If they wind up with a right tackle in the draft (Michigan State's Jack Conklin, maybe?), Brooks could play alongside him and help the rookie adjust. Or he could play on the left side and help veteran Jason Peters bounce back from a down 2015. -- Phil Sheridan
Outside linebacker Junior Galette
The Redskins don't have a lot of cap space available as of now (they can create more with a few moves), but Galette fills a definite need at pass-rusher, and because he is coming off an injury, he'll be cheaper than anyone the team could add on the open market. The Redskins need help all over defensively, but this is one area where they can re-sign their own. Galette paired with Ryan Kerrigan and Preston Smith, who had eight sacks as a rookie, would be a good start. -- John Keim
NFC NORTH
Linebacker Danny Trevathan
Trevathan is an instant upgrade at a position of need for the Bears. Just a few weeks shy of his 26th birthday, Trevathan is obviously connected to John Fox, who coached him for three years (2012-14) with the Broncos. As an ascending player, Trevathan (109 regular-season tackles for the Super Bowl 50 champions) is expected to have multiple suitors in free agency, but the Bears have an abundance of salary-cap space. Chicago can afford to pay in the neighborhood of $6 million or $7 million per year for a player with Trevathan's upside. -- Jeff Dickerson
Defensive lineman Malik Jackson
There are a few options here, but pass-rushers and defensive linemen are critical to the Detroit defense. Going hard after Jackson should be a priority for the Lions. He is hitting his prime at age 26 and has been durable, playing all but two possible games in his career. He has compiled 134 tackles and 14 sacks in his career. He could line up immediately opposite Ezekiel Ansah, replacing Jason Jones. He also has the size to play inside on passing downs, if necessary. He'd be a versatile threat on the line. Other coveted options include safety George Iloka, wide receiver Marvin Jones and center Stefen Wisniewski. -- Michael Rothstein
Linebacker Danny Trevathan
Clay Matthews has to move back to outside linebacker, where he can make a bigger impact on games than he did on the inside, but do you trust Sam Barrington and Jake Ryan as the full-time players on the inside? I didn't think so. In that case, the Packers should go after Trevathan. He would give the Packers an inside linebacker who can play on all three downs and stand out in coverage, where the returning inside 'backers have struggled. -- Rob Demovsky
Offensive lineman Kelechi Osemele
Osemele would be expensive -- the Ravens made him an "aggressive" offer, coach Jim Harbaugh said, and he could command about $8 million a year in free agency -- but he's one player on whom the Vikings might find a splurge to be worthwhile. Osemele is only 26, he has played both left guard and left tackle, and at 6-foot-5 and 335 pounds, he's a load for defensive linemen in the run game. If the Vikings had designs on parting with Matt Kalil, Osemele would make sense, and even if they didn't, he could be a force at guard. -- Ben Goessling
NFC SOUTH
Linebacker Danny Trevathan
It's unclear if the Falcons would be willing to pay Trevathan the type of money he desires, but they could use a player to help stabilize the situation at linebacker. Trevathan is coming off a Super Bowl title with the Broncos and is familiar with the expectations of Falcons defensive coordinator Richard Smith, his former linebackers coach in Denver. -- Vaughn McClure
Safety Eric Weddle
A potential player of interest from another team could be the veteran Weddle. Ron Rivera coached Weddle while he was the defensive coordinator with the Chargers, and the Panthers could be looking for safety help with 33-year-old Roman Harper now a free agent. -- David Newton
Offensive guard Tim Lelito
The "boring" answer is Lelito, who is a restricted free-agent guard. After releasing Jahri Evans, Lelito is now the only experienced guard on the Saints' roster, and he's a solid up-and-comer who has played well as a part-time starter the past two years. The more exciting answer needs to be someone who can add juice to the pass rush. Big names such as Mario Williams and Jason Pierre-Paul might be too costly, but if the Saints spend any big money, that's where it should be. -- Mike Triplett
Running back Doug Martin
Believe it or not, the Bucs need to make re-signing their top rusher a priority. Quarterback Jameis Winston needs a solid run game to help him out. Charles Sims was solid as Martin's backup, but he can't carry the load and be the top back. -- Mike DiRocco
NFC WEST
Defensive end Robert Ayers
The Cardinals are in serious need of a pass-rusher, and the former New York Giant defensive end might be the ideal answer. He had 9.5 sacks last season on a team that struggled to get to the quarterback. Put Ayers in a defense with talent inside and on the other side of the line, and he could flourish. -- Josh Weinfuss
Safety/linebacker Mark Barron
The best answer is probably any quarterback who would be an upgrade over what they currently have, but it doesn't seem that such a solution is out there or will come at a reasonable price tag. That makes keeping Barron the second-most important piece of the puzzle. Yes, the Rams have other key defenders to retain, such as Rodney McLeod, William Hayes and Janoris Jenkins, but they released James Laurinaitis with the intent to move Alec Ogletree into the middle and re-sign Barron to play weak-side linebacker. If they can't get that done, it creates another big need on a team that still needs to improve its offense. -- Nick Wagoner
Linebacker James Laurinaitis
Laurinaitis broke the Niners' hearts in 2014 when he recovered Colin Kaepernick's fumble in the end zone to clinch a Rams victory at Levi's Stadium. What better way, then, for Laurinaitis, a salary-cap casualty of the Rams last month, to mend things than by coming to Santa Clara to solidify the 49ers' linebacker corps and play next to NaVorro Bowman in the team's 3-4 scheme? Laurinaitis, who hasn't missed a game in his seven-year career, knows the NFC West intimately, so his knowledge and skill level would definitely help as an upgrade over either Michael Wilhoite or Gerald Hodges. -- Paul Gutierrez
Left tackle Russell Okung
The Seahawks have the core of their roster in place and are set to make a Super Bowl run in 2016. But one area in which they need to improve is offensive line. The problem with potentially losing Okung is they have nobody on the roster to replace him, and there are limited alternatives on the free-agent market. Okung was the team's best offensive lineman in 2015. Given how well Russell Wilson played when given a clean pocket last season, the Seahawks cannot afford to take a step backward up front. Okung will test the market and have suitors, but the Seahawks need to strongly consider making him a competitive offer to come back. -- Sheil KapadiaJustice Antonin Scalia appeared on CNN’s Piers Morgan show Wednesday night for an hour-long interview where he discussed everything from health care leaks and campaign finance to abortion and torture.
The outspoken conservative appeared with his co-author Bryan Garner to promote their new book, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts.No falling out with John Roberts — don’t believe the leaks
Asked about reports that he has had a falling out with Chief Justice John Roberts in the wake of the health care ruling, Scalia responded: “You should not believe what you read about the court in the newspapers. Because the information has either been made up or given to the newspapers by somebody who is violating a confidence, which means that person is not reliable.”
“No, I haven’t had a falling out with Justice Roberts. … Nothing like that.”
He added, “My best buddy on the court is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Has always been” — even though he said they disagree on just about everything.
‘Utterly impossible’ to separate money from speech
Asked whether the controversial Citizens United ruling, which affirmed unlimited spending to influence elections, has led to an abuse of the political process, Scalia rejected the view.
“No, I think Thomas Jefferson would have said the more speech the better,” the justice said. “That’s what the First Amendment is all about. So long as the people know where the speech is coming from. … You can’t separate speech from the money that facilitates the speech. It’s utterly impossible. Could you tell newspaper publishers you could only spend so much money in the publication of the newspapers?”
“I think, as I think the framers thought, that the more speech the better. Now, you are entitled to know where the speech is coming from. You know, information as to who contributed what. That’s something else.”
Roe v. Wade ‘does not make any sense’
“The theory that was expounded to impose that decision was a theory that does not make any sense, and that is namely the theory of substantive due process,” Scalia said.
Regardless of one’s views on whether abortion should be legal, he argued, “my only point is the Constitution does not say anything about it. It leaves it up to democratic choice. Some states prohibited it. Some states didn’t. What Roe v. Wade said was that no state can prohibit it. That is simply not in the Constitution.”
On Bush v. Gore: ‘Get over it’
“I usually say, ‘get over it,” Scalia said. “No regrets at all.”
He argued that his decision was easier in hindsight because of reports that say Al Gore would have lost the 2000 election to George W. Bush either way.
Torture isn’t cruel and unusual punishment
Scalia defended on his view that torture isn’t cruel and unusual punishment when Morgan raised a hypothetical situation where an innocent person on a battlefield gets taken to Guantanamo and is tortured. Morgan asked: that becomes a punishment, right?
“No, I don’t think it becomes a punishment, it becomes torture,” Scalia said. “And we have laws against torture but I don’t think the Constitution addressed torture, it addressed punishment. Which means punishment for crimes. … I’m not for [ |
white coloration causes the optic nerve to be connected to the wrong side of the brain which means that all white tigers are cross-eyed even if their eyes look normal. Because this gene is so rare and there are so many birth defects, the death rate of white tiger cubs is astonishingly high. When an orange and white tiger are bred, only 1 in 4 cubs are born white and of those 80% die from birth defects. Only 1 in 30 of the surviving white cubs will be suitable for display. So what happens to the excess orange and black cubs and the white cubs not suitable for display? The white cubs rarely end up in accredited facilities but end up being killed or sold to neglectful facilities. The outcomes for the orange and black cubs are not much better. Most end up being sold into the pet trade, becoming victims of canned hunts, or being killed and sold for parts in the Asian markets.
Today sanctuaries are working very hard to educate the public about the horrors surrounding the breeding of white tigers but it is hard for the public to believe all these horrible and sad stories. Always remember that when you are looking at a white tiger what caused that white tiger and the health problems that it could currently be suffering. Also, don’t forget how many white tiger cubs it took to get one normal looking one and the fate of that one’s litter mates.The official annual commemoration of a century of genocide and its victims should be accompanied by a responsible awareness of Britain’s own historical record, says Martin Shaw. (This article was first published on 27 January 2009)
The date of the liberation of the Nazi concentration-camp at Auschwitz, 27 January 1945, has since 2001 been marked in Britain as a moment for the remembrance of the victims of the Nazi holocaust – and, by gradual extension, of all those subjected to genocidal assault over the last century. The annual commemoration of “Holocaust Memorial Day”, now in its tenth year, has become an established part of the national political calendar: the highlights include educational programmes and exhibitions, and a series of events attended by survivors of genocide, leading politicians and representatives of religious groups – most of them taking place under the auspices of a charitable trust which works throughout the year (the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust).
Britain is the locus of these activities, but what of its own relationship to the histories and practices being commemorated? Tony Blair’s reply to a parliamentary request in June 1999 that invited him to institute such a day is revealing here. Britain’s then prime minister said: “I am determined to ensure that the horrendous crimes against humanity committed during the Holocaust are never forgotten. The ethnic cleansing and killing that has taken place in Europe in recent weeks are a stark example of the need for vigilance.” The reference was to the war of March-June 1999 over the contested post-Yugoslav province of Kosovo, when Blair had been among the Nato leaders most committed to securing the return to Kosovo of approximately one million Kosovo Albanians expelled by Serbian military forces on the authority of Slobodan Milosevic. Thus, holocaust-memorial day remembers genocide that other nations have committed - whether the Nazi extermination of the Jews or the Serbian expulsion of the Kosovo Albanians - and against which this country stands as a “vigilant” and if necessary armed protector of the innocent.
The implication of so placing Britain in relation to acts of genocide is that there is no need for the country to engage in (for example) the national self-criticism that produced the commemoration of victims of Nazism in Germany, or which in Australia and the United States has produced official recognition of crimes perpetrated against indigenous people in the course of colonisation; nor need for academic debate about Britain’s connections to the history of genocide, which has preoccupied intellectuals and scholars in these and other countries.
True, the institution of holocaust-memorial day did provoke some discussion among scholars of the holocaust. One of those who opposed it suggested that “the day will act as a convenient opportunity for the government to present itself as morally upright, thereby occluding its involvement in contemporary ethnic, religious or other forms of discrimination”; another, David Cesarani, warned that it would reinforce the British people's “rather self-satisfied perception of the Second World War as unambiguously a ‘good’ war from which this country emerged triumphant and morally vindicated.” Instead, Cesarani argued, the British should recognise that “(the) ambiguity of Britain's response to Nazi tyranny and racism is lodged in our heritage.”
The genocidal moment
These criticisms still resound. For indeed, a wider examination of Britain's relationship to genocide makes clear that the problem ranges wider than the holocaust, and often far deeper than “ambiguity”. The modern English state itself was formed and secured in part through episodes of genocidal violence against internal enemies (among them the Normans' murderous dispersal of the Anglo-Saxon peasantry in Yorkshire in 1069-70, the massacre of Jews at York in 1190, Oliver Cromwell's slaughter of Irish civilians in 1649-50). In a more recent historical perspective, the flipside of Britain's claimed peaceful “gradualism” is what Leon Trotsky called “the history of violent changes which the British governing classes have made in the life of other nations.”
Britain's colonisation of the “new world”, for example, was punctuated by what the historian Dirk Moses has called “genocidal moments”. The phenomenon of “settler colonialism” in north America and Australia generally involved forcibly displacing indigenous peoples, and localised genocidal massacres were quite common. British authorities in London and the colonies willed settlement knowing that it foretold the often-brutal removal of the indigenous inhabitants, even if they sometimes condemned the specific means that settlers adopted. The current Australian government headed by Kevin Rudd has apologised to the indigenous peoples, whereas in Britain the dominant attitude is that what happened is a “local” problem that has no implications for the settlers’ country of origin or that country’s state policy.
The British state was not a direct perpetrator in the high-genocidal period of European history – the first half of the 20th century - but its “humanitarian” stance offered but meagre practical support to victims (Armenians in Ottoman Turkey from 1915, Jews during the Nazis' “final solution”). At times, however, it encouraged or endorsed genocidal acts (as during the Greek army’s rampage through Anatolia in 1919-22 and the often brutal expulsion of German populations from Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1945). Britain’s aerial bombing of German cities in 1943-45 was not directly genocidal, but it invoked comparably destructive means and the principle of “collective punishment” (and, like the United States’s firebombing of Japan’s cities, showed how close degenerate war can come to genocide).
The British state was also deeply implicated in the mutually destructive violence of the Indian partition of 1947, in which 12 million people were forced from their homes and at least 250,000 died. This violence - now widely seen as genocidal - was exacerbated by the British partition-plan, which was devised and implemented with disregard for its likely catastrophic consequences. In Palestine in 1948, the British stood by as Zionist forces terrorised the majority of the Arab population into flight in order to create as large as possible a Jewish-majority state. The United Nations’s own partition-plan (notwithstanding its genocide-convention that was to be approved at the end of 1947) is a reminder that responsibility for the disaster was international, but Britain - as the contemporary mandate power - had a particular share.
In the era after the cold war, Britain (like other western states) proclaimed a new determination to prevent genocide. Yet the record is distinctly unimpressive: Britain may not bear the shame of facilitating a particular horrific massacre (as the Dutch do for Srebrenica in 1995), but it has hardly spearheaded effective responses. The Conservative government of John Major (1990-97) adopted a notably anti-interventionist and even cynical stance towards genocide. It disregarded Saddam Hussein's terrorising of the Iraqi Kurds in 1991 until shamed into action (Major notoriously remarked: “I do not recall asking the Kurds to mount this particular insurrection”); it then exerted itself (including at the United Nations) to block effective international responses to genocide in Bosnia (1992-95) and Rwanda (1994).
The (“New”) Labour government elected in May 1997 and headed by Tony Blair took a different approach. Blair and his first-term (1997-2001) foreign secretary Robin Cook were among the foremost advocates of action to halt Serbian persecution of the Kosovo Albanians. Yet the high-altitude bombing with which the war was prosecuted – the only tactic Nato states could agree on – allowed where it did not provoke Slobodan Milosevic to escalate to the murderous expulsion of almost the whole Albanian population of Kosovo. Nato’s intense campaign eventually restored the displaced Kosovars to their homes, but was followed by a failure to prevent the revenge expulsions of Serbs from most of the province.
Britain became in this period the major donor of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) government that had secured its rule after the genocide; but Labour failed to oppose the RPF's own aggression, amounting in some places to genocidal massacre, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The British government, in invading Iraq in 2003 and failing to administer the country properly afterwards, bears great responsibility for creating the circumstances in murderous attacks were inflicted (not least by the Sunni-based “resistance” against Shi’a and other non-Sunni Iraqis, terrorising them out of areas they controlled). The low-grade genocidal conflict created a situation where around 1.9 million Iraqis (the UNHCR estimates) became refugees; a number exceeded by the 2.6 million internally displaced. The gravest of all charges against Tony Blair (and George W Bush) may be that they have a clear responsibility for this outcome.
The reflective moment
David Cesarani’s judgment that “the Holocaust is a part of British history” must, therefore, be extended. The wider history of genocide has touched and been touched by British state and society in many different ways. It cannot – with reference once more to Tony Blair’s statement of June 1999 – be assumed that “other” countries are the problem and Britain part of the solution. The idea of “bad/guilty” and “good/vigilant” nations - which often lies at the heart of genocidal practice - is not much help in answering genocide. Rather, it must be recognised that entire nations never stand unequivocally on one side of the historical process: complexity and ambiguity are the norm.
British governments and people have been part of the problem as often as they have been part of the solution. British citizens have responsibilities that go beyond vigilance; for example, to investigate the reasons why their state and social institutions have not always been vigilant, and why indeed they have sometimes been complicit in genocide. The lessons of the historical record are varied, but they leave no reasons for complacency.
Martin Shaw delivered the annual war-studies lecture at King's College, London on 26 January 2010. The lecture – entitled “Britain and Genocide: Parameters of National Responsibility” - contains a fuller version of the argument presented here.Posted on: November 14, 2017 3:58 PM
The southern-most cathedral in the Anglican Communion, Christ Church Cathedral at Stanley in the Falkland Islands, is to get a new rector. And the priest chosen to head up the Anglican Church on the islands is the Revd Nicholas Mercer, who – as Lt Col Nicholas Mercer – was the chief legal officer for the British Army during the 2003 Iraq war. Mercer left the army in 2011 to pursue a long-standing call to the ordained ministry. He was ordained to the diaconate in Salisbury Cathedral that year served a curacy at St Mary the Virgin in the Dorset parish of Gillingham, where he was ordained to the priesthood. For the past three years he has served as assistant chaplain at the prestigious Sherborne School in Dorset.
Mercer is an outspoken critic of the use of torture and in 2011 he was named Human Rights Lawyer of the Year for his work which saw the British Government concede that the UK’s Human Rights Act applied as much to prisoners of war detained on the battlefield as it did in the domestic situation; bringing an end to the use of hooding, stress positions, food and sleep deprivation and white noise as a precursor to interrogation.
Despite the praise heaped on his work in many quarters, he had been suspended by the Ministry of Defence over his challenges. “There was a sense that, after ‘baptism’ – being born again – I was sent into the wilderness as Jesus was, because it was a time of great trial,” he said in 2011. “In some respects, it was like being Jonah in the belly of the whale, whom God wanted and wouldn’t let escape! It’s a mixture of being ‘sorrowful yet always rejoicing’.
“The role of combative lawyer and priest are not necessarily opposed and my stance over the rights of prisoners was as much a theological battle as one about human rights. In my view, the Christian teaching that all human beings are created in the image of God is the basis for all human rights.”
The Parish of the Falkland Islands is an independent autonomous parish, outside any Anglican province. Its status within the Anglican Communion is “extra provincial to the Archbishop of Canterbury.” The church’s status as a cathedral stems from the Victorian era, and the consecration of Waite Hockin Stirling to serve as Bishop of the new Diocese of the Falkland Islands, which covered much of south America. In 1910, as the churches grew, a series of new dioceses were carved out leaving the Falkland Islands effectively isolated as an English speaking British colony in a province which was very-much dominated by Spanish-speaking Latin America.
In 1978, responsibility for the Falkland Islands passed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who appoints a commissary as Bishop for the Falkland Islands. In recent years that has been a post held by the Bishop at Lambeth – currently Bishop Tim Thornton. Despite the changes, the status of the Christ Church has remain unchanged: it is a cathedral without a diocese, serving a parish which reports to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Christ Church Cathedral in Stanley lies almost 8,000 miles south-west of Canterbury Cathedral.
Mercer has already spent time on the Falkland Islands, completing a parish placement in Stanley during training for the ordained ministry. “I loved my placement and was very warmly welcomed by the parish,” he said in a post on the parish’s Facebook page. “I am delighted to be returning as the Rector seven years later.”
The Revd Nicholas Mercer will take up his new role early in the New Year.It seems the media can always find a new excuse as to why the Clintons’ numerous scandals over the years should be overlooked. Tuesday morning, the networks dismissively treated reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions would be looking into hiring a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton Foundation’s dealings with Uranium One and Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, casting blame on Sessions instead. All three networks also characterized the potential investigation as a partisan hack job orchestrated by President Trump against his former election “rival,” instead of against the former Secretary of State.
ABC was the sole network to give a full report to the story, but treated it as Sessions’ problem, not the Clintons, straight from the opening line of the report. “[Jeff Sessions] will be on the hot seat today after revelations overnight he's asked Justice Department prosecutors to examine the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton's e-mails despite promises to recuse himself from those matters,” anchor George Stephanopoulos laid the groundwork for correspondent Mary Bruce’s report.
Calling it a “controversy,” Bruce adopted the Democrats rhetoric, suggesting this was a Republican conspiracy against “Trump’s former rival, Hillary Clinton.”
He's being greeted with a new controversy. Attorney General Jeff Sessions authorizing the Justice Department to consider a special counsel to look into allegations regarding Trump's former rival, Hillary Clinton. In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee the Justice Department suggests prosecutors would examine allegations that donations to the Clinton Foundation influenced a decision by the Obama Administration to allow a Russian agency to buy the Nuclear One company writing “prosecutors will make recommendations as to whether any matters not currently under investigation should be opened or whether any matters merit the appointment of a special counsel.” But after his involvement in the Trump campaign, Sessions pledged to steer clear of Clinton related investigations.
“That's not the outcome the president was hoping for,” she touted, playing a clip of President Trump asking the DOJ to investigate John Podesta:
TRUMP: They should be looking at the Democrats. They should be looking at Podesta and all of that dishonesty. They should be looking at a lot of things and a lot of people are disappointed in the justice department including me. Thank you, everybody.
She ended her report by casting doubt on Sessions’ credibility yet again, by touting Democrats “sounding the alarm” over Sessions' impartiality, saying he would “face some harsh questions” from Senate Democrats:
Now critics are already sounding the alarm. The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee tweeting “if the A.G. bends to pressure from the president and his allies and appoints a special counsel to investigate Trump's vanquished rival it could spell the end of the DOJ as an independent institution.” Now, guys, Sessions is set to testify on the hill later this morning. And you can be sure he's going to face some harsh questions.
NBC’s Kristen Welker also dismissed the investigation into Clinton as partisan hackery, on Today, calling it a “Republican concern:”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is considering the idea of appointing a second special counsel, a number of Republican concerns, some involving Hillary Clinton and that controversial sale of a uranium company to Russia. This comes after the president has repeatedly called on the DOJ to aggressively probe Democrats and as Sessions faces another grilling on Capitol Hill today about the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia. Adding pressure, the fact the president's eldest son is also under a bright spotlight for his communications with Wikileaks.
CBS This Morning took a different approach in their coverage of Clinton, instead, spending more of their time doubting AG Sessions’ character and impartiality.
Leading it’s report on Sessions with a chyron that read, “What did Sessions know?” (about Trump’s ties to Russia) at the bottom of the screen, anchor Gayle King opened by noting that recent testimony from Trump campaign aides “contradicted” Sessions’ previous testimony.
Correspondent Paula Reid hyped “Capitol Hill has really become a land mine” for Sessions, with this new information that “contradicts his previous testimony before Congress.”
She continued to suggest Sessions may have been lying under oath:
Sessions has repeatedly testified that he had no knowledge of any contacts between the trump campaign and Russia. But former Trump campaign aides Carter Page and George Papadopoulos have revealed that they both told Sessions about their contacts with Russia. Papadopoulos told the FBI that during the campaign, he suggested a meeting between then candidate Trump and Vladimir Putin in front of Trump and Sessions and Sessions shut down that. Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from the Russia investigation for failing to disclose his own contacts with the Russian ambassador.
“I imagine there will be fireworks,” anchor Norah O’Donnell noted, before getting to the Clinton investigation. “Paula, what about the Attorney General now asking his prosecutors to open up a new Russia probe?” she asked.
Reid blandly gave the rundown of the case before the Justice Department, treating it as a nothingburger. “Of course this new revelation will also give Republicans a more friendly line of Russia questioning for the Attorney General today,” she said dismissively.Paris Saint-Germain strolled to a 3-0 away victory over SM Caen in style and made history at the same time by setting a new record for mid-season points with 51, one better than Olympique Lyonnais’ 50 in 2006-07.
While victories over Ligue 1 teams seem to go with the territory for PSG, Caen are within reach of a Champions League place and did manage to get a draw at the Parc des Princes last February. Patrice Garande’s men have played solid football, with a good eye for the counter, and a decent defensive line. Hardly favorites, even at the Stade Michel d’Ornano, but not pushovers. Despite the perceived difficulty of the match, Les Parisiens went on to play some of the most decadent football of the season.
For the 60 minutes Thiago Motta remained on the pitch—afterward the tempo lowered quite a bit—Laurent Blanc’s men were immaculate in possession, crisp and inventive. They were the antithesis of the lazy bunch we saw against AS Saint-Etienne in the Coupe de la Ligue. Much of this was due to the return of the Italian duo to midfield. If Motta is the heart of this side, and it seems he indisputably is, then Marco Verratti is his pacemaker. There is a supernatural connection between the two, and with Il Gufetto back to full fitness, Motta can glide up the pitch and remain confident that he’s leaving no holes behind. Indeed, with the two of them on the pitch, the midfield often flattens out more than it does when Motta has to cover for the more defensively suspect Adrien Rabiot. The higher up the field Verratti is, the more danger he can cause and that aggression affects the entire squad. This cascades in innumerable ways, but we particularly see it when the fullbacks are allowed to advance while remaining well-covered and Angel Di Maria and Lucas Moura subsequently occupy roles just inside the touchline. This naturally trapped Caen within their own half, save for the occasional break. It’s shades of Barcelona, truly. It must be said that Blaise Matuidi, the usual midfield partner of the two Italians typically, isn’t guaranteed a spot in the starting XI as many would think. That said, while Rabiot is capable of deputizing from a technical standpoint, Matuidi is among the most defensively and physically capable in the squad. If we didn’t see much of him going forward against Caen, it’s because the attack had been entirely overhauled.
The attacking trio of Di Maria, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Lucas is one that is relatively untested, particularly in light of the contentious issue of Lucas as a starter versus as a substitute. Against Caen, though, the trio impressed me. It’s a combination of Di Maria finding more chemistry with his teammates by the day, Ibrahimovic having fully recovered from his injury, and Lucas back on his preferred flank. I’ve written previously that the inherent fluidity in the Parisian attack, when combined with Edinson Cavani shifted out wide, deprives Les Parisiens of an entire chunk of the pitch. It was a major contributor to Matuidi’s major drop in form, and the Uruguayan certainly doesn’t participate in the buildup play to the extent of many of his teammates, even if he does find the net. In the 5-1 win over Lyon, for example, Cavani registered 29 touches across 90 minutes. That’s the second-fewest touches of any player that game, and the fewest of anyone who wasn’t subbed off. Saturday’s attack was a revelation in fluidity. With AdM and Lucas on their natural touchlines, Ibrahimovic playing as a more traditional striker—still happy to drop back but not nearly as far as usual, which is why Matuidi stayed back in turn—Blanc’s men put on an absolute show. This was apparent from the very beginning, with Lucas beating the offside trap and nearly netting a goal in the second minute, and continued until he was subbed off.
The interplay between the three was magnificent, with both wingers technically proficient enough to drift inside and toward the touchline at any moment, and competent fullbacks potentially overlapping. We saw for the first time an attacking trident with all prongs actually functioning. It’s easy to throw your hands up and say Di Maria is just too good for Ligue 1—and you’re probably right, he is too good—but there was more to it than just his magic. Di Maria saves games like Saint-Etienne, where possession too often goes nowhere and he has to pull a killer ball to the far post out of his hat. It’s what last season I would have called “The Pastore Effect.” Meanwhile, earlier in the season, when El Fideo wasn’t fully integrated in the squad, every attack would come from Serge Aurier down the right. This fixture was one where all attackers were not only threatening goal, they created every chance. The first goal, seen above, may be mostly down to Aurier and Di Maria, but if you spot Lucas reacting to Aurier’s run, you can see he immediately falls back to the touchline to cover. This is just another advantage of having a proper wide man, particularly when your overlap is that dangerous. Di Maria doesn’t usually cover that space when on the right wing, preferring to come inside at every opportunity and risk exposing the right flank.
[gfycat data_id=”RadiantBeautifulAddax”]
The above chaos in the box is just another example of the interplay, with Zlatan released by Di Maria and then Lucas scrambling to recreate the chance. The space just around the edge of the box is where the two wide men preferred to spend their time by default, particularly with both being just as comfortable in an attacking midfield role. This frees up Ibra for his trademark acrobatic strikes, although normally the big Swede would have put a better finish on it.
More linkup as Di Maria, again assuming the role of a left-sided #10, touches it to Lucas, whose intelligent run is well-covered. That doesn’t stop Ibrahimovic as he powers it into the net. It might be a wondergoal, but the Brazilian’s movement is astronomically improved from games such as Angers, where he seemed to be perpetually just a step in front of the defensive line. A good portion of his job as a wide man is to be threatening off the ball, and with Verratti and Aurier surrounding him, Lucas absolutely did that against Caen. He may only have one “proper” assist to his name, but his contribution to overall play was, for me, the best I’ve seen from him this season.
The third goal for PSG was a exquisite and the above clip doesn’t do it justice. Di Maria starts the move after a trademark long ball from David Luiz (who was superb) and Paris calmly move it around the box culminating in an absurd lobbed finish from Di Maria. It was top-class football, and I just unfortunately don’t see Cavani being able to contribute to such a move, even if he still has his scoring boots.
Lucas was hauled off for Ezequiel Lavezzi in the 72nd minute but not before contributing to a fantastic, but ultimately offside, chance that was pure combination between the forwards. This sort of interplay is what makes the likes of Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Luis Suarez so deadly; Lucas is hardly in that class of players at the moment, but a little more consistency and he certainly could be. He is only 23, after all. It’s games like this that will build him a future at the club, and it’s players with his technical ability that will ultimately serve this team better than an in-the-box striker like Cavani.
In terms of defensive observations, Caen broke on the counter occasionally, though Thiago Silva and Luiz are generally very good at making chances difficult to take. Maxwell found joy getting forward as high as Aurier does, but he also left a big hole since Di Maria doesn’t drop back to cover as much as Lucas does. Layvin Kurzawa is probably better suited since he’s got a bit more pace on him. Luiz continues to be among the best ball-playing center-backs in the world. The other headline, of course, will be Silva conceding a penalty—soft call, but admittedly fair, and a strange misstep from the captain who was otherwise brilliant—and Kevin Trapp’s subsequent penalty save. I feel confidence from the spot for the first time in a good while, since Salvatore Sirigu couldn’t save a penalty to save his life. For me, the German is still undisputed starter. Solid game from him.SIAULIAI, Lithuania (Reuters) - The United States deployed 150 paratroopers to Lithuania on Saturday, part of efforts by Washington to reassure its eastern European allies, worried by events in Ukraine, that NATO would offer protection if they face Russian aggression.
A total of 600 U.S. troops are to be deployed to Poland and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for infantry exercises. They are expected to remain in the region on rotation until the end of the year.
“As threats emerged, we see who our real friends are,” Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said as she greeted the troops at the Siauliai air base.
“The Baltic states and Poland are on the border of NATO, so more security measures are urgently needed. This U.S. troop addition is very timely and very necessary,” she said.
Without mentioning Russia, she said the presence of U.S. troops would “repel those who encroach on stability in Europe and peace in the region,” as an invasion of Lithuania would now entangle the Americans.
“The numbers are not important. If just one of our guests is harmed, this would mean an open confrontation, not with Lithuania but with the United States of America,” Grybauskaite told reporters.
Additional to the U.S. paratroopers, from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team based in Italy, NATO has said it will triple its usual number of fighter jets patrolling over the Baltics next month to enhance its eastern European defenses.
The Baltic states have been members of NATO since 2004, but have not had a persistent presence of foreign troops on their soil before, partly to avoid antagonizing Russia.
NATO prepared plans for their defense only in 2010, after Russia invaded Georgia, according to U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks.
“I don’t think the deployment of troops is meant to be a message to Russia,” Richard C. Longo, Deputy Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe, told reporters in Siauliai.
“It’s a message to anyone who will listen, and the message is that the United States of America will honor its commitments to Lithuania.
“Let me make this clear: should Lithuania need NATO, I guarantee NATO will be there,” he said.RaptormanReports
The World Economic Forum will be convening in Davos, Switzerland from January 17-20 2017. High atop a mountain the world’s most powerful people will be planning your future, or lack of a future. Main themes this year will be global security, replacing you with robots, countering the global nationalist uprising and of course climate change. Lofty words will be spoken and fine wine will be drank! What do those words actually mean for the average person?
One could be forgiven for not understanding the language the Globalists speak, with pleasantries couched in mundane terms all in the guise of saving the world. It is almost a foreign language meant to confuse the worlds population which aren’t meant to understand such complex issues. Unwashed masses shouldn’t bother themselves with how tomorrow is being shaped. RaptormanReports thought it would be entertaining to provide a translation for those of us that do not speak Globalist and are not high upon a mountain top looking down on the rest of humanity.
Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution actually means replacing you with robots. It is estimated that in the next 10-20 years 50% or more of all jobs will be taken by robots. Occupations most likely to be affected are cashiers, factory workers, marketers, lawyers, costumer service, food workers and every other service economy job that people were to live on in a post industrial society. All of the free trade agreements that gutted manufacturing in the west were brought to you by the very same people high atop that mountain in Switzerland. Now they are going to master the 4th industrial revolution, makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over. If anyone thinks the Davos crowd is gonna just let everyone lay around and collect a welfare think again. The idea of a Universal Basic Income being kicked around at this year’s Davos meeting is only a means of further corralling mankind. Anyone who thinks the government would just give money away with out a lot of major strings attached is insane.
Global security will also be on the table at Davos. We all know what this translates to! A highly controlled mass surveillance society and a global command structure with the wealthiest.01% perched on top. Individual rights are a thing of the past as governments around the world militarize against their own people in the name of fighting terror. Everyone knows these are just means to an end. The end being “maximum security” around the world. Read the 2016 Davos report entitled Security Outlook to 2030: 3 Alternative Scenarios. Check out the uplifting artwork detailing the three chapters or possible futures envisioned.
The world economic forum is merely the public face of an already established command structure representing 50% of the wealth of the world in the hands of 62 families as an Oxfam study recently noted. Acting in concert these globalist cartels control or influence nearly all corporations, banks, governments and media.
Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world From Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. This was a scientific study showing these banks and corporations form the hub of a global combine that exert a controlling influence over the global economy. All will be at the annual Davos Meeting.
Climate change, formerly known as global warming, fits the bill as the main con being pushed by the world economic forum to actually be able to tax you for breathing! Lowering your carbon footprint is for the masses not for the jet setting elite. You are to blame for all the worlds problems and you will pay in the form of carbon taxes. Of course there will have to be a world authority to oversee this and the Rothschilds already have a bank set up for this purpose, how convenient. Al Gore wants to save the world so much he formed a carbon trading firm nicknamed Blood and Gore. Bill Gates and his buddies just want to help. Nice people with your well being in mind.
Of course one the main issues at this year’s World Economic Forum meeting will be how to strike back against the populous voter uprising taking place in the U.S., Britain and the European Union. Nationalist movements across the world have sent the Davos crowd into a panic as their plans for world government are crumbling.
The Precariat is a permanent under class described by globalist economist Guy Standing who also promotes the Universal Basic Income. The Precariat replaces the old communist idea of a Proletariat as an underclass on a global scale. The Proletariat placed in a precarious position by globalism. Created from inequalities of the global system, this population is to be considered the most dangerous group as they will not be willing go along with the program for further globalism. In fact they may choose nationalist politicians who oppose the goals of the World Economic Forum. Therefore the Precariat must be dealt with immediately. One can only imagine the secret meetings dealing with these issues.
Other translations include:
Public Private Partnerships – The very definition of fascism is the merger of state and corporate power. Liabilities and debts are public, profits are private.
Non Governmental Organization – Foundation paid useful idiots who do the bidding of the U.N.
Privatization – Handing publicly built infrastructure over to multinational corporations for pennies on the dollar.
Stake Holders – Not you!
Consensus – Excluding anyone you don’t agree with.
Governance – Complete control over your life by unelected technocrats.
RaptormanReportsDavid Moyes and his squad flew back to England immediately after Manchester United's 5-2 win over Kitchee FC, with the manager set for urgent discussions with the club's executive vice-chairman, Ed Woodward, regarding the pursuit of Cesc Fábregas – as it was also claimed that Nani has been "offered" to Monaco.
With United yet to make a major signing this summer, Moyes's first business in the transfer market may involve losing a player rather than acquiring one.
Monaco's sporting director, Vadim Vasilyev, claimed in the French newspaper L'Equipe that the Portuguese winger, who was not on the tour because of a nose operation, "has been offered to us".
Vasilyev added: "He is a very good player but at the moment there have been no talks. We have already changed our group quite a bit and we also want to offer opportunities to our young players." Nani has only a year left on his contract and Moyes is yet to have the chance to assess his worth, which will happen when the squad return to their Carrington training base this week.
Regarding Fábregas, Woodward flew back to Europe early from Sydney during the second leg of the tour, with the pursuit of Fábregas high on his agenda. With Moyes leading the squad on the 21-day trip, this week will be a first chance for the manager to give the potential purchase of Fábregas his complete focus.
Following the win over Kitchee in United's final pre-season tour game, Moyes was asked if Woodward had made any progress on Fábregas. "No. I've got no other updates to report just now," he said. With Barcelona rejecting £26m and £30m bids and stating categorically that the former Arsenal captain is not for sale whatever the price, Moyes is taking encouragement from the knowledge that Fábregas is open to the move.
Moyes and Woodward will consider whether to make a third bid, which is likely to be in the region of £35m, while Fábregas also has the option of putting in an official transfer request to try to force his way out of the club. But, given that Barcelona are his boyhood team, that is not thought to be a ploy he is likely to utilise.
The French club Monaco have claimed that they were offered the chance to sign Nani from Manchester United. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian
The goalkeeper David De Gea has an injured finger that could make him a doubt for United's next friendly, the trip to AIK in Stockholm on 6 August, and he was rested for the game against Kitchee.
"David De Gea has got a finger [problem], so we just didn't risk him in the last games," said the manager, who a month into succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson is beginning to settle in.
"I'm a bit more relaxed because of being around the players and them getting to know me and I think they'll feel a |
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Attentat?src=hash">#Attentat</a> de <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Quebec?src=hash">#Quebec</a> Suite à l’enquête, l’autre individu est maintenant considéré comme témoin. —@sureteduquebec
Despite everything that happened to him, Belkhadir says he isn't holding a grudge against the police.
"They were very nice to me," he said.Dear Simon,
I’ve always been extremes: a worsted wool suit or denim jeans. But having had my first couple of “sports jackets” made I thought it was worth while moving up in the formality stakes with trousers occasionally. I realise up from jeans is chinos, moleskins, cords etc but when you start getting into fresco, flannel and gabardine I am totally at a loss as to their relative formality.
I did have a quick look at flannel and fresco samples when last in my tailors and I personally wouldn’t be able to say which is more formal than the other – or are these two relatively equal and more a winter/ summer divide?
A simple list, for a simple person like me, from formal to informal would be really useful.
Jack
Hi Jack,
It’s a good question. We often look at the sliding scale of formality in regards to jackets and suits, or colours and patterns, but rarely trousers. There are certainly some materials that are more suited to summer or winter, but I would say we can safely combine them on the same list.
I’d suggest the scale for trousers could then be thought of as:
Worsted wool (standard suits)
Wool gabardine (gabardine finish on wool, surprisingly smooth and hard and therefore formal)
Fresco (and similar weave/finish)
General woollens (the actual formality depends largely on the finish, but they usually belong around here)
Cotton gabardine (not as formal as wool – can fade and crease more)
Flannel
Linen (often more casual the lighter in weight)
Moleskin/general cottons (most standard cottons belong around here in the scale)
Corduroy
Chinos (and generally, garment-washed cotton trousers)
Denim
Of course, this involves vast generalisations. We are essentially talking about three things – fibre, weave and finish – and some of the cloths listed above specify all of these, some of them only one. Particular finishes, as well as weight and construction, could quickly move a pair of trousers up or down the scale. Without even considering colour and pattern.
But it remains a useful way to think about formality of dress. The further down the scale you go, the less likely the trousers will suit a smart navy blazer. The further up the scale, the smaller the chance they will go with your heavy Harris-tweed jacket.
We could easily write a post on each cloth on the list. But hopefully this is the kind of simple list you were looking for Jack.
Simon
Images. Top: fresco. Middle, cotton gabardine, linen, flannel. Bottom: woollen, denim, fresco.Actor David Tennant stopped by Disneyland park recently to visit with Duckburg’s most famous trillionaire, Scrooge McDuck, who happened to be making a special visit to the Bank of Toontown. Visiting the Disneyland Resort with his family, David was most looking forward to riding the new Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! at Disney California Adventure park.
When asked what he liked most about Scrooge McDuck, David said, “He’s got a hidden life. You think he’s a crotchety old windbag, when he’s actually Indiana Jones with a beak!”
You can hear David in the new animated comedy adventure series “DuckTales,” premiering August 12 on Disney XD. Based on the Emmy Award-winning series treasured by a generation of viewers, “DuckTales” celebrates the importance of family and friendship, with comedy, mystery and adventure at every turn. Life is like a hurricane in Duckburg, so don’t miss an episode!Christian teaching on male headship is often used as a weapon against women. This abuse must be confronted.
During a past ministry trip to Hungary, I heard a painfully familiar story. Through a translator, a tearful young woman living near Budapest explained that her Christian husband was angrily demanding her absolute submission. This included, among other things, that she clean their house according to his strict standards and that she engage in sexual acts with him that made her feel uncomfortable and dirty.
This lady was not demanding her rights or trying to be disrespectful. She was a godly, humble woman who obviously wanted to please the Lord. But she had been beaten to a pulp emotionally, and she was receiving little help from her pastor—who was either unwilling or unprepared to confront wife abuse.
I've heard so many sickening versions of this scenario. In Kenya, several women told me their AIDS-infected husbands often raped them—and then their pastors told them they must submit to this treatment. In some parts of India, even some pastors believe it is acceptable to beat their wives if they argue with them or show any form of disrespect. And in some conservative churches in the United States, women are told that obedience to God is measured by their wifely submission—even if their husbands are addicted to alcohol or pornography or if they are involved in adulterous affairs.
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This distortion of biblical teaching has plunged countless Christian women into depression and emotional trauma. I'm not sure which is worse: the harsh words they hear from their husbands or the perverse way the Bible is wielded as a leather belt to justify domestic abuse. Here are three truths we must uncover in order to solve this problem:
1. Marriage is not a hierarchy. Traditionalists assume that a Christian marriage is defined as a dominant husband who makes all family decisions while the wife graciously obeys without input. Yet Scripture actually portrays marriage as a loving partnership and refers to the wife as a "fellow heir of the grace of life" (1 Peter 3:7, NASB). And the apostle Paul taught that in the realm of sexuality, husbands and wives share equal authority over each other's bodies (1 Cor. 7:4). In other words, submission in this most intimate part of a marriage covenant is mutual, and this same mutuality is the key to any happy marriage; it fosters respect, communication and an enduring bond.
2. Headship is not a license to control. Traditionalists also cite Ephesians 5:23 to remind wives that their husbands are their "heads"—and they believe this term requires some type of dictatorial control in marriage. Yet the Greek word used in this passage, kephale, does not have anything to do with heavy-handed authority, and it cannot be used to enforce male domination. Neither does it imply male superiority. The word can either mean "source" (as in the source of a river) or "one who leads into battle" (as a protector).
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Neither original definition of this word gives room for abuse. Headship, in its essence, is not about who's the boss. Rather, it refers to the Genesis account of Eve being taken from Adam's side. The husband is the "source" of the wife because she originated from him, and she is intimately connected to him in a mystical union that is unlike any other human relationship.
3. Men who abuse their wives are out of fellowship with God. First Peter 3:7 is clear: "You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so your prayers will not be hindered." Wife abuse is no trivial sin. Any man who berates his wife, treats her as inferior or engages in abusive behavior (including hitting, kicking, raping, cursing at or threatening punishment) will jeopardize his fellowship with the Lord. He will feel frustrated and convicted until he repents.
(And in the same way, I believe pastors who silently support abusive husbands by refusing to confront the behavior—or by telling women to submit to the pain—participate in this sin and could find their own prayers hindered.)
Truly Christian marriages, according to the apostle Paul, involve a tender, servant-hearted and unselfish husband who (1) loves his wife "just as Christ also loved the church"; (2) loves her as his own body; and (3) loves her as himself (see Eph. 5:25, 28 and 33). He stands alongside his wife in faithfulness, and she joyfully respects her husband because he can be trusted. And the two become one.
If we are to uphold this golden standard, we must confront abuse, shelter its victims and provide the tough love and counseling necessary to heal troubled relationships. And we have no business telling women to stay in marriages that actually could put them or their children in danger.
J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma. You can find him on Twitter at @leegrady.
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See an error in this article? Send us a correctionStraight out of the box you can tell that Colt Express is going to be a different board game experience. Coming with a three-dimensional game board for meeples to move around, along and in, setting the game up will grab players’ attentions straight away. The unsurprising aim of this train robbery game is to grab more loot than the rest of the players. Standing in your way is the Marshal whom starts out defending the biggest loot item, the $1,000 briefcase, and some other pesky robbers.
Colt Express is a game for 2 – 6 players with the length of the train, the playable game board, growing by carriages to match the number of players. At the start of the game players set up the board with loot, the marshal and the players’ meeples in the starting positions. Players get a set of the same 10 action cards (2 horizontal movement, 2 vertical movement, 2 shoot, 2 loot, 1 punch and 1 marshal), which each player shuffles and draws the top six cards. From here the round card is turned over, the first player starts the round and the entertaining heist occurs.
Normally in board games when you play a card the action takes place straight away and you move onto the next player. In Colt Express the entire round of cards is played before any of the actions take place. This results in plans being disrupted by others, players losing track of where they are on the train and where the good loot is. Has the briefcase or that gem you were looking to loot been picked up by another player? As the cards are flipped over and the actions of others unfold you’ll soon learn anticipating your adversaries isn’t as easy as you might think.
The marshal figure is the best example of this. When he moves into a carriage any meeples in the carriage take a Neutral bullet, clogging up their action deck, and the meeples are moved to the roof. If you are expecting to be in the carriage and are suddenly on the roof your actions may not play out in the way you expected and can even turn out to be detrimental to your cause.
I’ll be first to admit I’m not the best at construction of things but putting together the train and carriages of Colt Express was a rather fiddly ordeal. Thankfully, you only have to do this once and it is worth every second you spend putting it all together! The quality of the components start to sing through at this point. Instantly players can see what is going on from the theme of the train heist to how the game will play out. This includes the addition of small rocks and cacti to dot around the table around the train, which reinforce the theme.
The components come together, resulting in little to no visualisation being needed, as the train is physically there before you. This means Colt Express is perfect for younger players and casual gamers whom might get hung up about movement and event visualisation on a flat game board.
The game has a two of ways that you can add additional rules into the game. The first of these is via the action on the round cards. In the beginners game when all the turns of a round have been completed nothing special happens and you move onto the next turn. With the addition of the round card rules everyone is equally effected at the end of the round. Potentially the marshal drops a second $1000 briefcase, maybe the train brakes and sees everyone on the roof fly one carriage towards the front of the train or maybe the passengers rebel against the players. It’s a nice extension rule that can throw a spanner in your perfectly made plan.
Each character also has a unique ability. These range from Ghost’s ability to play his first card of a round face-down to Tuco’s ability to shoot to the roof above or down into the carriage below. I can see what the developers have tried to do with these unique abilities. They have tried to add a uniqueness to each character but it feels unnecessary. To the extent that these character powers almost make Colt Express, ever so slightly, unbalanced. There doesn’t seem to be one ability that necessarily is better than the rest. This being said, often one player has the opportunity to use their ability more often than the others. While it doesn’t drastically change the outcome of turns the game seemed to go down better, especially with new players, when everyone was on a level playing field; with a random selection of the same 10 identical actions.
While the rules are not overly complex, describing the game to those whom are relatively new to board games leave many with a confused look on their faces. This instantly falls away when they get hands on experience in their first round. Unfortunately, this can put them at a bit of a disadvantage as they test the water, on in this case the train. This is most likely as Colt Express is a rather different game mechanic wise. I found a quick dummy round was enough for new players to get the concepts and mechanics of Colt Express. Allowing the proper game to commence and everyone be ready from that start.
The way the game varies between games with different rounds and a different order of rounds keeps players guess what they will be able to do. This is before players get their random selection of actions, which can change how they can play the game. I would prefer to see a round card where the first action of the round is a tunnel, where actions are played secretively face-down just for extra mystery. Alas, this would interfere with Ghost’s ability. Minor hope aside, these round cards add to the replayability of Colt Express as it is yet another way that means no two games could be the same.
Past the initial ‘this is different’ stage the core game of Colt Express is simple to play but allows for great interaction between players. These interactions are far from positive for one of the parties involved so soon the concept of an eye for an eye, or in this case a shot for a shot, enters play. This drives increased entertainment into the competitive nature of the board game and even when you inevitably get screwed over by another player the experience is still enjoyable. Even to the extreme case of a game where I ended up with a score of $0, a pitiful attempt as you even start with $250, I still had a great time playing. Overall, Colt Express is as enjoyable and entertaining as it is a unique game, subsequently it has firmly earnt its space on my gaming shelf!Biologists have announced the discovery of a new species of scorpion, named Vaejovis brysoni, in the Santa Catalina Mountains in southern Arizona.
The Santa Catalina Mountains overlook the city of Tucson, Arizona. Amazingly, in the 21st century, there are still new species to be discovered right here in the United States. What is even more surprising is that the new species was found within sight of a large metropolitan area.
Dr Rob Bryson Jr. discovered the new species while looking for a completely different animal. Many important discoveries are made this way by scientists who start out working on something completely different.
The scientist sent specimens to Dr Michael Webber of the University of Nevada Las Vegas and Dr Richard Ayrey, who determined that they were indeed a new scorpion species.
Another scorpion of the same group also inhabits this mountain range, making this the first documented case of two vorhiesi group species distributed on the same mountain.
For over 50 years only four species of mountain scorpions were known from the state of Arizona. That number has more than doubled over the past six years, with a total of 10 species now known, all belonging to the same group. Arizona is known for isolated mountain habitats in the desert known as Sky Islands. These Sky Islands are where the new species are being discovered.
“This latest new scorpion is a prime example of the amazing diversity of life still to be discovered, right here in 21st century America,” said Dr Ayrey, lead author of the study published in the open access journal Zookeys.
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Bibliographic information: Richard F. Ayrey, Michael M. Webber. 2013. A new Vaejovis C.L. Koch, 1836, the second known vorhiesi group species from the Santa Catalina Mountains of Arizona (Scorpiones, Vaejovidae). ZooKeys 270: 21–35; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.270.4500In his latest video, Brooklyn-based artist j. viewz performs an electronic version of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” using only vegetables. Well, not just vegetables, actually; with some grapes, kiwis, and strawberries thrown in, this band is 50% fruity. Regardless, his performance is captivating – certainly not your average vegetable medley. But how does it work?
The key to the whole thing appears at 0:26, where Dagan shows Makey Makey, a circuit board created by MIT graduate students Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum that lets normal objects like mushrooms or eggplants take the place of keyboard keys. Dagan describes how it works in a brief interview below.
The Atlantic: Was any part of the video or sound pre-recorded, or was it actually generated live in the video?
Jonathan Dagan: All the sounds were generated live, but the actual samples that were triggered were pre-made. The processing of the sound on the Novation keyboard also happened live, of course.
How does the circuit board work?
The Make Makey circuit board translates signals from various media into my computer. I turned that signal into MIDI commands, making the veggies into a MIDI controller, same as the keyboard you see in the video. Both feed MIDI signals into the computer and trigger samples in [the music editing program] Ableton Live.
It took me a while to understand that I needed to explain it in more detail on the video – the shape of the fruits and vegetables does not affect the sound it triggers. Technically I could have used exposed wires for all of the samples, or even a human body or a glass of water for that matter. It's simply nice to “embody” a bass drum sound with an eggplant, bells with grapes and the sweet melodic sound with strawberries.
In your opinion, what's the most musical vegetable?
Well, I've been playing with MIDI controllers for a while and tested lots of drum pads, but I've never worked with a drum pad that was more comfortable and ergonomic than an eggplant, really.
Homepage image courtesy of Vimeo, j.viewz
This article originally published at The Atlantic hereRenée McGhee loves to cook and to talk about food. She weaves tantalizing descriptions of her recipes, every element whipped up from scratch. “My favorite main dish is what I call my Maui Pork Bowl: grilled pineapple, pickled peppers, pulled pork in a sweet, smoky, spicy sauce that I make with layers and layers of flavor,” she said.
McGhee, 60, has turned that passion into a part-time gig thanks to Josephine, a marketplace that lets home cooks sell meals to nearby customers who pay around $12 per serving online and then come to pick up the food.
Last week she moved deliberately around the tidy kitchen in her Berkeley apartment, ladling the pork dish atop rice in take-out containers, as about a dozen people came through to pick up meals, some of them so eager they started chowing down right there.
“Josephine gives me an opportunity to do what I love, and pay bills while doing it,” she said. “I’ve met so many wonderful people.”
But although her kitchen is immaculate, McGhee — and Josephine — occupies a legal gray zone. California, like most states, bans sales of food cooked in a personal kitchen. A 2013 law, the California Homemade Food Act, also called the cottage food act, does allow home cooks who meet certain criteria to sell items that don’t need refrigeration, such as bread, pies, candy, granola, mustard and nut butters. That change inspired a wave of entrepreneurs.
Now Josephine is mounting an effort to reform state law to let small-scale entrepreneurs sell home-cooked food in person at their homes. It would legalize Josephine’s model, as well as those of underground restaurants like EatWith and Feastly that offer paid dinner parties in people’s homes.
“We’re trying to create a space where people who love to cook can succeed,” said Josephine CEO Charley Wang, who co-founded the company in late 2014 with Tal Safran, naming it after a friend’s mother who nurtured them when they moved to the West Coast. “Our legislative system has been outpaced by technology and our social evolution.”
Josephine will host a series of town halls for cooks, consumers, regulators, health-safety advocates and others to discuss the issue, starting with an event Wednesday at its Oakland co-working space. Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown, D-San Bernardino, is on board to sponsor a bill next year after all the interested parties have had a say.
“There need to be some pragmatic regulations to allow folks to cook healthy food safely and share it easily,” said Babak Bafandeh, co-founder of Cuchine, another home-cooks marketplace that operates in San Francisco. “Food cooked with love resonates with people much more than industrial food.”
But the issues are complex.
Justin Mallon, who represents some 1,600 California county and town health inspectors as executive director of the California Conference of Directors of Environmental Health, said his trade group is open to seeking a way to legalize the sale of home-cooked food. But food safety is the first concern. In his view, any law would need equipment requirements, such as refrigerators that can maintain a temperature; food handling rules, including training for cooks; and some limits on the number of meals or people served.
“The local regulators aren’t insensitive,” he said. “We want to find a balance between a free-for-all and maintaining a level of public service and public trust.”
In-person inspections of the kitchens are a basic prerequisite, he said. California law requires restaurants and other enterprises to pay the cost of annual inspections, which can range from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand a year for big-box stores with bakers and butchers.
Both Josephine and Cuchine, which are very small, counting their cooks in the dozens, said they already do their own inspections of home kitchens and require all cooks to get California food handler certificates. Both say they’d be delighted to have government inspectors take over.
And beyond the food concerns, issues about zoning, parking and noise could easily arise — as they have for Airbnb’s vacation rentals — if marketplaces flourish and home cooks see a steady stream of take-out customers at their door.
Airbnb, Uber and Lyft followed a classic Silicon Valley playbook of pursuing widespread growth that often defied local laws, and then seeking legislative changes to accommodate their models. Josephine says it’s trying to do things differently.
“There are two approaches to innovation outpacing regulation,” said Matt Jorgensen, Josephine’s chief operating officer. “Innovators can work around the system or within the system through policy change. For most tech companies, evading the regulatory system for as long as possible has been the default. We see an opportunity to engage in the political process and bring stakeholders into the conversation.”
As policy director at Oakland’s Sustainable Economies Law Center, Christina Oatfield helped create the Cottage Food Law.
“We love the concept of supporting people accessing healthy, local, homemade meals,” Oatfield said. “But this legislation needs a lot more thought and work.” Besides food-safety issues, she thinks any law should protect the cooks from financial exploitation.
Josephine’s founders already frame it as creating flexible work to help people make ends meet, the same argument put forth by Airbnb, Uber and Lyft.
“What makes Josephine special is that people can do it at home,” said Ben Jealous, a partner at Kapor Capital, which invested in Josephine’s seed round, seeing it as fitting his firm’s mission of supporting social enterprises (Josephine has about $2.5 million in backing). “You can watch your kids and have a home-based business. These are entrepreneurs finding a way to empower working families financially and to make more nutritious food available to the rest of us.”
Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaidLast weekend I went to the SNL 40th reunion. I had two Willy Wonka Golden Tickets to the biggest event on earth (that weekend, at least) and I took my 15 year old son, Chris. To summarize what I will soon detail, it was the time of our lives.
This wasn’t my first Saturday Night Live reunion. I went to a 15th anniversary show and a 25th, and they were big deals, to be sure, but nothing like this one. I’ve never been given any attention on any of them and no sketch featuring me ever gets shown, but I go to see old friends and admittedly I get misty seeing the hallways which were once a crucible for my career dreams, and so I go.
I have a very clear perspective of my SNL career and I harbor no ill feelings toward the experience. In fact, if anything, I am critical of myself for not figuring out how to emerge from a show that is a one-way ticket to stardom.
But, I can also forgive my friendly Iowa nature for not being able to navigate those sometimes dangerous waters. The shadow of Eddie Murphy loomed large and truth be told, the entire Ebersol era was not a time to nurture a neophyte like me.
I credit Dick Ebersol for identifying the talent of Murphy and also of Joe Piscopo (the hardest working person there) and for keeping the show alive. Later he hired Billy Crystal and Marty Short to achieve that same end. And, truth be told again, I was thrilled to be in their company. Even after a show where I had nothing to do I could say, “I’m being paid to live in New York City and now and again I get to be on tv.”
That, in the scheme of things, doesn’t suck.
And now here I am back at 30 Rock with my teenage son and about to walk down the Red Carpet….
The Red Carpet was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Except for glimpses on Entertainment Tonight, I had no idea what to expect. I handed a nice young woman our “special” credentials, she whispered my name to a guy with a dry erase board who then proceeded to write “Gary Kroeger” and show it to the row of photographers.
I was given, with my son, a cue to start walking the carpet. In front of me was Melissa McCarthy and Billy Crystal and so I was surprised when I heard, “Gary! Over here! Up here!” and rows of flashes went off.
What happens is that you hit a small mark on the carpet and when that gallery of photographers have their shot, you move about 3 feet to the next marker and repeat the process. There are about 5 marks to hit before you are finally through the venue. I felt a little embarrassed actually, but I looked over at my son and saw the coolest 15 year old kid on the planet soaking it in.
Once through, we proceeded to the Pre-Show Party. If I had to choose one event only on this evening, this would have been it. As soon as we walked up the stairs, we saw Mike Meyers. I extended my hand and said, “Hi, Mike, Gary Kroeger” and he beamed and said, “Yes, of course, we met at the last one of these.”
I was flattered to say the least. I introduced my son, who shook his hand, and as we walked away, Chris, said to me, “Dad! I just met Shrek!”
“And Austin Powers and Dr. Evil,” I reminded him.
No sooner had we walked into the main bar area when we noticed the Manning brothers, Payton and Eli, standing alone in a corner. I thought to myself, “This is never going to happen again” and so I pulled my son by his lapel and walked right up to them.
I extended my hand. “Gary Kroeger and this is my son, Chris.”
Payton Manning gave me a firm shake and said, “I’m Payton Manning and this is my brother, Eli.”
Really?
The humility of their nature was apparent. Two southern gentlemen who never assume that they are special. Of course I wanted to ask Payton about next season, but this event is one where everyone feels safe from the scrutiny of media and adoring fans and I wisely chose not to.
No sooner did we say our farewell to the Mannings when Bob Odenkirk appeared.
“Bob, Gary Kroeger” as my hand thrust forward again. I have a reflex where I always do that in order to avoid an awkward “and….you are….?” moment.
“Gary! Yes! How are you?”
I looked at my son, a huge “Breaking Bad” fan, and saw his appreciation of the moment. Bob was genuinely thrilled when I told him how much I love “Better Call Saul” and we even exchanged emails. A nicer guy there has never been.
An announcement was made that it was time to head toward Studio 8-H because seating was about to begin. Chris and I headed toward the elevators when emerging from a small coterie was Eddie Murphy.
Again, the hand thrusts forward.
“Eddie, Gary Kroeger.”
“Kroegs! How’ve you been! It’s been like 30 years!”
“Eddie, I’ve been great. This is my son, Chris.”
“How ya doin’, Chris? Nice to meet you.”
A few more pleasantries and Chris and I moved toward the elevators.
“Dad! I just met Donkey!”
“And all of the Klumps,” I reminded him.
We turned to the elevators and Paul Rudd was right on top of us.
“Paul. You went to college with my ex-wife’s brother. Matthew Bailey”
“Matty! Oh my God!”
We swapped stories about my mutually adored ex-brother-in-law and, again, I glanced over at my son to be sure that he was connected to this moment. His smile said it all. He had the “It’s Paul Rudd and we’re talking to him” look on his face.
Paul Rudd is one of the most down to earth celebrities you will ever meet. Chris said to me as we exited toward the elevators, “He is exactly the guy I hoped he would be.”
Once on the studio floor, we stepped out into what was an all too familiar hallway for 3 years of my life, and Jim Belushi seemed to appear from nowhere.
“Kroeger!”
“Hey, Jim!”
Years ago, Jim had approached me in a restaurant in LA and said, “Hey, I’m sorry I was such a dick at SNL.”
Well…he was kind of a dick, but I knew that he was being sincere and any resentment I may have felt toward him and his…ever-present ambition….melted away. Now it was just two old friends looking for the cast pictures in the hallway of our years. We found one and posed together.
Just before the entrance to Studio 8-H is another hallway to the right where the dressing rooms are located. I decided that I wanted to see mine. I had inherited it from Garrett Morris and Chris Farley from me. The 30 Rock from my era was the same 30 Rock that was built in the 1930s, but now everything was remodeled and very contemporary. Nevertheless, I knew the space and peeked inside. I saw the wall where I once threw a chair out of frustration after all my sketches were cut.
I kept that remembrance to myself.
Chris and I turned back to go to the stage and in front of us was Fred Armisen. Out came the hand, but before I could say, “Fred, Gar-” he cut me off.
“It’s so great for you to be here,” he said. “That really means a lot.”
I looked at him quizzically.
“You were my cast,” he continued. “You were the cast I grew up watching, wanting to be part of this. It means so much to me that you are here.”
Boom. This moment was indelibly imprinted onto my consciousness. It had never occurred to me that I was noticed by people that I admire today.
Once inside, we were shown our seats. To get there we walked by Jack Nicholson. Christopher Walken, Donald Trump, Taylor Swift, Kristen Wiig, Paul Simon. We were seated next to David Koechner of “Anchorman” fame who gave us a big (Whammy!) hello.
I whispered into David’s ear that my son was a big fan and David, without missing a beat, launched into a tirade about how he could only get one ticket and now “You are in my wife’s seat!”
He proceeded to try and occupy my son’s space in order to feel more included. Chris was keen to the bit and grinned ear to ear.
Another one of life’s truly nice people.
The show…was the show. Most parts were good, some were great. 3 1/2 hours is a long time even if you’re getting a foot massage and I was getting restless by “Celebrity Jeopardy” but my son was enjoying every second. I mean, Tina Fey and Larry David were just in front of him, Matt Lauer was to his right. Bill Murray was singing the theme from “Jaws” so what’s not to enjoy?
For me, there is one thing that’s a little difficult at these anniversary shows and that’s the fact that I want to be part of it. I want to be on that stage making this crowd laugh. There is a tinge of jealousy toward those who earned that privilege, and it is then, and only then, that I wish I’d been more aggressive back in the day.
For the last two minutes of the show, though, every cast member was asked to come to the stage for the goodnights. I hesitated until my son said, “Dad, get up there!” I then ran onto the stage.
I was suddenly with a swarm of the most famous people on earth. Billy Crystal was the first that I saw and he said, “Kroeger, I hear you’re running for office!”
Wow. News spreads fast.
Then came Marty Short who said the same thing.
I looked to my right as the familiar goodnight music began and was face to face with Sir Paul McCartney. I thrust out my hand….
“Sir, I’ve waited 50 years to ‘hold your hand.'”
He smiled and replied, “Well, it’s about time then” and he took my hand.
What a great, glib, Beatle-esque thing to say, I thought to myself. I could tell that he was willing to engage in a conversation, but my edit function kicked in. “What hasn’t he heard?” I thought. I considered for a second doing my Ed Sullivan impression of their first introduction in 1964 (which I have done since that first introduction in 1964), but the moment passed, Dana Carvey moved in and the two of them started playing air guitar.
I worked with Ringo on the show in 1985 and I was perfectly satisfied with having met two of four Beatles. Not bad for a kid from Iowa.
At the coat check was Jim Breuer and his wife and they graciously offered that we share their limo to the After-Party at the Plaza Hotel. My son has now flown First Class to New York, been to the biggest SNL show ever, and is going in a limosine to the Plaza where McCartney, Taylor Swift, Prince, and Jimmy Fallon will eventually get onstage to sing.
Not bad for a kid from Iowa.
We get inside to the most opulent event I could ever imagine and worked our way into the main room. There was Joe Piscopo and Don Novello at the bar.
“Kroeger! I hear you’re running for office! You should come do my radio show!” said Joe.
Joe was great on SNL and I loved him. He always included me and here he was, 30 years later, including me again.
But here’s the defining moment of the evening for me. My son and I are talking to Andy Breckman, one of the great SNL writers, when in walks Sarah Palin.
Andy said, “I know Governor Palin, let me introduce you!”
“No!” I said. “Absolutely not. What would I say to her?”
“C’mon, I want you to meet her, ” Andy insisted.
“No! I have said and written terribly critical things about her. This is a party and there is no reason for–”
“Governor Palin, this is Gary Kroeger from SNL. He’s a Democrat who might run for Congress.”
(Thanks a lot, Andy)
“A Democrat, huh?” came the familiar Alaskan/twangy accent. “They’re not all bad.” She smiled a very warm smile and we shook hands.
“Governor, it is very nice to meet you.”
“And who is this fine looking young man?” she inquired, reaching for my son’s hand. Chris didn’t need Dad to do his introductions anymore and he returned the greeting.
“I’m Chris Kroeger and I’m here with my Dad. A real pleasure to meet you.”
Governor Palin introduced us to the people she was with and at no time looked around to see who else might be in |
, Skive and Brønderslev all telling Immigration Services not to send them any more.
“We don’t have the group [Chechens, ed.] and we don’t want them either based on the experiences of the surrounding municipalities,” Brønderslev wrote in a ‘priority request’ to Immigration Service according to Berlingske.
“We have had bad experiences with integrating Chechens. We currently have quite a few Chechens in Skive Council but the majority of them are difficult to integrate and many have moved away,” Skive wrote to Immigration Service.
“Haderslev Council cannot accommodate more Chechens,” that municipality wrote.
Another unwanted group is the Roma. Sønderborg Council told Immigration Service that it “wants to put an end to the visitation of Roma people from the former Yugoslavia who come on humanitarian grounds”.
Danish municipalities provide requests and recommendations to Immigration Service each year as a way to build upon previous successes with certain groups, but many of the municipalities also use the annual exercise as an opportunity to tell the national authorities which refugees they do not want.
This would appear to be in violation of the nation’s immigration laws which state that no distinctions can be made based on nationality when helping those in need.
At the Danish Red Cross, general secretary Anders Ladekarl said it makes sense that municipalities would try to specialise in housing a certain group of immigrants, but stressed that everyone should be welcome.
“No one should be turned away. Passive racism cannot be involved when it’s time to add up the numbers,” he told Berlingske.
Immigration lawyer Bjørn Dilou Jacobsen told Berlingske that the municipalities’ ‘negative lists’ could be in violation of the law.
“As a starting point, one should never discriminate based on race or ethnicity. When you discriminate indirectly it must be impartial and proportionate, not just the argument that some types of people are difficult to integrate,” he said.
The mayors of Brønderslev, Sønderborg, Haderslev and Skive rejected the notion that they are discriminating against anyone, and an Immigration Service spokeswoman told Berlingske that her agency does not give much consideration to the municipalities’ ‘negative lists’.This morning Sound Transit announced it has expanded its street performer program, taking it beyond the pilot program at University of Washington and Capitol Hill Link light rail stations to Beacon Hill, Mount Baker, Columbia City, Othello, Tukwila, and Angle Lake.
“After finishing the pilot project in February, we used feedback from communities and peer agencies to devise a set of guidelines for expanding performance sites to select stations,” said Sound Transit Chief Executive Officer Peter Rogoff. “Our goal is to create a welcoming experience for light rail riders. By providing opportunities for street musicians to perform at more stations, we help support the unique character of those neighborhoods served by Link.”
A survey of transit riders and street performers revealed wide support for expanding the busking program, Sound Transit said.
The busking program should help Sound Transit transform the atmosphere at its stations–which now tend toward drab utilitarianism with little in the way of entertainment or retail–and enliven the spaces within, many of which are beautiful adorned, such as the region’s most recently opened station at Angle Lake, as pictured above.
Sound Transit’s expanded busker program also allow larger performances: “The program now allows as many as five performers at a time, up from a limit of three during the pilot. Performance locations are marked with stainless steel stars to help prevent performers and audiences from blocking station traffic.”
Sound Transit is trying to ensure busking doesn’t get in the way of transit services and that the spectacle doesn’t get too out of hand. “Busking will not be allowed during high-ridership events like Husky Football games and graduation,” Sound Transit states. “Audio amplification and use of risky props such as knives or fire during all performances are prohibited.”
So, sword swallowers, knife jugglers, and firedancers need not apply.
“Sound Transit previously welcomed street musicians outside its light rail facilities, though buskers were not allowed to perform inside stations or on platforms due to congestion concerns,” the release explained. “As the agency looked ahead to opening stations in communities where busking is commonplace, it began researching street performance programs and interviewing representatives from transit agencies such as King County Metro, Metro Vancouver’s TransLink, Calgary Transit, the Bay Area’s BART, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York. Agency staff worked with the Seattle Music Commission and Seattle Department of Transportation to launch the pilot program in September 2016.”
A full listing of Sound Transit’s busking guidelines are available here. Rules not already referenced are quoted below:
Busking operates on a first-come, first-served basis.
Buskers can only perform at approved sites. No busking when either the performer and/or the audience blocks pedestrian and/or vehicular traffic.
Maximum performance time is two hours per busking site.
No more than five persons may perform at a site at a time without prior approval.
Larger groups of six or more must receive approval to perform by emailing largebuskergroup@soundtransit.org. Please include: number in group, performance site preference, dates, and approximate times of performance. It may take at least two weeks to receive approval, and first come first-served rules still apply.
All performances must be suitable for a general family audience rating; Sound Transit does not allow profanity or obscene language.
Performers acknowledge they perform at their own risk on Sound Transit property.
Let the music begin.
The featured image of Angle Lake Station is courtesy of Sound Transit.
We hope you loved this article. If so, please consider supporting our work. The Urbanist is a non-profit that depends on donations from readers like you.Apparently an Iowa college doesn’t think so…
Male, female, transgender, no gender, gay, lesbian, straight. Labels don’t matter at Grinnell College. Students can share a dormitory room, bathroom, shower room or locker room with any of the above, if they choose.
This fall, the progressive private liberal arts college on the Iowa prairie added a gender-neutral locker room to its mix of gender-neutral dormitory options.
The locker room in the athletic complex is for those using the recreational facilities, physical education students, varsity athletes or spectators of athletic events.
It’s the next step for Grinnell College, which became Iowa’s only college three years ago to offer an option for males, females or others to share the same dorm room, part of a growing trend nationwide. The University of Iowa and Cornell College are among Iowa colleges also considering the option in coming years, while more than 50 mostly private colleges across the country have been joined recently by a few public universities with gender-neutral housing.
“It’s about an ethos. It’s about creating a safe and welcoming space. It’s not about being able to room with your significant other,” said Lily Cross, a senior who helped persuade Grinnell officials to offer gender-neutral housing.What does it take to succeed in NYC?
At the corner of 54th St and Second Avenue you’ll find my favorite spirits and wine shop. It’s close but not exactly in my neighborhood but I go out of my way to shop there. It’s arguably the best in Midtown.
If you live in Manhattan, chances are there’s a store up the street, around the corner or, a block over. There are “destination” shops like Astor, Beacon and others so I suppose Ambassador fits this genre – well worth going out of your way. Besides, they deliver. But before I talk about them, let’s spend a few minutes on the New York retail scene.
Only in New York
It’s a complicated market at all levels of the Booze Business.
As recently as the 1980s, there were over ten significant distributors. Today there are only two main players. While the gap has been partly filled with wine and beer distributors moving into spirits, the market is in a state of limited competition aka as an oligopoly. In short, the wholesalers call the shots.
A consumer living in the boroughs other than Manhattan can purchase most alcohol products for less than in “the city.” Lower overhead is the main reason.
Thanks to state tax differences, for many consumers it makes more sense to go across the river to New Jersey if you’re looking to stock up, particularly spirits. The difference in state excise taxes is almost a dollar per gallon –$6.44 in NY vs. $5.50 in NJ.
(I used to joke that a car coming to NY from NJ whose trunk was much lower than its hood probably was either a small New York State bar owner stocking up or someone having a party.)
So imagine you’re a retailer in Manhattan. Your rent is high; you have to compete with many businesses for qualified employees; your customer base (in the midtown area) has changed, with LLCs buying apartments that are frequently unlived in; and the guy down the street is selling the same brand as you for less.
It’s not a level playing field
There’s a rule in NY State that only a single individual can hold a license to sell wine or spirits at retail. Its origin has to do with preventing chain liquor stores from doing business in the state. But guess what? It doesn’t stop retailers from opening other stores in the names of their family members.
So, when a distributor has a multi-case discount, the sole proprietor store can’t take advantage of it but the stores “owned” by cousins, sisters, in-laws can. In short, that’s how many NY State stores beat the system.
This is the environment in which Ambassador Wines & Spirits operates.
The Ambassador Story
Meet Leonard Phillips, the owner of the store and whose family has been in the business since 1973. It started as a small shop run by his grandmother that has grown to the current 1400 square feet store on two levels.
Leonard’s original calling in life was to be a biochemist and ultimately become a physician in the military. However, as we all know, life has a way of getting in the way of plans and dreams. But if you spend five minutes with Leonard you quickly realize that his passion and tenacity is what has makes Ambassador unique.
Here’s why I think the store is special
This is not the place to go to buy the popular vodka and expect a discounted price. It is the place to go where you will find new or extraordinary products that appeal to the spirits enthusiast and aficionado. Their selection of whiskies (particularly scotch and single malts) is unbelievable.
In fact, if you’re a follower of this blog, you know that I love the whiskies and gin from Koval Distillery. All their products are available at Ambassador, which is how I came to the store in the first place.
Their wine selection is also second to none. But, interestingly, thanks to the whiskey and craft spirits explosion, wine as a percent of volume has gone from 80% to 65% in the last 3 to 4 years.
In addition to wine and liquor, their selection of Sake, Soju and Sochu is, in my opinion, the best in NYC. If you’re looking for hard cider this is the place to go. And, while you’re in the store check out their champagne and sparkling wine selections.
There is even a room downstairs for tastings and education either conducted by companies or groups of friends wanting to discover new and interesting products.
Hey, don’t take my word for it. Go to Yelp and check them out. Not only did they get 4.5 out of 5 but also the comments left by reviewers are amazing.
It’s about the people
Most of the reviews on Yelp talk about the knowledge, helpfulness and friendliness of the staff. In most wine and spirits shops I’ve gone to around the country over the years, most should have the slogan, “shut up and buy.” This is a store whose service orientation matches their style of business – personal recommendations based on knowing the customer and the products they sell.
* * *
When I asked Leonard about how he copes with the peculiarities of doing business in New York City his response was mixed. On the one hand, as a true sole proprietor store facing competition from multi-owned stores and their ability to deeply discount, he describes the situation as akin to being a “one legged man in an ass kicking contest.”
At the same time, or perhaps as a result, he views Ambassador Wine and Spirits as a Dylan’s Candy store for adults.
An article in Serious Eats sums it up nicely:
Ambassador is the liquor store I wish I had in my neighborhood; you find yourself wanting to hang out there, even if you don’t really need to buy anything.
My kind of store.It’s begun in earnest — Mayor John Tory’s slow retreat from his controversial, multibillion-dollar SmartTrack transit proposal. It’s always been a seductive project — 53 kilometres and 22 transit stations in “seven years, not 17,” operating mainly on existing rail lines and connecting Markham to the Pearson airport area, via downtown.
John Tory came to the mayor's office touting a SmartTrack concept to boost local transit using GO lines, but has finally begun walking away from parts of it that were impractical from the start. ( RICHARD LAUTENS / TORONTO STAR )
But, upon further review, an idea too simple and sunny to be true. The latest word is, changes to Tory’s election-winning proposal might even make it smarter, faster, cheaper. Go figure. On top of its exaggerated conception, SmartTrack proponents now shamelessly try to sell us another deception. Commuters don’t know whether to laugh or cry or slip into despair.
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If the news didn’t come on the same day as a TTC report asking for an extra $400 million for the delayed Spadina subway extension, commuters might even have swallowed the pill. As it stands, the pullback from the mayor’s unsupportable SmartTrack project grew more apparent by the day — even as Tory doubled down and tried to assure everyone that all was well. Since his election a year ago, it has become obvious that the heavy rail line capable of running GO Transit vehicles cannot be built west of the Mount Dennis area as proposed without engineering feats approaching $5 billion. That’s three to four times what an LRT would cost. On the opposite northeast segment up to Unionville, the new tracks would duplicate service on the nearby GO Stouffville line. Worse, the project seems to cannibalize riders from the proposed Scarborough subway, an extension of the Bloor-Danforth line north into the Scarborough Town Centre. To avoid the redundancy, Tory’s staffers have been pushing city staff to nudge the Scarborough subway route further east, even along leafy Bellamy Rd. for crying out loud — adding ridiculous costs and heaping scorn on that subway project, which is already a gross over-build. The central piece of SmartTrack, wisely using existing GO lines, may have some resonance. But it is perceived to exist at the expense of the Downtown Relief Line (DRL), the transit planning project that, historically, all the experts have identified from the dawn of subways in Toronto.
This idea clearly needed a redux. So, expect the mayor to propose a phased approach, with the central piece going ahead with Metrolinx support and the questionable pieces dumped into the “future build” dustbin. Up in the towers at City Hall and at Metrolinx headquarters, the bureaucrats have all lost their hair trying to devise ways to make the mayor’s plan stand up to scrutiny. Try as they may, it won’t pass rigorous examination, though there may be excellent parts of it.
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It’s faster and cheaper and more practical to use existing GO rail lines, where possible, to increase transit service. It’s also instructive that a politician can marshal a lot of support in a short time for a public project if he or she is resolute and persistent. Tory got a promise of $2.6 billion from the federal government and similar amounts from the Liberals at Queen’s Park. Rarely has a Toronto politician promoted a transit project with such glee, vigour and surety — minus even a modicum of evidence that the line is needed, will attract riders and fits with other planned projects. In fact, it is scary how easy it was for Tory to gain provincial and federal support for a scheme that no one had studied and few were convinced would work as Tory has suggested. City staff are working on a master transportation plan to guide decisions over the next 50 years. Within weeks, city councillors should get comprehensive studies and reports that are to provide guidance on where to build which transit projects — based on objective data and projections. If Tory truly intends to do what’s right for commuters, he will follow where the evidence leads. If he applies the same energy to the coming Feeling Congested recommended projects as he’s done to SmartTrack, it is possible that Toronto might get subways where needed, embrace LRTs in the right corridors, and busways where appropriate. For decades, Toronto’s political leaders have begged the provincial and federal governments to fund the city’s transit needs, citing economic and social benefits. Today, both governments are listening. Blow this propitious period by building transit that gets politicians elected but doesn’t move people, and our children will curse us into the next century. As such, any pullback from the SmartTrack scheme is a good sign. Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca
Read more about:Debate In Oklahoma Widens Over 10 Commandments Monument
The state's high court has ruled the monument must be removed from the Capitol. The governor said the monument will stay. Lawmakers are threatening to impeach the state's Supreme Court justices.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
It's an argument that's been going on for decades at different spots around the country. Do displays of the Ten Commandments belong on public property? The latest debate is in Oklahoma. Lawmakers there are threatening to impeach the state Supreme Court after it ruled that a monument on the Capitol grounds has to go. Rachel Hubbard from member station KOSU reports.
RACHEL HUBBARD, BYLINE: Every week, Ralph Beall gives tours of the Oklahoma Capitol building, starting with the state seal emblazoned on the marble floors.
RALPH BEALL: And as you'll notice, in the five portions around the star, there's nine gold stars. Those represent the 45 states that became a state before Oklahoma did.
HUBBARD: The tour covers the art and history inside the building. But the place it doesn't take you is here. Nestled behind some trees on the back side of the building is Oklahoma's Ten Commandments monument. The 6 foot tall piece of rose granite has been controversial since 2009, when a state legislator got permission to pay for it himself. And in 2012, it went up on Capitol grounds. Ryan Kiesel is with ACLU Oklahoma, which has challenged the biblical monument.
RYAN KIESEL: This monument has been nothing but divisive. It has divided Oklahomans along political lines. It has divided the Oklahomans along religious lines. And that's exactly what the founders in our state constitution and the founders, frankly, in the federal Constitution sought to protect against.
HUBBARD: And in the last two weeks, that division has gotten worse. On June 30, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the monument had to come down. Justices said it violated a section of the Oklahoma Constitution that says the state can't use its money or property to benefit any religion. In this state, that didn't go over very well. Some legislators started calling for the impeachment of the Supreme Court for judicial activism. But Republican Representative John Paul Jordan didn't think that would solve anything.
JOHN PAUL JORDAN: The conclusion I came to was that even if we were to impeach seven out of nine justices, we would have the same wreck, just a different train.
HUBBARD: So this week, Jordan filed a bill that would allow a public vote to remove the section of the Oklahoma Constitution that the court says the monument violates. The governor then issued a statement saying the Ten Commandments will remain at the Capitol while all legal appeals and constitutional changes are considered. Some, including the ACLU, say if the governor really means that, it would be contempt of court, setting up what may be another legal battle over the display of the Ten Commandments on public property. For NPR News, I'm Rachel Hubbard in Oklahoma City.
Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.BEIJING (Reuters) - Fitch Ratings on Friday maintained its A+ rating on China with a stable outlook, citing the strength of the country’s external finances and macroeconomic record.
Buildings under construction are seen during a hazy day in Rizhao, Shandong Province, China, March 15, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer
Short-term growth prospects remain favorable, and economic policies have been effective in responding to an array of domestic and external pressures in the past year, Fitch said.
In a Reuters poll of 65 economists, China’s economic growth is expected to reach 6.6 percent this year, topping the government’s target of around 6.5 percent.
But large and rising debt levels across the non-financial sector, combined with the low stand-alone credit quality of Fitch-rated banks in the financial system, remain the most significant risk factor for the sovereign rating, Fitch said.
In May, Moody’s Investors Service cut its sovereign ratings on China by a notch, putting them on par with those of Fitch. That move put Standard & Poor’s one step above the two agencies.
Moody’s had said it expects the financial strength of the world’s second-largest economy to erode in coming years as growth slows and debt continues to mount.
Fitch said it expects official aggregate financing excluding equity to rise to 208 percent of gross domestic product this year versus 201 percent in 2016 and 114 percent in 2008.
It estimates that a broader credit measure, which incorporates activity not directly captured in the official series, will rise to around 270 percent at end-2017.
Household debt remains moderate despite its rapid growth in recent years, but China’s corporate sector has become the most highly indebted among major economies, based on data from the Bank for International Settlements, Fitch said.
Chinese banks extended 1.54 trillion yuan ($227 billion) in net new yuan loans in June, well above analysts’ expectations of 1.2 trillion yuan, and up from 1.11 trillion in May, official data shows.
The stronger-than-expected loans suggest authorities are maintaining support for the real economy, even as they tighten regulations to force banks to deleverage.
But household loans accounted for 48 percent of total new loans in June, down from 55 percent a month earlier.
The effects of the government’s multi-pronged crackdown are also showing up in weakened off-balance sheet financing, or shadow banking activity.
Combined trust loans, entrusted loans and undiscounted banker’s acceptances, which are common forms of shadow banking activity, dipped to 428.8 billion yuan in the second quarter from 2.05 trillion yuan in the first three months, according to Reuters calculations.
($1 = 6.7825 Chinese yuan)The opposition Zionist Union faction said on Monday that it will submit a no confidence motion against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, over the cabinet’s decision to shelve a hard-won deal for a pluralistic prayer space at the Western Wall and the initial approval of a bill that would cement the ultra-Orthodox monopoly on conversions.
“The government’s decision against the Western Wall as well as the conversion issue severely harms US Jewry, Israelis, those who seek to become a part of the Jewish people, and any one else who wishes to pray at the Western Wall according to their customs,” the party said in a statement.
“The message conveyed to both Israelis and Jewish communities abroad is a bitter one which creates a barrier between Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people and large segments of the Jewish people,” it said.
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The motion will be submitted to the Knesset next Monday.
On Sunday, the government suspended a plan it had previously approved for a pluralistic prayer area, following calls by Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition allies to scrap the deal. The plan would have seen the establishment of a properly prepared pavilion for pluralistic prayer — as opposed to current temporary arrangements — under joint oversight involving representatives of all major streams of Judaism.
The decision to cancel the deal was lambasted by the opposition and representatives of Diaspora Jewry as well as coalition faction Yisrael Beytenu and members of the Kulanu party, which is also in the government.
Kulanu MK Michael Oren, who formerly served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States, branded the move an “abandonment of Zionism.”
However, on Monday, Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman indicated he wouldn’t derail the coalition over the disagreements, saying he hopes that he can cut a compromise in the coming week.
Kulanu’s leadership has been silent on the matter.
Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog, who is due to meet on Tuesday with Jewish leaders from the US, told Army Radio Diaspora Jews have “tremendous anger” over the government’s backtracking over the Western Wall deal.
They have “a feeling of being deceived,” he said. “The compromise deal was agreed to by all until extreme elements decided to scare everyone and to sabotage the process. This is causing deep division in the Jewish people.”
Herzog said that Netanyahu was “simply zig-zagging. He caved. He is afraid.”
Currently, a prayer space at the Western Wall south of the main plaza and down several flights of stairs hosts pluralistic prayer. The deal would have seen construction work to raise the space up to the same level as the rest of the main plaza, and would have given control of the site to all religious streams under the state’s imprimatur.
Cabinet Secretary Tzachi Braverman said Netanyahu had ordered work to continue in preparing the plaza and that it remain open to all streams of Judaism.
“It is important to Prime Minister Netanyahu that every Jew be able to pray at the Western Wall,” Braverman said in a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office.6506 SHARES Share Tweet
By Matt Laundrie
VANCOUVER — Ziggy Marley is a man of honour with a true mission; and that mission appears to be a quest to be as prolific in as many directions as possible. In 2012, Marley started Ziggy Marley Organics, a GMO-free product line including flavoured coconut oils and hemp seed snacks. Recently, Marley has introduced his new “Conscious Party” dry leaf vaporizer, and before that his own cookbook Ziggy Marley and Family Cookbook: Delicious Meals Made with Whole, Organic Ingredients from the Marley Kitchen. In the spare minutes between those projects, Marley found the time to release his first children’s book, I Love You Too; fruit from the passion he has for having children involved in music, the passion that led to him being a spokesperson for the non-profit organization, Little Kids Rock, which provides free musical instruments and free lessons to children in public schools.
“This book is close to my heart because it was a spontaneous exchange between me and my then three-year-old daughter Judah,” says Marley. “It expresses something so true; it should be repeated as often as possible.”
From his hotel room in Montreal, Marley delved into many topics, including the cannabis industry, meeting President Barack Obama, his views on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and his business endeavours.
Marley’s stance on the legalization of cannabis in Canada is well established. “It’s a positive step towards bringing out the truth and stop demonizing people for the use of the plant, a real positive step,” he says. With regards to corporations taking over the industry he believes, “with nature, you should be able to plant our own food, plant our own herb, it’s up to the people to figure it out how to take care of the plant.” He believes Canada is doing just that with the August 24th changes to the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations granting allowances for the growing of cannabis for medical use by licensed users (upon proper registration).
In 2009, Marley accepted the invite to perform for President Obama at the White House for the annual “Easter Egg Roll.” “His whole family was cool and generally happy to meet us, and respect for love and the message in the music…he’s connected to the whole message.”
In regards with the current presidential campaign, Marley remarked that the campaign is opening up more of “what people reiterate in terms of how sick the American society feels.”
“It’s better to know the truth than keep living a lie.”
Blaze with Ziggy Marley in Regina at Casino Regina Oct. 11, in Edmonton at Union Hall Oct. 12, in Calgary at Mount Royal University’s Bella Concert Hall Oct. 13, and in Vancouver at Vogue Theatre Oct. 16.× Privacy policy
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This privacy policy applies only to our websites and not to other websites or applications operated by third parties. We may provide links to other websites but we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other websites.2018’s been a big year in the cannabis space—January 1st marked California’s enormous jump into adult-use legalization and a surge in cannabis reformation is spreading across the United States. With a boost in cannabis acceptance as the years go by, 4/20 events are getting bigger and better than ever. From massive concerts to THC-infused yoga, major legal markets are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to celebrating our favorite medicinal plant.
So hop over to our dispensary finder, pick out a few favorite strains, and make your way to the closest 4/20 event to join in on the celebration. Luckily, 4/20 lands on a Friday, so events are happening all weekend long.
*Note: Listed below are a few offerings per market—check your local events calendars for even more infused celebrations.
Arizona 420 Events 2018
Live music, delicious food trucks, cool swag bags, and more wait for you at Go4Twenty’s annual Smoke Fest sponsored by Arizona Organix.
When: April 20
April 20 Where: Eddie’s Lounge in Glendale
Eddie’s Lounge in Glendale Cost: Free
Free Admittance: 18+ event with 21+ bar service
The team that brought you Super Troopers syncs up with Timeless Vapes for a night of live music, near endless vendors, and hilarious comedy.
When: April 20
April 20 Where: The Venue Scottsdale in Scottsdale
The Venue Scottsdale in Scottsdale Cost: Free
Free Admittance: 21+ with valid MMJ card
It’s going to be a wild night with Vapen Clear as they release a new line of edibles to the tune of fire artists, live mermaids, dab stations, and more on every floor.
When: April 21
April 21 Where: The Clarendon Hotel and Spa in Phoenix
The Clarendon Hotel and Spa in Phoenix Cost: $21–22.73
$21–22.73 Admittance: 21+ with valid MMJ card
Looking for a chill event to celebrate your 4/20? Check out Buds & Brushes from Arte Bella Painting and get creative with cannabis.
When: April 21
April 21 Where: 420 Social Club in Tuscon
420 Social Club in Tuscon Cost: $25
$25 Admittance: 21+ with valid MMJ card
Enjoy music by Stoner Jordan at the second annual Smoke Out hosted by DJ Michael FoXx & Fangz.
When: April 20–21
April 20–21 Where: Rogue Bar in Scottsdale |
typically json formatted. I wrote another article here which provides some background why I needed to perform an investigative work 🙂 on these files to identify an offending application. In short, AWS deprecated some of the API calls and any application that made these calls were to be migrated.
These logs had multiple json objects in single line! And with more the API calls more the data and the number of output files. In one case I had more than 5,000 files generated over couple of days. At the client site I couldn’t get much help on code base since it was old Java code written by an outsourced company which had moved-on.
Then it became an exercise for me to use Apache Drill for the above scenario. First I took a single file and ran a Drill query:
0: jdbc:drill:zk=local> select T.jRec.eventSource, T.jRec.eventName, T.jRec.awsRegion, T.jRec.sourceIPAddress, count(*) from (select FLATTEN(Records) jRec from dfs.`/cloudtrail_logs/144702NNNNNN_CloudTrail_us-east-1_20160711T2345Z_CJPTqBCGPPc1Bhqc.json`) T group by T.jRec.eventSource, T.jRec.eventName, T.jRec.awsRegion, T.jRec.sourceIPAddress order by EXPR$1;
Note the “DescribeJobFlows” call, the API call of interest to me and in the image below it is 4th from the top under column “EXPR$1”.
It is so cool to perform the similar query on multiple files with simple wildcards! The query parsed more than 4,000 files in little over a 30 secs on a single node with high load! The query spit out the following – 1958 deprecated calls made in couple of days.
Once I knew the region, host IP, application it was easy to nail down the shell script that was kicking off an EMR instances that used old jar code.
In this case it was much easier to perform analysis even compared to Spark. For example, Spark expects single json record per line in the files and hence needs some preprocessing before it is fed with this data.
Note: Cloudtrail’s json data structure below
{ "eventVersion": "1.03", "userIdentity": { "type": "IAMUser", "principalId": "A----------------G", "arn": "arn:aws:iam::1447NNNNNNNN:user/udxx_prox", "accountId": "1447NNNNNNNNN", "accessKeyId": "A-----------------A", "sessionContext": { "attributes": {}, "sessionIssuer": {} }, "userName": "udxx_prox" }, "eventTime": "2016-07-11T23:49:40Z", "eventSource": "s3.amazonaws.com", "eventName": "GetBucketAcl", "awsRegion": "us-east-1", "sourceIPAddress": "AWS Internal", "userAgent": "[aws-internal/3]", "requestParameters": { "instanceGroupTypes": [], "instanceIdentity": {}, "bucketName": "udms-prod", "objectIds": [] }, "requestID": "74AAE30BXXXXXXXX", "eventID": "ec769df9-833f-4f1d-90cd-830ff9b9ff43", "eventType": "AwsApiCall", "recipientAccountId": "144NNNNNNNN", "responseElements": { "clusters": [] }, "additionalEventData": { "vpcEndpointId": "vpce-2a2ed643" } }It’s funny how certain spirits fall in and out of fashion. For the longest time Fernet Branca was the go-to amaro for craft bartenders. They put Fernet Branca in almost everything, including themselves via copious amounts of shots. Like all things, there’s an ebb and flow to what’s in fashion, and while Fernet Branca isn’t going away anytime soon, the unbridled enthusiasm over it has clearly begun to fade [see our piece The Fuss About Fernet for more on Fernet]. Luckily, the amaro universe is quite vast with a wide array of character and flavors, many much easier to actually mix with than the unflinchingly strong Fernet Branca.
Like Fernet Branca, Amaro Montenegro has been around for a very long time. It was first produced in the late 19th century (1885) in Bologna by Stanislao Cobianchi, who ignored his family’s attempts to push him into a different kind of spirits career: a clergyman. The name for Amaro Montenegro comes from Princess Elena Petrović-Njegoš of Montenegro (good thing they didn’t use her whole name) who in 1896 married King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. Amaro Montenegro was an essential part of the king’s wedding celebration, which helped launch it to prominence in Italy. Although production was halted during World War II and the Amaro Montenegro factory in Bologna was severely damaged by the war, Amaro Montenegro managed to regain its stature as one of Italy’s most popular amaro, a status it continues to enjoy today. As with most amaro, the exact recipe for Amaro Montenegro is a closely guarded secret. What we do know is that it contains 40 herbs and botanicals including licorice root, saffron, and orange peel, but beyond that it’s just conjecture.
Amaro Montenegro Liqueur Italia (23% ABV / 46 proof, $26) – although it has caramel coloring added, the appearance of Amaro Montenegro is much lighter than many other amaro. The nose for Amaro Montenegro is also much more floral than most other amaro we’ve tried, with rose petals leaping out of the glass. Right underneath the rose is lavender, dried orange peel, coriander, black pepper, allspice, cassia bark, licorice root, wormwood, and saffron.
The entry for Amaro Montenegro is lightly sweet and leads with rose petals, dried orange peel, and cherry. Although it tastes sweet, it’s not cloyingly so. The mouth feel is very light, which helps complement the light floral and dried citrus of the opening. Behind the lighter, more floral notes is a subtle earthy spice with cassia bark, allspice, coriander, and saffron as well as black tea and tobacco all complementing the lighter, sweeter notes introduced in the opening. The bitterness of Amaro Montenegro doesn’t really come into play until the end of the midpalate, long after we’ve forgotten that we are drinking a bitter amaro. The bitterness is clearly wormwood, which has been quietly standing around during the opening and midpalate only to make itself known in the finish. The finish is fairly long and does a solid job of bringing all the elements together, but it’s the wormwood that sticks around for quite a while, long after all the other flavor notes have gone.
It’s no wonder why many craft bartenders are putting down their bottles of Fernet and picking up Amaro Montenegro. Not only is Amaro Montenegro a kindler, gentler amaro, it’s also a lot more balanced than many of the other amaro on the market, and its light character makes it much more affable to mix with. Although it’s a little floral, Amaro Montenegro manages to weave some really nice flavors together and then present bitterness as a complement rather than as the core. At the end of the day, Amaro Montenegro is bitter, but it does such a fine job of easing you into that bitterness that there’s nothing assaultive or aggressive about it.
Amaro Montenegro is currently available in New York, California, and Massachusetts and has been steadily expanding to other markets. It can also be purchased online at Drink Up NY or Hi Time Wines.by Kevin Barrett, Veterans Today Editor
Chutzpah is one of those Yiddish words that has no equivalent in other languages. It is defined as “the quality of a man who, having killed his mother and father, asks the judge for mercy on the grounds that he is an orphan.”
But what’s the word for a man who buys a condemned-for-asbestos property with a very small down payment, doubles the insurance, blows up the property less than two months later, confesses to blowing it up on national television…then goes to court claiming that alleged hijackers with boxcutters magically caused his buildings to explode?
And then – get this – he sues for double indemnity, claiming that the two airplanes constituted two separate and unrelated terrorist attacks? And he collects it, pocketing $5 billion dollars cash on his less-than-$15-million investment?
And THEN he goes back into court asking for another $11 billion dollars in insurance money – not from his own insurers, but from the insurance companies of the airlines whose planes had nothing to do with the demolitions of his buildings?
And then launches more scams to build more skyscrapers?
CHUTZPAH does not begin to describe it. There is no word in any language for the gross, shameless, unmitigated audacity of Larry Silverstein.
And now he’s back, gold-plated begging bowl in hand, asking the government to help him amass another half-billion dollars so he can rebuild the South Tower he and his friends knocked down on September 11th, 2001.
The New York real estate newspaper Real Deal reports:
“Larry Silverstein’s Silverstein Properties aims to raise about $500 million in financing through the EB-5 visa program to fund construction of 2 World Trade Center…The EB-5 program grants green cards to foreigners – in practice, mainly Chinese nationals – who create jobs through investments in the United States…”
In order to get this largesse, it looks like Larry is going to have to claim that the Financial District of Lower Manhattan is a blighted “targeted unemployment zone”!
“The special provision, however, doesn’t specify the boundaries of such districts, allowing developers to draw borders creatively in such as a way as to include their buildings, often in areas of strong employment, in areas that, taken as a whole meet the EB-5 program’s unemployment standard. The specific boundaries Silverstein plans to designate are unknown, but the company has used the procedure before, including areas of the Lower East Side along with the firm’s Downtown sites.”
Maybe Larry should advertise this via GoFundMe:
“Hey Chinese millionaires! Buy a piece of the UnFreedom Towers and get a free green card from Uncle Sam! And while you’re at it, don’t miss the chance to snap up some put options on the Sears Tower – I’ll let you know when we’re about to ‘pull it.'”
Speaking of GoFundMe…I may not have the chutzpah of Larry Silverstein, but my commitment to spreading the truth is just as stubborn as his commitment to skyscraper scams – and I’m only asking for a tiny fraction of what he wants!The White House barred news outlets, including CNN, the New York Times, Politico and the Los Angeles Times, from a press gaggle Feb. 24. Here is the audio from that briefing. (The Washington Post)
Reporters for at least four news organizations — CNN, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Politico — were kept out of a press gaggle with White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Friday afternoon, the latest in a series of skirmishes between the Trump administration and those tasked with covering the president.
As Twitter lit up with the news, the Trump White House moved to downplay it.
White House Deputy Comms. Dir. Raj Shah denies reports of a gaggle block against CNN, NYT, Politico and others: pic.twitter.com/XzgfQJ25w3 — ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) February 24, 2017
Here's the problem with that denial: context.
Although Trump has been in office just over a month, he and his top aides have openly feuded with the media, casting those tasked with covering him as “the opposition party” and the “enemy,” among other things.
On Thursday, Trump's chief strategist, Steven K. Bannon, issued a not-so-veiled threat to the media during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “It's going to get worse every day for the media,” Bannon said. “If you think they are giving you your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken.”
Less than 24 hours later Trump himself was on the CPAC stage and dedicated the opening 15 minutes of his remarks to a takedown of the media. Here's a sample:
A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make 'em up when there are none. I saw one story recently where they said, “Nine people have confirmed.” There're no nine people. I don't believe there was one or two people. Nine people.
The message — if you are really bad at reading the signs — is that Trump and the people who support him believe they are at war with the media, plain and simple. It's beyond an adversarial relationship. It's a desire on their part to extinguish what they believe to be the corporate-controlled, liberal media once and for all.
At the beginning of his speech to the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference, Feb. 24, President Trump slammed "fake news" organizations, saying the media should be required to name sources. (The Washington Post)
And, this isn't simply something that has emerged since Trump moved into the White House. During his campaign, Trump not only banned certain outlets from attending his campaign events — including The Washington Post — but reveled in those prohibitions, bragging to audiences about who he had kept out that week.
It's into that bubbling cauldron that this latest episode involving Spicer lands. And the adage of “where's there smoke, there's fire” seems to fit nicely here. There can be only so many misunderstandings or differences of opinion before reasonable people conclude that this White House is working to fundamentally alter the way in which the press corps interacts with it.
From a political perspective, it makes sense for Trump to villainize the press, since the media is a stand-in for virtually everything that Trump supporters dislike about Washington specifically and “elites” more generally. But from a healthy democracy perspective, the attempts to change the rules — or turn the daily interactions between the president and the media into a game of favorites — is a very dangerous thing.
Don't take my word for it. Take Spicer's. Here's what he said to Politico in December: “We have a respect for the press when it comes to the government that that is something that you can't ban an entity from — conservative, liberal or otherwise. That's what makes a democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship.”METHODOLOGY: The numbers on this page are based on contributions from PACs and individuals giving $200 or more. All donations were made during the 2018 election cycle and were released by the Federal Election Commission. Figures for the current election cycle are based on data released on February 01, 2019.
This table lists candidates receiving money from this organization in 2017-2018. The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals may include subsidiaries and affiliates.
The first chart shows money given to congressional candidates. The second and third charts show contributions only to candidates who won election in November of the cycle displayed.
See something wrong or want to suggest an improvement? Contact us.Crime and Punishment and Donald Trump
Dan Brewster Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 18, 2017
For any legitimate US businessman who is not an oilman, what is so special about Russia these days, anyway? What is the allure for someone like Donald Trump? Except as an oil exporter, and a wheat producer, Russia is not particularly important economically, with an economy about the size of Pennsylvania and Ohio combined. In fact, the direct economic relationship between the US and Russia is relatively limited. Russia has a rapidly aging and shrinking population, and despite all of the income Russia makes from exporting oil, it has failed to diversify or modernize its economy. Whatever low quality goods are made in Russia are solely for domestic consumption. Entrepreneurialism and creativity are sadly lacking. Relative to the EU, China, Japan, southern Asia or Latin America, business prospects in Russia are, generally, dismal.
Of course, American businesses will go where there is any money to be had, and sure enough certain large manufacturing, pharmaceutical, restaurant, retail and consumer goods firms do have a presence in Russia (including Pfizer, Ford, Boeing, McDonald’s, Cargill and General Electric). As for Trump’s lines of business, there do not appear to be many, if any, American real estate developers in Russia, though there is a modest tourism/hospitality business, and there are a handful of American-branded hotels operating there, including Hilton, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons. The New York Times reported that Trump has been trying, without success, to develop high-rises in Russia since 1987. Fair enough. But given that he apparently has no business interests there now, why does he continue to be so highly deferential to Russian leadership?
Almost all of Russia’s wealth is concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg, most in the hands of several hundred or so billionaire and multi-millionaire oligarchs and political associates of Vladimir Putin, oilmen and kleptocrats who either embezzle from state coffers directly or who are funded by means of kickbacks or simple overcharges worth billions of dollars for government-funded projects, such as the Sochi Olympics, and many of whom allegedly trade in girls, drugs and weapons. Putin himself is suspected of having stolen between $50 and $200 billion, making him perhaps the richest man in the world. Russia’s economy is, at its core, a petroleum conglomerate run by organized crime. Corruption is rampant, the rule of law scant. Ultimately, Putin is the law, and 143 million Russian citizens are his subjects. As such, when Russia invaded Ukraine and seized Crimea, sanctions by the US and EU were targeted specifically on the oligarchs as much as they were on Russia as a whole. Some US businesses, including Exxon and GE, have had to forgo planned joint ventures with Russian companies, but overall the impact on US commerce has been small.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the western world, both the political arms and the business interests, reached out to the former Soviet and Warsaw Pact states, including Russia, with money and expertise to establish democratic institutions and mutually beneficial commercial relationships. American firms flocked to pursue opportunities in the budding free-market economies behind the fallen iron curtain. In terms of democratic institutions and principles, Eastern Europe is a work in progress, but in Russia, after some initial progress towards democracy, authoritarianism has asserted itself with a vengeance, especially over the past five years. Just as in Soviet times, Russia has effectively become a one party state with rigged elections. The free press has been pounded down and replaced by state propaganda. Human rights abuses are rampant, with LGBT citizens harassed and arrested simply for existing, with journalists and political opponents of Putin regularly assassinated, with growing levels of sex and labor trafficking, and, now, with even a Duma-approved movement to decriminalize domestic abuse. Who would want to do business with such thugs? It’s not just that they’re unsavory and dangerous; it’s that they cannot be trusted. Increasing authoritarianism has brought increasing corruption. Western societal norms have eroded. Business norms have eroded.
Absent significant economic ties, geopolitical and security considerations continue to bind the US to Russia. Since well before the fall of the Soviet Union, the US and Russia have successfully engaged to control the spread of nuclear technology and to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons. The benefits to Russia have been significant. Not only has it saved billions of dollars that it would otherwise have spent on upkeep and modernization, but it gained a seat at the table of global economic cooperation summits and was accepted into the World Trade Organization. Still, Russia retains a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the US and the rest of the planet in minutes. It is primarily behind that threat, and not economic or moral might, that Russia wields power internationally, most directly on its neighbors, though also to protect other perceived interests, such as the brutal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. And it is largely because of the nuclear and geopolitical threats that Russia poses that it and Putin matter to the US. Despite the commercial relationships established by US businesses in Russia over the past two decades, our national relationship with Russia at this point has little to do with business. Few American businesses, other than large international industrial and pharmaceutical conglomerates, are willing to assume the substantial risks that engagement with Russia entails. There is, however, one very notable exception: the Trump organization.
A mere three months ago, a month prior to Election Day, Republicans of stature were scrambling to condemn Donald Trump, convening hastily to consider dumping him as the Republican presidential nominee, trying to figure out whether they could replace him with Mike Pence, or some other prominent, acceptable, mainstream Republican, for it had come to light that their presidential candidate had assaulted women, many women, including by his own videotaped admission, by obscenely, unbelievably, taking his hand and forcing it between their legs, clasping onto their genitals while forcing his mouth onto theirs. At least ten women, including several with corroborating witnesses, came forward as victims of his wandering hands and tongue. It was not mere boorish behavior; it was violence of the most despicable nature. These were arrestable offenses, but for the statutes of limitations.
But there were other crimes too, an unprecedented cornucopia of criminal activity for a presidential candidate, or for any candidate for any office, in the entire history of the US. The revelation of any one of those crimes alone would have been sufficient to sink the candidacy and destroy the reputation of any candidate prior to 2016. There was the fact that he defrauded thousands of people of millions of dollars via the charade known as Trump University. There was his admitted self-dealing through his unregistered Trump Foundation. There were his numerous egregious violations of fair housing and slumlord laws. There was his violation of antitrust law in connection with a casino deal. There was also substantial evidence of other potential illegal activity, including $17 million in property insurance fraud, tax evasion via the Trump Foundation, knowingly hiring and underpaying undocumented immigrant construction and restaurant labor, violations of visa and labor laws by his modeling agency, perpetration of an illegal pyramid scheme known as the Trump Network, and consumer fraud through the Trump Institute. The sheer breadth of illegalities is staggering.
But there was one crime in particular that, though it may have escaped notice during the campaign, overshadowed as it was by the litany of Trump’s other offenses, may prove to be a key to understanding Trump’s infatuation with Russia. In March 2015 the Treasury Department fined Trump’s now-bankrupt Taj Mahal Casino $10 million for non-compliance regarding money laundering laws, dating back to 2003, specifically for the absence of required controls and records. It was the largest penalty ever assessed against an American casino for such a crime. Interestingly, it was the second such transgression for the Taj Mahal. It was also penalized in 1998, for half a million dollars, for failure to report certain currency transactions. Why, after the initial penalty in 1998, wasn’t the Taj Mahal more careful to follow the law? Why continue to violate anti-money laundering statutes, for 12 years or more, even after you have been given a very clear understanding of what those laws entail, knowing that it might cost you millions more in fines? The only possible reasons would be an unbelievable pattern of sheer stupidity, (repeated year after year), amateur accounting practices (never corrected, year after year), or a unique propensity to launder dirty cash.
Those two instances appear to be, so far, the only times that a Trump business has been censured for violations of anti-money laundering laws. But there is evidence to suggest that Trump has engaged in money laundering on a larger scale. For one thing, a disproportionate allocation of the buyers of Trump properties, both in the US and abroad, have been wealthy Russians, at least some of whom paid well above market value, according to disclosed transaction documents. Trump sold condos, including in his marquee Trump Tower, to well-known members of Russian mafia organizations, according to public records listing the names of property acquirers and owners.
Moreover, several of Trump’s property developments appear to have been funded in large part by Russian oligarchs via shady LLCs with preposterously complicated structures, the most notorious of which is Bayrock LLC, run by ex-con and henchman Felix Sater. Bayrock put up the money to construct the luxury high-rise Trump SoHo, hundreds of millions of dollars of which likely sourced from Russian organized crime. An investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office into the mind-bogglingly convoluted web of funding sources was dropped in exchange for Trump’s refunding millions of dollars in deposits made by potential buyers alleging fraud.
Apparently neither the Treasury Department nor the Manhattan DA nor any other arm of law enforcement has undertaken a detailed audit of the transactions in question to investigate whether money laundering actually occurred. They stopped digging before they could answer that question. Instead, Trump’s high-priced lawyers got him off the hook with virtual slaps on the wrist, two fines for non-compliance with Treasury Department accounting requirements and an agreement that he refund money (without admitting any wrongdoing) that he had, allegedly, fraudulently obtained. Settlements are easier for strapped law enforcement agencies, easier than trying to bring down Trump and his corrupt empire. But money laundering is a felony under federal law, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
An examination of his business record suggests that by the early aughts Trump may have needed to go through criminal rackets to get funding for his property development projects because his decades-long trail of business failures and bankruptcies virtually exhausted the willingness of banks and the public markets to do business with him. His accounting was often faulty, and blatantly so, based on an inflated valuation of the Trump brand and unrealistic assumptions regarding the size of the market for high-priced condos and hotel rooms. Though Trump was bad at math and incompetent as a manager, he had a talent for drawing attention to himself, especially with his lascivious lifestyle, which his growing fan base found devilishly amusing. But even as he managed to leverage his comic fame through McDonald’s and Pizza Hut commercials and licensing deals for the Trump brand, the only major real estate development project he was able to finance by the early aughts was his tower in Chicago. While that project was underway and while he was strapped for cash and desperate to keep up appearances, Trump pushed the Trump brand hard, lending his name to bottled water, freeze-packed steaks, vodka and a mortgage company. Each of those ventures failed.
But ever the showman, he finally scored with The Apprentice. He made millions in salary (though it’s highly unlikely he made anywhere close to the $213 million he claims), but more significantly he cultivated a bankable international image for himself that not only boosted the value of the Trump brand name for licensing purposes, but also provided a springboard from which to launch his presidential candidacy. Over ten seasons millions of Americans saw the inherently corrupt and cash-strapped Donald Trump portrayed as a spectacularly successful real estate developer and as a creative entrepreneur at the head of a luxury property empire that employed hundreds, a brilliant problem-solver, an insightful judge of character, a charming, charitable, engaging, humorous, witty, no-nonsense, boardroom-dominating leader and champion of the business world, ready to conquer any challenge and dispense of any dilly-dalliers who stood in the way. Who better to send to Washington to shake things up? The vast field of governors and senators competing with Trump for the Republican nomination did not stand a chance.
Unfortunately for Trump and his defenders and for the American people, reality television is not reality. And the harsh reality behind the false narratives and make-up and props of The Apprentice is that Donald Trump is a criminal who, as we now know, molests women, defrauds consumers, bilks investors and apparently cheats on his taxes, and whose business profits appear to come in part from laundering money for a gang of international thieves and drug dealers, though to the precise extent we do not yet know. His tax returns would shed light on that. Congress can and should subpoena them. Congress can also instruct the FBI to conduct an extensive audit of Trump’s business interests, starting with some of the more questionable, including the Trump SoHo. The New York Attorney General could also initiate an audit of Bayrock LLC and the funding sources of Trump SoHo.
No one doubts the wisdom of seeking to improve relations with Russia. We should engage them. We need to engage them. But it is clear that it is neither benign friendliness nor hard-nosed diplomacy for the sake of US national interests that are motivating Trump. The interests of the US are best served at present by holding Russia at arm’s length, by opposing its bullying behavior and lawlessness through economic sanctions and a show of military preparedness in conjunction with our allies and by supporting, both openly and covertly, human rights and democracy advocates within Russia, while holding out the promise of better relations for better behavior. To the American president and commander in chief, as Trump will soon be, it should not matter that certain Russians have been good for Trump’s business, for Russia as ruled by Putin is a clear threat to the national security of the United States, not only because Russian nuclear arms are pre-programmed to destroy us, but because Putin’s Russia seeks to undermine our democratic system, our way of life, the principles upon which we have thrived as a nation, the framework within which freedom has grown and prosperity has spread, far and wide across this land and the globe as a whole, the very rule of law embedded in our Constitution, revered as it is.
But there seems to be more at stake for Trump than just routine business interests. The recent revelation that the FBI sought a FISA warrant with respect to individuals involved in Trump’s presidential campaign indicates that investigators have probable cause to believe that at least one Trump campaign associate was an operative of a foreign power. That Trump’s designated national security advisor Michael Flynn, deluded as he is by demented conspiracy theories and white nationalist bigotry, was caught conducting five telephone calls with the Russian ambassador on the day that Obama announced sanctions on Russia for meddling in the US presidential election, combined with Trump’s tweet praising Putin for not responding in kind, would appear to indicate an actual conspiracy, one in favor of Putin and his interests at the expense of the United States and democratic principles.
Perhaps one cannot blame Donald Trump for presuming that the votes of 63 million voters had cleansed him of his many crimes, that his record had been expunged, that he was free and clear, that his ethical failings had been forgiven, that his legal challenges could be bought off, and that his arrestable offenses would simply fade away, for the fact is that he has always gotten away with it. But the voters, though they are ultimately responsible for the laws that are enacted, are not judge and jury. There are, and will continue to be, dozens of ongoing lawsuits and investigations regarding Donald Trump’s crimes and alleged crimes. The Attorney General of New York is investigating, courts of law throughout the country are weighing cases, the FBI is on the march and investigative reporters and foreign intelligence services are energized as never before. Yet many Republicans in Congress, like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and the ever-clueless Jason Chaffetz, are so extremely busy arranging deck chairs that they may not be able to make it to a lifeboat in time, even as the prospects for enacting their cherished agenda, alongside Donald Trump’s approval ratings, sink just as surely as the Titanic did in the frigid waters of the north Atlantic that fateful April morning in 1912.
At noon EDT on Friday, January 20, 2016, Donald Trump will be sworn in as 45th president of the United States. At 9:00 AM on Monday, January 23, or as soon thereafter as is practicable, Congress should convene a select committee to investigate Trump’s many complicated dealings with Russia and Russian businessmen for potential money laundering and tax fraud, with the first steps issuance of a subpoena of his personal and business tax returns and initiation of audits of the Taj Mahal and Trump SoHo. Among the compromising information that Putin and the KGB may have on Trump is documentation on illicit transactions. Investigations by the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee will shed light on Russian motivations to undermine the presidential and Congressional elections of 2016 and the extent of their operations. But that’s not enough. Let us not be distracted. Just as fundamental is an answer to the question of Trump’s motivations. What is he hiding? Let us follow the money. Let us get on with it.
Sources (see links below): FinCEN (U.S. Department of Treasury); New York Times; Financial Times; The American Interest; The Miami Herald; The Atlantic; Associated Press; Lawfare Blog; BBC NewsReport: ESPN’s Linda Cohn suspended for saying the network is too political
ESPN is doubling down on their liberal agenda as a new report from Fox Sports’ Clay Travis revealed that longtime SportsCenter host Linda Cohn was suspended by the network for criticizing the network of being too political.
Sources told Travis on Tuesday night that ESPN president Jon Skipper told Cohn to not come into work and to think about what she said.
Sources: After Linda Cohn spoke out on politics @ESPN she was told by prez John Skipper not to come to work & to think about what she said. — Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) September 13, 2017
In a separate tweet, Travis noted that ESPN suspended Cohn, but did nothing except issue a statement after host Jemele Hill called President Donald Trump a “white supremacist.”
So @espn suspended Linda Cohn for saying ESPN was talking too much politics. Didn't suspend Jemele Hill for saying Trump was a racist. — Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) September 13, 2017
Following the massive layoffs that took place this year at the sports media giant, Cohn told WABC’s “Bernie and Sid Show” that if the company had just stuck to sports, they would not have to deal with declining viewership and profit margins.
“I felt that the old school viewers were put in a corner and not appreciated with all these other changes,” she explained. “And they forgot their core. You can never forget your core and be grateful for your core group.”
When she was asked if it was due to ESPN’s liberal lean, she said, “That is definitely a percentage of it. I don’t know how big a percentage, but if anyone wants to ignore that fact, they’re blind.”
ESPN has not confirmed that Cohn is suspended and for how long.
Latest VideosGet Off IBM's Back Already!
IBM Supports Linux
April 8, 2010
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
The recent attacks on IBM patent use by some in the open-source community are way out of line.
First things first, I hate software patents as much as the next open-source supporter, but the recent claims that IBM has betrayed open-source with recent patent claims are way over the top. If it were just one person throwing mud at IBM I wouldn't bother with responding to this, but with many other open-source advocates are jumping with both feet on IBM over the issue, I have to address it.
The story starts with open-source developer and political lobbyist Florian Mueller accusing IBM of breaking its promises to the FOSS (free and open-source software) community of not using patents against it. What had raised Mueller's ire was that a letter from IBM CTO Mark Anzani to TurboHercules President Roger Bowler dated March 11, warning that IBM would defend its patents if TurboHercules used them without permission. TurboHercules sells an open-source virtualization program that lets users run z/OS and other mainframe operating systems on AMD, Intel, and other mainstream processors.
While Mueller and I usually see eye to eye on patent issues, I don't think that an IBM executive sending a letter, not a lawsuit, over TurboHercules' possible misuse of up to 173-patents, including two that are covered by IBM's patent pledge to open source, rises to the level of IBM being hypocritical with its patents and open source. Or, that the European Union should start "Regulatory intervention against IBM."
Simon Phipps, former master of all things open source for Sun, wrote that IBM actions against TurboHercules "indicates a change in the balance of power inside IBM, one probably reflected in other large corporations, as cloud computing rises in prominence and as the main disruptive force becomes Google -- a large user of FOSS -- instead of Microsoft." Phipps concluded, "IBM doesn't seem to need the FOSS community as a stick to beat its foes any more. This action tells us that there is now no FOSS advocacy function at IBM with the authority to veto actions against open source. All of us need to take note of this development."
Excuse me. IBM has long been one of Linux and open source's main supporters, and they still are. They did it then, and they do it now, not because IBM executives believe that open source is somehow the morally right decision. IBM supports open source because it makes good business sense. In short, IBM is an open source business.
IBM is a Linux Company, IBM is a Mainframe Company
That said, IBM has also always guarded their mainframe technologies against all comers. A company can be both pro-open source and try to defend one of its core businesses. Indeed, IBM is doing just a company should do: Trying to make money as efficiently as it can. An official mentioning two patents in a laundry list of patent complaints to a company IBM sees as a competitor has not turned IBM into, as Mueller would have it, a company that is "hostile, dangerous and utterly hypocritical" towards open source.
I'm not the only one who has trouble seeing IBM that way. Jim Zemlin, the head of the Linux Foundation, wrote, "IBM is one of the top contributors to the Linux kernel and dozens of critical open source projects. For more than a decade IBM has been a good citizen in the open source community. To get to the bottom of things I contacted Dan Frye, VP of Open Systems Development at IBM and member of the Linux Foundations board of directors, to'say it wasn't so.' Fortunately all of us can breathe easy - IBM remains true to their word."
Frye, according to Zemlin, wrote, "IBM stands by this 2005 Non-Assertion Pledge today as strongly as it did then. IBM will not sue for the infringement of any of those 500 patents by any Open Source Software." Well, that seems straight-forward enough, but no! Mueller snapped |
done marginally better with younger voters than Romney did.
He didn't do incredibly well with the group. But he did well enough to carry Pennsylvania by fewer than 70,000 votes.
And well enough to win Wisconsin by about 27,000 votes.In February at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Trump made a solemn promise to "get rid of, and totally destroy, the Johnson Amendment".
The Johnson Amendment, named after Lyndon Johnson, prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations, including churches, but it is sometimes implied especially churches, from engaging in political activity.
President Trump made a down payment on his promise with an executive order. Unless you apply the "truthful hyperbole" standard that then developer Trump recommended in the Art of the Deal, the executive order did not destroy the Johnson amendment. Arguably it did not do anything at all to it. Section 5201 of the House version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is much more robust.
Under the provision, this language, known as the Johnson amendment, is qualified so that an organization exempt from tax under Code section 501(c)(3) would not fail to be treated as organized and operated exclusively for its respective non-profit purpose for engaging in political speech, assuming such political speech is made in the ordinary course of the organization’s business and the associated expenses of that speech are de minimis
That hardly puts the Johnson amendment on the eve of destruction, but it does address the concern that generated the fairly silly protest known as Pulpit Freedom Sunday which fell on October 2 this year. The idea is that preachers would give politically oriented sermons, record them and send them to the IRS - daring, nay double daring the IRS to come after them. Given all the attention given to Pulpit Freedom Sunday, it probably worked up to a triple dawg dare. Here is an explanation from somebody who apparently thinks Pulpit Freedom Sunday is a good idea.
What Could Be
So if we imagine a preacher who had read Think Big And Kick Ass and was disturbed by a candidate for high office boasting about seducing married women and recommending vengeance whenever you feel wronged, sharing her concerns with her congregations from the pulpit, this change would reassure her. Consider the guidance the IRS put in Revenue Ruling 2007-41.
Situation 9. Minister F is the minister of Church O, a section 501(c)(3) organization. The Sunday before the November election, Minister F invites Senate Candidate X to preach to her congregation during worship services. During his remarks, Candidate X states, “I am asking not only for your votes, but for your enthusiasm and dedication, for your willingness to go the extra mile to get a very large turnout on Tuesday.” Minister F invites no other candidate to address her congregation during the Senatorial campaign. Because these activities take place during official church services, they are attributed to Church O. By selectively providing church facilities to allow Candidate X to speak in support of his campaign, Church O’s actions constitute political campaign intervention.
Since the speech was at a regular service (i.e. ordinary course) and did not involve any expenditure, it would be OK, if the bill passes.
I count five other situations described in the ruling that would probably transform to permissible under the proposed legislation
Situation 4. President B is the president of University K, a section 501(c)(3) organization. University K publishes a monthly alumni newsletter that is distributed to all alumni of the university. In each issue, President B has a column titled “My Views.” The month before the election, President B states in the “My Views” column, “It is my personal opinion that Candidate U should be reelected.” For that one issue, President B pays from his personal funds the portion of the cost of the newsletter attributable to the “My Views” column. Even though he paid part of the cost of the newsletter, the newsletter is an official publication of the university. Because the endorsement appeared in an official publication of University K, it constitutes campaign intervention by University K. Situation 6. Chairman D is the chairman of the Board of Directors of M, a section 501(c)(3) organization that educates the public on conservation issues. During a regular meeting of M shortly before the election, Chairman D spoke on a number of issues, including the importance of voting in the upcoming election, and concluded by stating, “It is important that you all do your duty in the election and vote for Candidate W.” Because Chairman D’s remarks indicating support for Candidate W were made during an official organization meeting, they constitute political campaign intervention by M. Situation 13. Mayor G attends a concert performed by Symphony S, a section 501(c)(3) organization, in City Park. The concert is free and open to the public. Mayor G is a candidate for reelection, and the concert takes place after the primary and before the general election. During the concert, the chairman of S’s board addresses the crowd and says, “I am pleased to see Mayor G here tonight. Without his support, these free concerts in City Park would not be
possible. We will need his help if we want these concerts to continue next year so please support Mayor G in November as he has supported us.” As a result of these remarks, Symphony S has engaged in political campaign intervention. Situation 16. Candidate A and Candidate B are candidates for the state senate in District W of State X. The issue of State X funding for a new mass transit project in District W is a prominent issue in the campaign. Both candidates have spoken out on the issue. Candidate A supports funding the new mass transit project. Candidate B opposes the project and supports State X funding for highway improvements instead. P is the executive director of C, a section 501(c)(3) organization that promotes community development in District W. At C’s annual fundraising dinner in District W, which takes place in the month before the election in State X, P gives a lengthy speech about community development issues including the transportation issues. P does not mention the name of any candidate or any political party. However, at the conclusion of the speech, P makes the following statement, “For those of you who care about quality of life in District W and the growing traffic congestion, there is a very important choice coming up next month. We need new mass transit. More highway funding will not make a difference. You have the power to relieve the congestion and improve your quality of life in District W. Use that power when you go to the polls and cast your vote in the election for your state senator.” C has violated the political campaign intervention as a result of P's remarks at C's official function shortly before the election, in which P referred to the upcoming election after stating a position on an issue that is a prominent issue in a campaign that distinguishes the candidates. Situation 21. Church P, a section 501(c)(3) organization, maintains a web site that includes such information as biographies of its ministers, times of services, details of community outreach programs, and activities of members of its congregation. B, a member of the congregation of Church P, is running for a seat on the town council. Shortly before the election, Church P posts the following message on its web site, “Lend your support to B, your fellow parishioner, in Tuesday’s election for town council.” Church P has intervened in a political campaign on behalf of B.
The Punchline
In some ways, repeal of the Johnson amendment codifies actual IRS practice. All those sermons that they have been getting have not resulted in any action by IRS. This is a perfectly reasonable response. The number of IRS personnel actually involved in enforcement (revenue agents, tax examiners, revenue officers and special agents) is about 25,000. With over 240 million returns to worry about, putting some of them onto listening to taped sermons does not seem like a good use of their time. Of course, it is more the effect that the change would have on the behavior of not for profits than any change in IRS enforcement that is of concern.
How Does This Score?
An earlier version of the bill that applied the relaxation only to churches was scored as costing $2.1 billion in revenue by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation. This had me puzzled, because I had a hard time seeing how the provision could cost anything, I was not alone. Professor Samuel Brunson had similar thoughts. He wrote me:
I thought the same thing. The IRS doesn’t really enforce it against anybody (and especially not against churches), so it doesn’t currently raise any revenue to be lost. Moreover, according to the court in Branch Ministries, a church that lost its exemption for campaigning could instantly turn around and be exempt again. I’m not sure that the court was right there, but at the very least, I’d assume a church that lost its exemption would stop doing taxable stuff until it got its exemption back. So under current law, the best-case scenario, revenue-wise, is the occasional day’s income to a church.
Professor Adam Chodorow wrote me:
The IRS could save a few dollars on enforcement, but that would be very small because they spend very little time and effort providing guidance or enforcing the rule. Perhaps the number presumes that there are churches willingly paying taxes so that they can endorse from the pulpit that would now be able to endorse without losing their tax-exempt status. My guess is that it is a very small set, if not an empty one.
Scoring Mystery Solved Maybe
Last week I had the pleasure of attending an event at the Benjamin Cardozo Law School of Yeshiva University. It was a panel discussion of Professor Edward Zelinsky's new book Taxing The Church. My full report on it has been deferred as I plow through interesting provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. I asked the panel about the scoring and Professor Brian Galle of Georgetown commented that at the hearings the rationale was put out that the change would cause people to donate deductible dollars to churches rather than 501(c)(4) or 527 organizations. It sounded rather silly to me, but when I started thinking about it a light-bulb went on in my head.
If This Goes On
An endorsement from a prominent evangelist could be worth quite a bit to a political campaign. And successful politicians are good at fundraising. You are a mega-pastor of a mega church. You endorse candidate A, seduction of married women and advocacy of revenge to the contrary notwithstanding. Candidate A talks about what a great church you have, but how much greater it would be if the capital campaign to expand it were a big success. Of course, there is no quid pro quo going on here.
And donations to 501(c)(3) organization are not disclosed and churches don't even have to file Form 990. So the money might pour into the not for profits as a reward for political endorsements even thought the not for profits would not be overtly spending any of it on politics.
Roger Colinvaux writing in the Chronicle of Philanthropy - The House Bill Could Be the End of Charities as We Know Them - argues the threat is dire.
The Johnson Amendment protects charities from political pressure applied by donors and from partisan capture. Without it, charities, which are always in the fundraising business, could be bought for political purposes. The result would be taxpayer subsidies of phony charitable contributions made for political reasons, something the sponsors of this measure say they want to avoid.
And if you thought the last IRS scandal was troubling, be prepared for the scandal to end all tax collection.
Further, as recent history has shown, when the IRS attempts to regulate political speech, it does not go well for the agency or the country. The political reality is that the underfunded IRS would not seriously attempt to enforce these already weak limits, especially in the face of a hostile Congress.
The optimist in me would say that maybe this is not so bad. The charities cannot spend their bribe money on politics, so perhaps some money that would otherwise go to attack ads would instead go to feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty and other corporal works of mercy, but my sense is that Roger Colinvaux is right and this will not end well for existing charities.
On the other hand, the change in the standard deduction will increase the number of people who don't care about whether their deductions are deductible. There might be more of an impetus to grass roots heavily volunteer groups and dollars now going to big philanthropy might shift in that direction. That would not be such a bad thing.
A Stylistic Note
There was something that bothered me about the President's prayer breakfast speech that I would like to share with my readers, who might set me straight. Leading up to his Johnson amendment destruction promise, he invokes "the great Thomas Jefferson". Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and collaborated with Lafayette on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of The Citizen. Really, you just have to say "Thomas Jefferson". "The great" is redundantBuffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan and twin brother Rob Ryan are renowned “player coaches.” They don't have a lot of rules, they stand up for their players and preach optimism in the face of darkness. They're also a lot of fun.
The MMQB.com's Kalyn Kahler recently caught up with Bills veteran linebacker Lorenzo Alexander, who entered Week 6 as the league leader in sacks with seven (surpassed on Thursday night by Von Miller), and shared an amusing story about Rob, the Bills' assistant head coach/defense:
“I love the environment that they bring,” Alexander said. “I’ve never been to a place where coaches have walk-up songs to present in team meetings, like hitters do in major league baseball. The coaches have walk-up songs depending on what the theme of the week is, or what the name of a play is. It’s fun. We put in a play called Boat One. And you know the song, the SNL spoof, I’m On A Boat? Rob walks up to that song to install this play. It’s crazy. What coach does that? I’ve never been around that. They keep it light and fun.”
Article continues below...
Winning cures a lot of things. Apparently SNL spoof music videos help too. In case you don't recall the sketch, have a watch (contains explicit language):
The Bills (3-2) have won three straight against the Rams, Patriots and Cardinals and host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.The most pressing question that Donald J. Trump could face next week in the first debate of the 2016 presidential race may not be about Iran or immigration, but this: Can he deploy enough adjectives (“huge!”), superlatives (“the worst!”) and invectives (“loser!”) for him to use up his time without being challenged successfully on the substance of policy?
Mr. Trump could come away a winner if he makes cogent points without sounding too hostile, presenting himself as more of a serious-minded, anti-establishment voice in a primary crowded with career Republican politicians. But there are risks for him if he turns the debate stage in Cleveland into another episode of the reality show his campaign has sometimes resembled.
He boasts about spending no time preparing for the event, which will be broadcast on Fox News on Aug. 6, even as his aides have put together briefing papers for him on policy and pungent lines of attack. He already knows plenty about the issues, he says, so much that, rather than cramming, he will be in Scotland over the weekend at a golf tournament on one of his courses.
And after weeks of slashing at his opponents in interviews, he refuses to say whom he may single out when the 10 leading primary contenders stand side by side. “I have great respect for some of the candidates,” Mr. Trump said in an interview. “I don’t have great respect for others.”The economy is in its worst recession on record, and the government faces a sea of red ink - is New Zealand the sick man of the South Pacific?
The economy is in its worst recession on record, and the government faces a sea of red ink - will New Zealand end up like Iceland?
Once a darling of foreign investors because of high interest rates, New Zealand appears almost like Iceland, judging from our current account deficits over the last three decades.
After weathering the Asian economic crisis and drought in 1997 and 1998, the $95 billion New Zealand economy enjoyed its strongest growth since the 1970s, thanks partly to soaring commodity prices and debt-fueled consumer spending.
Now the economy is shrinking as the once-hot housing market has stalled, skyrocketing fuel and food prices have turned consumers cautious and the credit crunch has hit.
Unlike Iceland's banks, which were brought down by aggressive and highly leveraged growth, or European banks rescued by their governments, New Zealand's banking industry shows no signs of stress yet.
The big Australian banks - National Australia Bank, Westpac Banking, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and Commonwealth Bank of Australia - dominate the market and have so far escaped the global meltdown.
Sue Trinh, a currency analyst at RBC Capital Markets in Sydney, said the likelihood of New Zealand's becoming a customer of the International Monetary Fund was still low, given banks' strong capital.
But she warned that the country showed many symptoms that usually lead developing countries to seek IMF help, and that will not ease investor perceptions of an imminent sovereign credit downgrade.
New Zealand "is one of the most heavily indebted developed economies, as measured by the net international investment position as a percentage of GDP," Trinh said in a note to investors.
At the end of March last year, New Zealand's national debt, as measured by a negative net international investment position, was 86 percent of GDP, second to Iceland in the group of countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The country's banks are rated AA by Standard & Poor's and have funded a shortfall in savings with commercial paper issues, which have been renewed every few months. They minimized risk by hedging their foreign exchange exposure in the futures market.
Meanwhile, Britain, the United States, Germany, Greece, Austria, Belgium and Ireland bailed out banks with taxpayer cash.
Because of its perilously low household savings, New Zealand has long lived on foreign borrowings to fund spending.
Household borrowing stood at 174.5 billion New Zealand dollars, or $87 billion, at the end of December, which was financed largely by the "big four" Australian banks. About 40 percent of bank borrowing is due for renewal this year.
By the end of September, the annual current account deficit was 8.6 percent of gross domestic product, compared with the peak of 9.3 percent in the first quarter of 2006.
The saving grace had been the strong fiscal position of successive governments, with budget surpluses and falling debt.
That is changing. Market watchers expect large deficits as spending rises and tax revenues fall because of the deepening recession. At the same time, borrowing rises to cover the shortfall, which has brought warnings from rating agencies.
"We are worried that international investors may lose confidence in New Zealand's ability to meet its obligation. That would present a risk at the sovereign level," said Kyran Curry, an S&P credit analyst.
S&P has downgraded the outlook on New Zealand's AA-plus foreign currency rating to negative from stable in January on concerns over its rising fiscal and external deficits.
But the economy's former strength may be its future savior.
"Even though sizeable fiscal deficits are projected, New Zealand's starting position is good, compared to other nations," said Dean Spicer, ANZ's head of debt capital markets, in a note.
Finance Minister Bill English told Reuters the economy and government finances have deteriorated since the Treasury's forecasts in December.
He said the worst-case scenario of the deficit growing to 4.5 percent of GDP and government gross debt at 29 percent of GDP over the next three years had become more likely."The HoseMaster is the funniest satirist writing about wine in the world today."
--Karen MacNeil
--Terry Theise
HoseMaster
HoseMaster
HoseMaster
--Robert Parker
"...With sometimes crude analogies and occasional droppings of f-bombs, Washam cleverly uses satire to expose the underbelly of the wine business. It's often hilarious stuff as long as you're not the one being lampooned.
Washam takes no prisoners in skewering all that is silly, stupid, frustrating and pretentious about wine, and his favorite targets are other bloggers and writers. No one is immune."
-- Linda Murphy in "Vineyard and Winery Management"
-- JancisRobinson.com
"
Hosemaster of Wine
First: I’m not sure if there is anyone better at cutting through the confidence trick that is often intrinsic to the business of wine.
Second: in a world where offending people appears to border on the illegal, the Hosemaster piles in. No one is safe."
--Joss Fowler "Vinolent.com"
"As serious as the world of wine is, it does allow time for humor. Each Monday and Thursday, Ron Washam customarily posts a commentary on his needling wine blog HoseMaster of Wine. Washam, a former sommelier and comedy writer – he might say they are closely related – is the most opinionated, humorous and ribald observer in the wine world. His body of work is irreverent and remorseless. It’s almost always satire and parody, though he occasionally drifts into straight commentary, sometimes even with tasting notes. This past year, one of his posts was named the best of the year in the Wine Blog Awards. His success has spawned several imitations, which in their awkwardness show just how difficult satire is."
--Mike Dunne, Sacramento Bee
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/21/6089630/dunne-on-wine-wine-blogs-and-bloggers.html#storylink=cpy
"Please let this guy write the scripts for Saturday Night Live which has gotten so lame...his newest "wisdom" is worth an Emmy....I wonder if he is the genius behind all those Hitler/Parker,etc. clips? No one else is remotely as funny or as talented.And the wine world sure needs someone to poke fun at all the nonsense and phoney/baloney unsufferable crap out there."
--Robert Parker
"
Washam uses his own blog, HoseMaster of Wine, to skewer the industry in general and wine blogs in particular. If your mouse scoots to your browser's close box while reading a wine blog, Washam may be the blogger for you."
-- San Francisco Chronicle
"Ron Washam, former sommelier, is easily the most bitingly funny blogger/wine writer that we have ever come across. He is an equal opportunity crusader who pillories big wineries and amateur bloggers alike, as well as everything and everyone in between...One needs a sense of humor and a tolerance for earthiness to enjoy reading The Hosemaster. We must have both because this guy deserves a wider audience, in our humble opinion."
--Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine
--Steve Heimoff
"This site should carry a warning label. It's sort of a Dave Barry/George Carlin approach to wine. The Hosemaster (real name Ron Washam) skewers fellow bloggers and industry savants with glee, while offering hilarious wine guides such as his Honest Guide to Grapes...
--Paul Gregutt, Seattle Times
"Washam is a skilled wine judge (I have judged with him) who is willing to judge wine double blind, in public. To my knowledge, Parker does not do this and never has. So Ron's credentials are in place, and so is his sense of the absurd."
--Dan Berger, VintageExperiences
"...I consider Ron a
talented writer and I’ve long been an admirer of his scathing wit..."
--1WineDude
"And if any free sites think they can conquer the world, there’s always the Hosemaster
to take ‘em down a notch."
--Tyler Colman "Dr. Vino"
--Jo Diaz "Juicy Tales by Jo Diaz"
"I must say you are an idiot. I've never liked you. I have no idea why people find you funny."
--Reign of Terroir
--Will Lyons (WSJ) on Twitter
--Levi Dalton on Twitter
veryStory highlights The more gun laws, the lower the mortality, study says
The link was shown for suicide and homicide
But critic warns the study does not prove cause and effect
States with the most gun laws experienced a lower overall mortality rate from firearms than did states with the fewest laws, researchers in Boston reported in a study published Wednesday.
"States that have the most laws have a 42% decreased rate of firearm fatalities compared to those with the least laws," said Dr. Eric W. Fleegler, an attending physician in pediatric emergency medicine at Boston Children's Hospital and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
Those states with the most gun laws saw a 40% reduction in firearm-related homicides and a 37% reduction in firearm-related suicides, he said in a telephone interview.
Fleegler, the lead author in the study published online in JAMA Internal Medicine, reached that conclusion by analyzing data reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2007 through 2010 and then correlating those figures with state-level firearm legislation aggregated by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Figuring out how many laws existed in each state was difficult. "What do you do when one law has seven parts" Fleegler asked. "Is that seven laws? Is that one law?"
JUST WATCHED Teachers in Utah take class on guns Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Teachers in Utah take class on guns 01:42
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So the researchers checked the state laws to determine whether they were intended to curb firearm trafficking; strengthen background checks beyond what's required under the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act; ensure child safety; ban military-style assault weapons; or restrict guns in public places.
Based on how many of those categories a state's laws covered, the researchers calculated a "legislative strength score," which they compared with firearm-related mortality rates in all 50 states. The legislative strength scores ranged from 0 in Utah to 24 out of a possible 28 in Massachusetts.
Over the four years scrutinized, 121,084 firearm fatalities occurred, with rates ranging from a high of 17.9 per 100,000 in Louisiana to a low of 2.9 per 100,000 in Hawaii.
When compared with the quartile of states with the fewest laws, the quartile of states that had the most laws had a lower firearm suicide rate and a lower firearm homicide rate, Fleegler said. The absolute difference in the suicide rates was 6.25 deaths per 100,000; in the homicide rates it was 0.40 deaths per 100,000.
"When you're talking about 300 million people, you're talking about thousands of deaths that would not otherwise have occurred," Fleegler said.
Even on a state level, some figures were striking. For example, there was a three-fold difference in firearm-related suicide between Massachusetts and Louisiana, which has few laws limiting the use of firearms.
"We anticipated that there was going to be a relationship between state laws and firearm mortality," he said. "The magnitude of the effect, a 42% reduction, that was a big number to look at."
The authors acknowledged that they showed only an association; they did not prove that more laws on firearms translate into fewer deaths.
Fleegler said his study "speaks to the importance of having legislation. One of the things that we've learned over time is that there are laws that have been passed that have large loopholes, and those loopholes make the enforcement and efficacy of the laws diminished. There are ways to make these laws better and stronger."
But Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, urged caution in interpreting the study in an accompanying editorial published in the journal.
"Correlation does not imply causation," he wrote. "This fundamental limitation is beyond the power of the authors to redress."
He added that the list of laws takes no account of differences between states in the specifics of laws and takes no account of how hard states worked to enforce those laws.
The biggest difficulty, Wintemute continued, is that almost all of the associations between more laws and fewer deaths disappeared when the investigators took into account the prevalence of gun ownership in each state.
"This is a problem because there are two completely opposite explanations for why that might be the case," Wintemute said in a video issued by his university. "One is that these laws work, and that they work by decreasing the rate of gun ownership in a state, because we know that the rate of gun ownership is associated with the rate of violent death in a state.
"But the other possibility, that's at least as plausible, is that it's easier to enact these laws in states that have a low rate of gun ownership to begin with. Gun ownership is not as important in those states, there's less opposition."
He added, "We really don't know what to do with the results. We cannot say that these laws -- individually or in aggregate -- drive firearm death rates up or down."
He predicted that policy makers would not be able to draw useful conclusions from the work. "The conclusion that I draw is we need to get this question answered right."
Wintemute said the researchers did a good job with the limited data they had available but said the larger problem dates back to the 1990s, when the National Rifle Association inserted language into the CDC's appropriation that limited its work on how to reduce firearm injuries.
Now, as lawmakers are looking for evidence on what works, "investigators like this group are reduced to doing the best they can with what's available," he said.
For his part, Fleegler bemoaned the dearth of data from individual cities about firearms-related injuries and noted that data on enforcement of those laws were also spotty. "We agree that there is a lot more research that needs to be done, that funding to allow robust research and robust collection of data is what's really going to move the science forward for understanding how we can reduce deaths," he said.Feature-length Disney animated films are a hallmark of cinematic culture, and it is strange to think that they date back to before the beginning of the second world war. As we approach 80 years of animated features from Disney, I find myself looking back at that history and noting the various high-points and missteps in an all-encompassing retrospective of Disney Animation.
This retrospective will seek to organize these films into distinct periods, from the very beginnings up to the present day. Though it is tempting to group the films according to artistic merit and leave it at that, it is much more informative to break them into chronological epochs, as you’ll see. For then, a funny thing happens: the chronological periods act as a stand-in for the artistic verve of the production studio at the time. Thus Disney ebbs and flows through periods of electric activity and also-ran wheel spinning, and it is informative to recognize the varying causes of such a cyclic output in light of where the Studio is today. Originally, this was intended to appear as a single piece, but as it grew it became clear that it would be much more effective broken up into seven pieces representing their respective eras. After all seven are published, I will place them together into a single piece for ease of access.
So, without further adieu, I present The Seven Ages of Disney Animation. Of course, it all begins with...
The Age of Innovation (1937 – 1942)
The first Age of Disney I have named “The Age of Innovation” in reference to the immense innovation required of the studio to establish the feature-length animated film. The first ever film of this nature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, was completed in 1937, and ushered in a fantastic level of artistic output that, perhaps, has not been equaled in the realm of animation ever since. The Age of Innovation comprises five films: the aforementioned Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and finally Bambi. Each film released during this age is the very definition of a masterpiece. Timeless characters and themes abound, but the focus is definitely on the dynamic of family. Except for Fantasia, which isn’t really a single narrative, the other four stories all heavily involve relationships between parents and children. Admittedly, Snow White is a bit of a stretch in that regard, but there are still family dynamics at play, whether you look at the creation of a new family with the dwarfs, or the conflict from the jealous Queen. Regardless, here we see the establishment of the Disney pathos in its most basic form: stories driven by personal relationship, often relying on the structure of a musical.
These films are all still gorgeous to look at, despite the age of the animation. Snow White in particular can look at little jerky at times, and the voice acting seems to be weirdly mixed by today’s standards, but you have to appreciate that a project of this scope had never been attempted before. You cannot deny the power of particular scenes from this film. The Queen telling her servant to kill Snow White seems entirely out of place by today’s standard of children’s movies, and the scene where Snow White finds herself scared and lost in the woods remains quite chilling and sad. Of course, we would be remiss not to mention the musical numbers, which would become an absolute hallmark of the greatest Disney animated films ever. Looking back, while Snow White may seem incredibly dated from an aesthetic point of view, it nonetheless represent a leap forward in movie-making. As the progenitor of every film we will discuss – plus many fantastic films from other studios which we will not, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs deserves our reverence.
The second film from this age, Pinocchio, is a morality tale with the atmospheric horror of Guilermo Del Toro drawn on animation cels 25 years before Del Toro was even born. It is at once surreal and grounded, dramatizing the struggle for honesty and goodness amid the temptation of fame and vice. The eponymous marionette is given life by the Blue Fairy, and watched after by Jiminy Cricket, although not particularly well. Pinocchio strays from the right path, and finds himself imprisoned by a giant puppetmaster, and then later is whisked away to Pleasure Island where children are turned into donkeys for sale to salt mines and circuses. Metaphors abound in this story, and it is weirdly comfortable with overt sexual innuendo and manipulation of naive children. The finale of the film has Pinocchio attempting to rescue his family from Monstro, a nightmare-inspiring demon whale that makes Moby Dick look like Free Willy. Monstro of course kills Pinocchio (who is found lying face down in a tide pool after the encounter) but the Blue Fairy resurrects him as a real boy. You know, kid’s stuff. What a movie!
The third film of this age, Fantasia, stands out as the only film that does not have a standard narrative structure, instead offering the artists’ interpretations of various classical pieces of music. But despite the lack of an overall story, the film deals with the idea of narrative on a very fundamental level, as the conductor introduces the audience to the different pieces. In fact, it is pointed out that two of the pieces are specifically chosen for their explicit stories: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony (The Centaurs & other Greek Myths), and the iconic The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. In these segments, we get to see some the ways that a composer may seek to tell a distinct story through only music, and though we are aided by the gorgeous animation, the point is deftly made. This is in contrast to some of the other segments, most notably The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinksy, where the music is described as more abstract. It is made clear that what we are seeing is more the artists’ interpretation of the material than the literal intention of the composer. In this sense, Fantasia can be thought of as an instruction manual for the appreciation of classical music: it teaches us about theme, tone, musical composition and structure, and even narrative. It is wholly unlike anything else in the Disney canon (except Fantasia 2000, obviously).
Dumbo follows a blueprint similar to Pinocchio, but is much more focused on the mother-son relationship drama and dispenses somewhat with the overt surrealism (though not completely). At a mere 1 hr 4 minutes long, Dumbo was an attempt to recoup the financial losses of Fantasia through simplicity. Despite its short runtime, Dumbo manages to fit in a harrowing mother-son relationship, an investigation of loneliness and ridicule, and the importance of believing in your own abilities (plus some top-notch drunken hallucinations). While it is occasionally frowned upon for utilizing racial stereotypes in the portrayal of the crow characters, this is merely unfortunate surface-level reasoning. All crows except for the leader are voiced by members of the very popular Hall Johnson Choir, and the crows are portrayed as clever, witty, and sympathetic to Dumbo’s situation (unlike many other characters). Dumbo is not a film to apologize for, and it remains among Disney’s best.
The portrayal of family dynamics and trauma reaches its apex in the narrative of Bambi. There are reasons why the death of Bambi’s mother is still referenced over 70 years later – the scene where Bambi is calling for her, receiving only silence in reply, remains as haunting and sad as ever. It is important to realize how unexpected this plot element actually is, though, as it can be lost on someone not seeing it for the first time. The entirety of the first two acts are fairly playful and joyous. Bambi has his friends, plays around on the ice and in the fields, and generally has a good life. Then, as life so often does, he is completely blindsided, along with the rest of us. If the movie has a weakness, it is that the narrative doesn’t seem to have a particularly powerful place to go after such a devastating conclusion to the second act. The finale of the forest fire and Bambi escaping with his father is certainly entertaining and powerful animation, but we remember the earlier portions of this film more fondly.
It is strange to say this now, but except for Snow White, each of these films was considered a commercial flop during its initial release, but they have received great acclaim since then. These five films all score above 90 on Rotten Tomatoes, with the lowest score of 91 going to Bambi. Pinocchio stands out as the lone perfect score in the whole of the Disney oeuvre, although it is worth remarking that Snow White, Fantasia, and Dumbo each have only a single negative review on the aggregator website (what |
(ginomai) is very flexible in Paul, and it can easily be taken as equative (cf. Rom. 11:6; 12:6; 1 Cor. 3:18; 4:16). But even if the verb means “become,” it doesn’t rule out imputation, for believers become something they weren’t before (“righteous!”) by virtue of union with Christ. They receive right standing with God as a gift.
3) The first person plural pronoun doesn’t indicate Paul is only thinking of his apostolic ministry. Paul’s use of pronouns is also flexible and shouldn’t be straitjacketed. Yes, the first person plural in the previous verse refers to Paul, but Paul shifts between the first person plural as a reference to himself and the first person plural as a reference to all Christians in this very paragraph, for when Paul says “God reconciled us” in 2 Corinthians 5:18, he isn’t limiting that action to himself but includes all believers. So too, in 2 Corinthians 5:21 the “we” most naturally refers to all believers.
[E. P. Sanders’s Vision of Judaism]
Since we are talking about new perspective matters, one other issue should be raised. Wright still writes as if E. P. Sanders’s vision of Judaism (his covenantal nomism) is completely convincing.
But there is now plenty of evidence out there about the diversity of Judaism. Some Jews were legalistic. That is plain from Luke 18:9-14 alone. Legalism isn’t a Jewish problem but a human problem.
I believe this is a more convincing reading of texts like Romans 4 than the one Wright posits. Yes, exclusivism and nationalism and boundary markers were a problem. The new perspective has helped us see that so clearly. We are grateful for a clear reminder on this matter.
But new perspectivists like Wright don’t seem open to any modification of Sanders’s construal of Judaism. They insist that there is no polemic against legalism in Paul. It seems that some new perspectivists aren’t as open as some old perspective adherents.
We see a both-and problem in Paul: both exclusivism and legalism. The new perspective has helped us see an emphasis that was too often neglected. But Wright insists that it is only one way; there is only one problem (nationalistic exclusivism), and he continues to advocate this line, even though there are good historical and exegetical reasons to see also a polemic against legalism in Paul’s letters. Here is another place where Wright focuses on the horizontal (boundary markers) and fails to see the vertical (one’s relationship to God).TAMPA BAY – The Tampa Bay Lightning announced today that they will continue their partnership with the Lyon Hockey Club Lions for the 2015-16 season. The highlight of the season-long affiliation includes the Lightning’s top minor league affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, holding training camp and playing preseason games versus the Utica Comets in Lyon, France. It also includes other business and marketing elements.
Hockey possesses a long and rich history in the French city of Lyon. The Sporting Club of Lyon won the first hockey championship in the country’s history in 1907. Many other teams have called Lyon home since and before the LHC Les Lions. The Lyons were founded by team president Sébastien Berthet and made their debut on May 1, 2009 after being approved by the French Federation of Ice Hockey.
The LHC Les Lions have called at the Charlemagne Skating Rink home since 1967. The arena, with a capacity of 3,175 seats, is one of the largest in France. The team draws some of the largest crowds in the country each weekend, hosting an average of 3,000 fans per game. The team has seen a quick ascension through the ranks in just the four years since being relegated from the Magnus League. In 2013-14, Lyon beat the Bordeaux Boxers to return to the top division in France, after having been beaten in the finals by the Brest Albatross in the previous season. In 2014-15, the Lions stayed clear of relegation with a record of 8-15-3 and will once again compete in the Magnus League in 2015-16. Excluding their championship in 1907, the Lions’ best Magnus League finish has been third, which the team accomplished in 1998 and 1999.Have you heard the one about the comedy club that charges by the laugh? What? That’s not a joke, there’s actually a comedy club in Barcelona that’s experimenting with using facial recognition technology to track how much people are enjoying the show, and charging them accordingly. If you knew your laughs were costing you money, would you be so easily amused?
The software is installed on tablets attached to the back of each seat in the Teatreneu club. Entry to the show is completely free, but you pay for each laugh. When you have a laugh at the show, your account is billed €0.30 (about $0.38). The theater also uses its software, called PayPer Laugh, to track the laughs in real time. Yes, big data comes to comedy.
If the performer really kills it, you won’t be looking at a massive bill, though. The ticket price is capped at €24 (a little over $30). So if nothing else, this project has arrived at the true market value for a laugh. The theater put the plan into action after recent Spanish government tax increases on entertainment caused a drop off in attendance. So far the experiment is a success. The average price paid for a ticket is up by €6. Teatreneu has also launched a new season ticket that is based on the number of laughs instead of the number of shows.
Other theaters around Spain are looking to implement the system as well, but there’s always the concern that some audience members will intentionally obscure their faces to confuse the system, and thus get free laughs. Those cheap jerks.Gershon Koffie, who scored a cracker of a goal from distance back in late May, barely shows up on the basic offensive stat sheet these days — nothing but a row of zeros recorded under goals, assists and shots on goal in 10 consecutive starts.
But the Vancouver Whitecaps’ soft-spoken, hard-tackling midfielder has become as indispensable as any of head coach Carl Robinson’s regulars.
The man whose coaches in Vancouver have continually harped on him to play with more consistency has become something of a metronome in the middle of the park. Over the last couple of months, he just ticks along with the precision and consistency of a musician’s pendulum.
Overshadowed at times by Argentine bulldog Matias Laba as a holding midfielder, the 24-year-old Ghanian, who has morphed from promising youngster to seasoned veteran, quietly, and with little fanfare, plays a steady game that is all about timely interceptions, ball-winning tackles and smart distribution.
Last Saturday, however, Koffie had to be noticed. He seemed to be all over the pitch in the Caps’ 1-0 win over FC Dallas, disrupting any attempt by the visitors to play through the middle of the pitch.
“He’s found a vein of form where he’s playing at his levels,” says Robinson, who is expected to go with Koffie and several other first-choice players tonight in the second leg of the Canadian championship final at BC Place Stadium against the Montreal Impact.
“I demand those levels every game. I have been on him, sometimes a little bit too hard, but I know what the kid can do. He’s got fantastic talent and I want him to be the best player on the pitch every day. He was on Saturday, without a doubt. He won his battles, he won his tackles, he controlled the game for us.
“He sets that standard and my job is to try to get him to maintain that standard.”
Off the field, Koffie is an intriguing character. He is almost shy at times, though he will flash a big, toothy smile. A lover of hip hop and reggae music, he showed up for training Tuesday in beige Capris and a T-shirt with his own stylized initials on the front, the same ones cut into the close-cropped hair on the side of his head.
Koffie, who signed with the Caps in September 2010 when they were finishing up a USSF Division II season and preparing to join Major League Soccer in 2011, now has 125 career MLS games under his belt.
While he scored three goals in each of the 2012 and 2013 seasons and picked up five assists, he’s playing more of a defensive stopper role now. He has just that one goal this season and no assists in 20 games, 16 of them starts.
“If the coaches want me more offensive I will do it, but so far they just want Matias (Laba) and I to sit in front of the back four and just be disciplined.”
His influence is undeniable. He does the dirty work, the crucial regaining of possession that allows the likes of Kekuta Manneh, Cristian Techera and Pedro Morales to shine.
“My teammates motivate me a lot. And off the field, I have this godfather back home (in Ghana) that I call and he talks to me about God a lot, that when you’re down, you should keep playing. So I give thanks to God. But my teammates and the coaching staff, they’ve been helping me.”A wedge set based on a novel I'm working on. The general idea for each wedge is that they're a noble house trying to achieve the goal of their ally-color pairs using the methods of their enemy-color.
- House Blackhide want peace and harmony, and will use any means necessary to maintain it.
- House Glassfire want law and order, and have a tendency to get a bit overzealous about it.
- House Cloakblossom want knowledge and power, and will use brute force to acquire it if necessary.
- House Bloodsteel want to create chaos, but need to organize themselves in order to do so effectively.
- House Dimfire want to flourish and grow, and use experimental methods in order to do so.
Mechanics: Fealty to <house(using Blackhide as an example)> (Each (e.g., or ) in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your fealty to (e.g. Blackhide).)
Basically like devotion to that house. Since it will always be devotion to three colors, chances are you are going to be able to "swear fealty" to multiple houses (there are even cards that reward you for/require you to do so), which makes flavor-sense - fealties are fickle things in Voliir.
It is against the law to do X. Justice - At the beginning of your upkeep, if an opponent broke the law since your last turn, (effect) (mechanic designed by /u/Tmnsquirtle47)
Noteworthy change from squirtle's version, the laws don't just apply to your opponents, they apply to you as well. If you break one of your own laws you won't punish yourself for it, but an opposing Justice card will
Uncover N (Discard N cards: Return this from your graveyard to your hand.)
Obviously avoiding Uncover 1, because that would be silly.
Breach - Whenever a creature blocking ~ dies, (effect).
Flourish N (This creature is flourishing while its power is N or greater.)
Usually accompanied by either a self-buffing mechanic (like prowess), an effect that cares about itself or your other creatures flourishing or both.
*Morbid - (time), if a creature died this turn, (effect).
Returning from Innistrad, here to represent the benefits given by demons to those who sacrifice.
NOTE: White boarder means the card is red-flagged.It's well-established Omega-3 fatty acids are a beneficial fat found most easily in fish. But according to Meghan Williams, an environmental toxicologist in the Fisheries Management Division of the DNR, most of the research done on the Omega-3 levels in fish examine species native to seas, not ones found in fresh water.
Williams and her colleagues set out to determine whether two of the most important Omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, are present in Wisconsin-caught fish — and happily, Williams said, they are.
“As we would expect, the fattier fish, like salmon and trout, do have higher concentrations than a leaner fish like walleye, yellow perch, northern pike or bass,” she said, “But even these leaner fish still have the amount that we have found to be beneficial per meal.”
An article about the findings indicates that lake herring and whitefish are also among the fish with the highest levels of the fatty acids. It also provides guidelines for minimizing exposure to toxins and other contaminants that can be found in some Wisconsin fish.
While experts vary a bit on what ideal amount of Omega-3s should be, Williams said that on average 250mg in a meal is recommended.
“An 8-ounce serving of almost every species (of Wisconsin fish) we tested will provide that,” she said.
In addition to the Omega-3s, Williams said that fish is also a good source of lean protein. She also mentioned that some research shows that selenium is also an important dietary component that is found in fish, but that more study is needed.
The DNR has published a handy cookbook, “Healthy Dishes with Wisconsin Fishes,” that is available online. Following are two recipes from that publication that utilize Omega-3 rich species.
Stuffed Brook Trout
Submitted by: Jon Motquin of Shawano, WI
Recommended species for this recipe: Brook trout (or other inland species)
Ingredients:
4 butterflied brook trout fillets, scaled and rinsed
1 cup walnuts or wild hazelnuts
1 1/2 tablespoon fresh thyme
1 1/2 tablespoon fresh parsley
1 lemon, juiced
1 gallon bag of wild or store-bought grape leaves, soaked in water overnight (or for at least an hour)
Preparation and cooking instructions:
Preheat a grill to medium high heat.
Puree nut, thyme, and parsley in a food processor.
Add juice of 1 lemon into nut mixture.
Spoon nut mixture into trout. Wrap trout completely with wet grape leaves and then entirely in aluminum foil. Place fish on medium high grill or surround in coals on open fire for 15 minutes.
Remove foil packets and allow to cool. Serve fish along with grape leaves.
Recipe may also be tried with hickory nuts or butter nuts.
You may also consider adding juniper berries.
Asian Fusion Grilled Salmon
Submitted by: Martye Griffin of Madison, WI
Recommended species for this recipe: Salmon
Ingredients:
4. 1/2-lb salmon fillets, scaled and rinsed
Minced or crushed garlic
Brown sugar
Soy sauce
Preparation and cooking instructions:
Preheat grill to medium heat.
Rub crushed or minced garlic and brown sugar on salmon fillet (non-skin side).
Find a dish that will fit your fillets and cover the bottom of the dish with soy sauce, then place the fillets (garlic and brown sugar side facing down) into the soy sauce. Marinate for at least 20 minutes.
Place the fillets on the grill skin side down. Sprinkle a tiny bit more brown sugar on the fillets for caramelization. Cover grill and cook until fish are cooked to your liking. Do not flip. You know the fillet is done when it looks a little bit transparent only in the center (like a medium-well burger slightly pink in the middle).
Recommended side dishes:
Grilled asparagus or grilled cherry tomatoes with quinoa, Israeli couscous or roasted potatoes.Roadside Preliminary Drug Testing in Ireland came into effect from today, and many have had questions in relation to the new system.
Taking that into consideration, Gardai have issued an extensive list of the most common questions asked, with answers to each question also included.
From what happens if you smoked cannabis the night before driving the next morning to how the tests will be taken and examined, the list is extensive and should help allay some fears people have in relation to prescription drugs among other things.
The Gardaí can now test motorists for drugs at the roadside. There’s no hiding #DrugDriving. pic.twitter.com/DxySIlom1J — RSA Ireland (@RSAIreland) April 13, 2017
What drugs can the Gardaí test for?
The new oral fluid preliminary drug test, which can be conducted at the roadside or in a Garda station, can test for Cannabis, Cocaine, Opiates and Benzodiazepines.
What drugs can the Medical Bureau for Road Safety Test for?
Where an evidentiary blood or urine specimen is taken the Medical Bureau for Road Safety can test for Cannabis, Benzodiazepines, Opiates, Methadone, Amphetamines (including methamphetamine, MDA and MDMA) and Cocaine.
Why is driving on drugs considered dangerous?
Driving is a complex task and drugs can impair how we function. This impairment can interfere with ability to control a motor vehicle to the extent that we can become a danger to ourselves and other road users.
I thought the Gardaí could already test for drugs?
The Gardaí, with the assistance of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety, have been testing Irish drivers for drugs since 1999.
What is new is that the Gardaí now have the power to conduct preliminary drug tests at the roadside or in Garda stations.
How will the Gardaí test for these drugs?
The Gardaí will use preliminary drug testing devices at the roadside or in Garda station to test a person’s oral fluid for Cannabis, Cocaine, Opiates and Benzodiazepines.
If positive, a blood specimen can be taken which will be sent to the MBRS for evidential testing. If the Garda forms the opinion that you are impaired and you have not had a preliminary drug test or the results of that test were negative, then they can request either a blood or urine specimen which will be sent to the Medical Bureau of Road Safety for testing.
How often will these machines be calibrated/ checked they are working correctly?
The new oral fluid test system is called the Drager Drugtest 5000, and this will be checked by the Medical Bureau of Road safety every six months to make sure that it is working correctly.
The Drugtest 5000 does a self-test every time it is switched on, which checks that the system is working correctly.
The system also requires a quality control test to be performed by a member of An Garda Síochána every 28 days.
This involves inserting a positive cartridge and a negative cartridge, and the system checks that the correct result is achieved.
Where this is not the case the system cannot be used.
Where will Gardaí get these machines and how exactly do they work?
A statutory function of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety is to approve, supply and test systems for preliminary drug testing to An Garda Síochána.
To this end the Medical Bureau of Road Safety will supply the Drager Drugtest 5000 to the Gardaí.
The system uses a technique called lateral flow immunoassay to detect the presence or absence of drugs at or above a predefined concertation limit.
What will I have to do at these check points?
Similar to a Mandatory Alcohol Testing Checkpoint, the new law allows for a Mandatory Intoxicant Testing Checkpoint.
This means that the Gardaí can now test for alcohol and drugs at the roadside.
In addition to being breathalysed for alcohol, a person may now be asked to provide an oral fluid sample by using the swab to collect the oral fluid from inside their mouth.
The Garda may also carry out an impairment test.
What happens if I refuse to take part in the preliminary drug test?
Refusal to provide an oral fluid sample is an offence which can on conviction lead to a €5,000 fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both a fine and imprisonment.
How long will the test take?
The oral fluid test will take approximately 10 minutes. It takes about 1 minute to collect the required amount of oral fluid.
Once the oral fluid is collected then the cartridge is placed into the Drugtest 5000.
It then takes eight minutes to provide a result.
Will I be arrested if my oral fluid is positive for drugs?
If your oral fluid tests positive for cannabis or cocaine you will be arrested and brought to the station where a blood specimen will be collected and sent to the MBRS for analysis.
If your oral fluid tests positive for benzodiazepines or opiates and the Garda is of the opinion that you are impaired you will be arrested and brought to the station where a blood specimen will be collected and sent to the MBRS for analysis.
If your oral fluid tests positive for benzodiazepines or opiates and the Garda is of the opinion that you are not impaired you are not committing an offence and can drive on.
If my oral fluid is negative for drugs?
If your oral fluid tests negative but the Garda is of the opinion that you are impaired due to some other drug that the device doesn’t pick up (e.g. amphetamines) you will be arrested and brought to the station where a blood or urine specimen will be collected and sent to the MBRS for analysis.
If your oral fluid tests negative but the Garda is of the opinion that you are not impaired, you are free to go.
Are there limits for cannabis, cocaine and heroin in the legislation?
Under the new legislation there are thresholds set for cannabis, cocaine and heroin.
It is an offence to drive while over the threshold and the Garda does not need to prove impairment.
Will I lose my licence if I test positive?
If you are convicted in court for drug driving you will be disqualified from driving.
It is up to the judge to decide how long to disqualify you for. Minimum disqualification periods are laid down in the legislation.
How many people have been caught drug driving in Ireland?
In 2016 the Medical Bureau of Road Safety tested 1,225 specimens for drugs and 800 (65%) specimens were confirmed to have a drug present.
Is drug driving a recognised international problem?
A recent report published by the European Traffic Safety Council titled ‘Preventing Drug Driving in Europe’ looked at the prevalence of psychoactive drugs in the driving population and this reported that the DRUID project in 2012 estimated that the EU mean prevalence amongst the general driving population for all investigated illicit drugs was 1.95%, and for medicines was 1.36%.
A further survey in 2015 stated that 11% of respondents self-declared that they had driven after using illicit drugs and 22% had driven after taking medicines that carried a warning that the drug might influence their ability to drive.
Why is this only being brought in now?
Technology for preliminary drug testing outside of the laboratory has improved considerably in the last number of years to the point that it is now an internationally acceptable for testing drivers.
The introduction of this policy in Ireland was underpinned in the Road Traffic Act 2016, which was passed in December 2016 and provided the powers to allow the Gardaí to carry out preliminary drug testing.
How does our new system compare to international practice?
The proposed system, the Drager Drugtest 5000 is in use internationally for the enforcement of road traffic law.
The system is in use in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Australia, England, Wales, Italy, Ukraine and the USA.
What are the penalties for drug driving?
The penalty for drug driving is the same as for drink driving – a maximum of €5,000 fine and up to 6 months imprisonment on summary conviction.
In terms of disqualification periods, for those convicted of the new offence of being above the threshold for cannabis, cocaine and heroin with no proof of impairment necessary by the Gardaí, the disqualification period is not less than one year for the first offence and not less than two years for the second or subsequent offence.
For the existing offence of drug driving while impaired, there is no change to the penalty or disqualification periods which are a minimum of 4 years for a first offence and 6 years for a second or subsequent offence.
Can I get a second opinion on my test results?
Where a person provides a specimen of blood or urine for evidentiary purposes, the specimen is divided in two sealed containers – one sealed container is sent to the MBRS for analysis and the other is offered to the person who may seek to have their own analysis carried out on the specimen.
Will the preliminary roadside test stand up in court / be used in court?
The roadside test is not evidentiary; it is only a preliminary test, like the roadside breath test.
A further specimen of blood or urine will be required which will be taken in the Garda station and analysed by the MBRS and the results of that test will be used in court as evidence.
What is the training process that the Gardaí have undergone to be able to conduct these tests?
The Gardaí and the Medical Bureau of Road Safety are delivering the training for this.
The Medical Bureau of Road Safety have provided technical training in the use of the Drager Drugtest 5000 and An Garda Síochána are providing training in the legal and operational requirements.
Questions on medicines, drugs and driving:
Will I test positively from taking over-the-counter medicine e.g. aspirin/cold and flu medicine?
Most over the counter medicines will not be detected by the new oral fluid test. However, Codeine, which is contained in products like Neruofen Plus® and Solpadeine® is an opiate and is detectable in oral fluid after use.
This is not a problem if you are not impaired. Codeine does have the ability to cause impairment which could affect your ability to drive safely.
Medicines which can cause drowsiness such as anti-histamines which are in some cold and flu remedies will impair your ability to drive safely.
Follow the advice provided by your Doctor and/or pharmacist when taking any medicines and always read the patient information leaflet which will advise on recommended dosages and whether the medicine can affect your ability to drive.
Will herbal medications show up in the test?
In general herbal medicines will not show up in the test. However, if the herbal product contains a drug that can cause impairment it may be detected by the Medical Bureau of Road Safety in its analysis.
What should I do if I'm taking medication and not sure whether it affects my driving? Who can I talk to about my medication?
Follow the advice provided by your Doctor and/or pharmacist when taking any medicines and always read the patient information leaflet which will advise on recommended dosages and whether the medicine can affect your ability to drive.
See the RSA leaflet on ‘Medicines and Driving’.
Can’t cannabis stay in your system for days after you smoke it?
The Drager Drugtest 5000 will detect 9 -Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in cannabis, in oral fluid for about 6 hours after last use.
How can one be allowed to drive under medicinal cannabis if they have a note from their doctor, they are still impaired?
It is expected that an extremely small number of drivers will be able to avail of the medical exemption certificate where their doctor lawfully prescribes them with a product which contains a medicinal cannabinoid.
This certificate does not allow them to drive if they are impaired. A driver who tests positive for cannabis and is impaired is committing an offence.
I smoke cannabis regularly, how do I know when I am allowed to drive after taking it?
It is recommended to wait 24 hours after last using cannabis before driving.
If you are sure you are no longer impaired as a result of taking cannabis and more than six hours have elapsed since last use it should not be possible for a Garda to detect impairment and the 9 -Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) level in you oral fluid should be lower than the detection limit for the Cannabis test on the Drager Drugtest 5000.Slovak hauliers critical of EU Mobility package
They perceive some of the proposed initiatives as protectionist
While the European Commission is taking action on clean, competitive and connected mobility, Slovak road hauliers see its proposed road transport rules as protectionist measures of the established member countries of the European Union. The Slovak Transport Ministry points out that the latest initiatives have not been adopted yet and are just undergoing legislative proceedings, highlighting that more unified and clearer rules could contribute to enhanced competitiveness of road haulage companies, especially those observing the rules. But it admits that some measures may make the lives of Slovak hauliers in western Europe harder.
From the package of proposed road transport initiatives, the Association of Road Transport Operators of the Slovak Republic (ČESMAD) feels the significant influence of strong western European countries, which creates ideal conditions for the protection of their markets from other, mainly poorer, European countries.
“We disagree with such a division of the single European market, and we will require significant changes in individual proposals,” said Pavol Jančovič, president of ČESMAD Slovakia.
Europe on the Move
On May 31, the European Union introduced a set of initiatives called ‘Europe on the Move’. It believes that this will make traffic safer, encourage fairer road surcharges, reduce CO2 emissions, air pollution and congestion, cut red-tape for businesses, fight illicit employment and ensure proper conditions and rest periods for workers.
“We see the world of transport changing fundamentally,” said EC Vice-President for Energy Union Maroš Šefčovič, as cited in the press release. “Europe must seize this opportunity and shape the future of mobility.This is our unique chance to ‘reinvent the wheel’.”
The first eight initiatives unveiled under Europe on the Move set target road transport to help the sector remain competitive and fair as it transitions toward clean energy and digitalisation. The EC promises that the proposals will improve the functioning of the road haulage market and help improve workers’ social and employment conditions. This will be done by stepping up enforcement, fighting illicit employment practices, cutting the administrative burden for companies and bringing more clarity to existing rules, e.g. concerning the application of national minimum wage laws, the EC wrote in its press release.
However, ČESMAD said that while the EC considers the package of initiatives as fair, for Slovak hauliers it means a severe worsening of business conditions. In expert discussions it has identified the most problematic initiatives.
“The posting of workers’ directive is considered one of the biggest problems in other European countries as well,” Ivan Rusko, general secretary of ČESMAD told The Slovak Spectator, adding that it is completely unfit for traditional road transport.
A significant negative intervention is also a change in the required rest time for truck drivers, within which the EC is considering a ban on drivers spending compulsory weekly rest periods in their truck cabins.
“Experts consider these changes to be more protectionist measures of the so-called ‘old’ member countries,” said Rusko.
ČESMAD points out that the market has not been prepared for such a ban, as there is insufficient accommodation capacities for truck drivers. Moreover, insurance policies actually ban drivers from leaving their loaded trucks unattended.
“It’s obvious that the aim of this measure is not that drivers rest in hotels but that they return home,” said Jančovič, adding that sometimes the routes of the truck drives are too long to enable them to spend their regular weekly rest at home. “The aim of this measure is thus limiting the capacities of eastern hauliers in the western market.”
Additionally, while the EC through its latest initiatives wanted to target letterbox companies and so-called nomad drivers, it has missed its goal, according to ČESMAD. Such companies register in a member state with a lower minimum working wage as a way of cutting costs and hiring cheaper labour. Their nomad drivers then often actually live in the cabin and even spend months in their trucks without a break outside the cabin.
“Actually the EC only negatively interfered with the operation of classical hauliers carrying out regular transport,” said Jančovič, adding that the proposed measures impose an impassable administrative and bureaucratic burden on hauliers.
Harder life of truckers
Even before the implementation of the changes proposed in the package of road transport rules, the life of Slovak truckers had already gotten harder. This is because several countries have already implemented regulations requiring the equal remuneration of truckers from other countries operating in the territory of the given country, or banning truck drivers from spending their weekly rest periods in truck cabins. After six days in a truck, a driver must take a compulsory 45-hour break.
ČESMAD, even though it does not agree with the measures on minimum wage and sleeping in the cabin, recommends its members to observe all these regulations in order to prevent being fined.
“Maybe because of this we don’t have information about a Slovak company that would be fined due to these measures,” said Rusko.
But Rusko recalled a recent police action in Belgium against truck drivers violating the regulation requiring them to spend the compulsory 45-hour weekly rest period outside of their cabins. The police checked about 200 vehicles in a parking lot near an important port and collected approximately €113,000 in fines.
Germany, France and Austria have adopted minimum wage laws that require foreign drivers to be paid according to the local minimum wage when making deliveries in their countries.
In the case of Austria, expert in tax and accounting Wilfried Serles, managing partner for Grant Thornton Slovensko, even points out that the duties brought about by an early 2017 Austrian law are actually unrealisable.
“For example, it is required that Slovak hauliers keep [Austrian] collective agreements,” said Serles. “But for the transport sector there are four collective agreements. A Slovak haulier has no chance of meeting the requirements.”
The Austrian law does not have any exceptions for short-term transport either. Thus it also affects those taxi and bus companies providing transport, for example, from Bratislava to the Viennaairport.
“The taxi service and the owner of a bus going to the Vienna airport must fill in a form and remunerate the drivers according to the Austrian collective agreement for each 30-minute drive,” said Serles.
1. Aug 2017 at 11:01 | Jana LiptákováThis is the full text of the letter sent today by London mayor Sadiq Khan to Theresa May.
Dear Prime Minister,
I spent several hours yesterday talking to local residents around Grenfell Tower. These were difficult conversations with a tight-knit community that is understandably distraught, frustrated and increasingly angry. They feel the government and local council haven’t done enough to help them in the aftermath of this horrific incident, or to provide answers to their increasingly urgent questions.
I promised the local community that I would fight for them to get the support and answers they deserve as quickly as possible. I am therefore writing to you today to set out the action that I believe the government needs to take, as a matter of urgency.
Victim support and information
The local community feels their grief has been made worse by the lack of information about their missing family members and friends. They are fully aware of the true scale of this tragedy but cannot comprehend why they are not being given more information. There is also insufficient support for victims on the ground.
I appreciate that the authorities want to be absolutely certain that any information is correct before it is issued publicly, and the fire brigade, police and coroner are doing a heroic job obtaining this information in extremely difficult circumstances. While the current systems in place may work well for a terrorist attack, there are legitimate questions about whether they are still appropriate in situations where obtaining this information could take much longer.
I would ask you to ensure that the local community is given as much information as possible today and over the coming days about the number of victims and their identities. Additional capacity for victim support needs to be provided urgently. In the longer term, I would urge you to review whether the current systems are appropriate for all emergency situations and operate at the pace required.
Relief organisation
The community are concerned about the organisation and co-ordination of relief and support services across Kensington. I heard multiple stories of local residents not being able to access the information they required and being given conflicting advice by the local authority. This complaint came from local residents, volunteers who had come from further afield to help, charities and local community groups. The scale of this tragedy is clearly proving too much for the local authority to cope with on their own.
Those affected are still not clear about the support available to them – either immediately or in the longer term. For example, the local authority believe they found housing for all residents affected last night, however there are reports that this was not communicated effectively and some residents are still sleeping in the Westway Sports Centre or with family and friends. Please confirm as a matter of urgency that everyone from Grenfell Tower and other evacuated properties will be rehoused locally immediately.
Although additional local authority resilience arrangements have been activated today to provide additional leadership to the local operation, I would urge the government to provide all necessary assistance and satisfy itself that the operation is functioning to the standard local residents have the right to expect. The government should also confirm that all residents affected by the Grenfell Tower fire will be rehoused in the area, unless they choose not to.
Tower block safety
Residents I spoke to are worried about the risk of this tragic incident happening elsewhere – particularly in tower blocks that have had similar cladding installed as part of renovations. People are terrified that the same thing could happen to them. I raised this with ministers on Wednesday and Thursday, and they agreed to lead coordinated efforts to ensure that all other tower blocks across the country are indeed safe.
This issue is not limited to the type of cladding fitted; the material it is attached to and how this has been achieved are also critical factors. It is crucial that other risks from renovation works are urgently and properly investigated, for example protection between floors. And we need to strengthen standards and recall processes around white goods, given the fire risk they can present.
I would ask that you to provide a list of those tower blocks already checked by the end of today, as well as a timeline for the remaining buildings. I would ask that you to set out a timeline for this process today. If the government has any reason to believe specific tower blocks could be at risk, residents should be rehomed in the local area immediately, while these checks take place.
Please also confirm that there will be an immediate implementation of the improved safety rules proposed in 2013 but still not implemented.
Public Inquiry
The community around Grenfell Tower have many questions about how this was allowed to happen. They urgently need to be assured that they will get all the answers. I welcome the announcement of a full independent Public Inquiry, but we cannot afford to wait years for the outcome.
I would urge you to ensure, in the terms of reference of the Inquiry, that an interim report is published this summer, at the latest, and that the terms of reference include all aspects of fire safety standards and inspection in high-rise towers. I would also urge you to ensure that residents and other interested parties are not saddled with any legal costs for participating in the inquiry, and receive the quality legal representation they deserve. Finally, I would seek an |
all your studies one week before the exam so you can just review some substances to get a few hours every day during this last week.
85. Do not invest in a costly course just because you would not know where else to start. It depends upon how you learn, but investing in the right stuff and managing your time effectively is the best method to prepare for the MCAT. Some prep-courses are very interactive, which can be good for someone who can not learn on their own, but the majority of men and women learn quicker and in bigger amounts on their own if done the right way. If you wish to excel, you will need to purchase the right prep books, make a schedule, and spend approximately 75 days preparing the right way.
MCAT Lifestyle Tips
86. Become accustomed to waking up early (if you signed up for an 8am exam). I strictly went to bed early and woke up at 5:30am for the whole week before my real test day, and more or less stuck to the same “rise-and-rest” MCAT research schedule for my entire 75 days of prep. Establish your analyzing occasions, especially the clinic FLs, at the exact same time you’re going to be taking your examination.
87. Get physical exercise throughout your analyzing months. People perform at their peak when they’re most fit. Take a run after you are done studying for your day. I jogged just about every day after I studied, but you do not have to go every day. Two or three times per week work just fine.
88. Eliminate distractions while you study. Close your programs in your computer, switch off your ipod, and place your phone off and on quiet.
89. Avoid drinking alcohol study days. Should you need a drink on your break times, then drink modestly. Alcohol is usually fairly bad for you, especially for your brain and academic performance. An occasional glass of red wine won’t hurt, however.
90. Sacrifice partying with friends for studying. Good friends will encourage you and your dedication.
91. Eat well.
92. Do not only read medical information, but create your online homepage CNN (or some other impartial newspage) and navigate around the various posts offered. Reading everything you normally would not (for me personally it was politics) helps your mind adjust to comprehending all the various kinds of passages at the verbal section on the MCAT. These include social sciences (psychology, sociology, political science, and anthropology), natural sciences, and humanities (english, history, philosophy). Most science majors are extremely familiar with the natural sciences passages but struggle with all the social sciences and humanities. Brush upward in your spare time.
MCAT Exam Day
93. The night before the exam, be kind to your body and brain and get no less than 9 hours of sleep. You’ll feel refreshed and alert the subsequent morning.
94. Bring protein-rich, sugar-free bites (e.g. Larabars and some walnuts) to your testing centre to your own breaks. Do not forget juice or water. You do not need to crash from a lack of food or a sugar once you begin the BS section.
95. Whatever you’ve been practicing with together is best to use on the real test day; should you have been using earplugs while you study, ask for a pair in the test center.
96. The MCATs being administered vary, and question issue also varies. If you can’t figure something out, make an educated guess, proceed, and return to the marked question as soon as you finish that section when you’ve time.
97. Do not worry excessively about the writing section. Practice typing your documents when you choose the clinic FLs, but do not stress if your score isn’t phenomenal. What makes an impact is if you score tremendously well, or exceptionally poorly. A superb score in composing can offset a low verbal score.
98. Relax. A stressed head can inhibit your access to crucial information. This single exam isn’t the conclusion of your lifetime.
99. Be confident. You’ve got this!
100. I found that my eyes burnt because I had been so careful to the passages I have to have forgotten to blink. Doing this between passages felt very, very good, and it made me feel much more grounded, refreshed, and pumped to persevere.
101. Unless you have been educated by a better line of reasoning, resist the urge to change an answer you have already clicked.
102. Beware of tricks! The MCAT test-makers often throw in tip answers! Gut feelings aren’t necessarily the right feelings. Know why you’re selecting an answer, don’t simply go with a feeling.
103. Smile. It improves your mood and outlook.
104. Focus on what you are studying, what you know about the subject, and what answer makes the most sense (or that answers make the least sense). Push out extraneous ideas and focus.
105. If you have the money, you could also get Examkrackers MCAT Audio Osmosis. The CDs condense many major concepts into a series of streamlined, conversational lectures, and you can listen to them while driving or working out in the gym.
106. As you did for your undergraduate studies, always keep your eyes on the goal. Each day as a pre-medical pupil is 1 step nearer to a dream. When times get tough, recall your prize awaiting you in the end of the trip! Remember why you chose this particular area, then just take it one day, night, idea, passing, or question at a time.
107. Listen to my podcasts, so I usually try to incorporate some of my insights and experience on or about the MCAT in every episode!
108. House says we ought to complete by restating the two most important and essential tips! Each one of the things I made are significant, however, the two main ones are 1) selecting the best stuff and 2) knowing when you are ready and fully prepared. There is a trusted way to know when you’re prepared: take a lot of full-length clinic tests by AAMC and then determine if, on average, you’re ready!
109. Please like and link to the page if it was useful :-RRB-, others need to profit from this, too.
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17. Practice tests aren’t always a massive index of how you will do. It truly depends just how hard they are and on the practice tests. You could also get a really bizarre MCAT. Don’t get confident by your own scores, or thrown away, discouraged. Normally, but the FLs are a very good indicator for you to know if you are prepared or not.
18. Make 1 page outlines of what you learn for each chapter. Decorate these traces with sketches and distinct colored highlighting in order to make it stick in your memory for easy recollection. This technique is also useful throughout medical school. If you didn’t believe you had a photographic memory, then you may think again after practice with this.
19. Download free of charge full-length practice tests here and here. Taking practice tests frees you both through routine and practice. Odds are slim.
20. It doesn’t matter if you take 3 practice examinations per week or 1 a week, but it is best to take the examinations after you’ve finished a fantastic quantity of your analyzing. Reviewing the answers to the full-scale evaluations once you have finished them is analyzing, too.
21. Review your evaluations. Again, reviewing is crucial. Find out why you have a question wrong, be in a position to properly do the problem, and find your weak spots. Consider failing a query as an chance grow and to learn. Consult professors or friends to solve a question which you can’t solve. I completed a FL about each three days after analyzing the substance (day A: FLdaily B: inspection first half FLdaily C: inspection last half FL, replicate).
22. Practice taking FLs in somewhat locations. Throughout the authentic exam, you will be with a number of different students taking a variety of MCATs. They sniffle, cough, change, and tap their pens. You ought to get used to that beforehand.
23. If a training course seems right for you, take action. Frankly, I believe 90 percent of you should be OK with no because your desk and your mind should be everything you need, but people have experienced favorable results with training courses. Specifically, I am thinking about the Berkeley Review one in CA (difficult to take though if you stay in NE America, such as me).
24. If group work will help, study with a friend. Two minds are better than one because they can offer different perspectives and approaches to understanding and solving problems. I find studying in groups makes me remember the information. I wind up explaining it to someone and never forget it, or vice versa.
25. The actual MCAT does not have an alarm clock that rings or beeps every hour. Practice timing yourself softly.
26. Study during the day. Your brain is more active and absorbs information best during the daytime.
27. Practice deciphering complex biological systems and figuring out exactly what’s happening and what is being asked. Understanding concepts in anatomy is more important than memorizing bodily systems.
28. Take your clinic tests on a pc using a plug in keyboard. That is what the true MCAT would be like.
29. Practice carrying FLs using earplugs or thoughts muffs. Most testing centers offer both or one. Make the most of them.
30. Bring the flash cards. Learn all the concepts – which means comprehend them, and memorize the necessary details, formulas, names, and reactions. Put away those that you have learned. The EK novels will let you know what is absolutely vital to memorize and what isn’t. This was really valuable to me.
31. Keep all your flashcards at the same pile and repeat frequently. Topics are almost always intertwined on the MCAT. This can help you learn how to bridge data.
32. Actively try to bridge ideas – connect unrelated info in a realistic manner as you review. If you’re learning about purines in chemistry and about determining the speed of objects in physics, you might consider solving and understanding the way fast caffeine (a purine) gets absorbed into the blood stream. You then can bridge biology and determine where the chemical will travel to anatomically or what enzymes it might encounter in different regions of the body.
33. Memorize the essential formulas and definitions; ditch the rest. It can be hard to differentiate, but this really is critical. Keep in mind that the MCAT frequently provides you formulas or reactions you have never seen. It is your obligation to employ them in helping you answer questions properly.
34. Make your personal mnemonics to remember definitions and names, especially in mathematics. Examkrackers provides many tricks and tricky methods to remember things.
35. If you can’t concentrate, have a rest and return to your studying in 10 or 15 minutes. You will build stamina as you continue to examine. It is useless studying material while your mind is elsewhere. Within a few weeks before your test date, you should not be taking breaks anymore.
36. Discover how to eliminate incorrect answers so as to pick your final response. That is something that the Berkeley Review stresses within their homework publications, and rightly so! You won’t have enough time to actively think through the most accurate explanation or response. In your limited quantity of time you need to get rid of incorrect answers and make educated guesses. I guessed on many questions, but all these guesses were informed guesses. There is no time to prove why response B is correct, just choose it, move on, and come back to reaffirm your response when you’ve got time.
37. Know everything about major organs, but especially the kidneys. Know how Bernoulli’s Equation applies, know the path of flow, what goes in and comes from every component of the kidney, and understand the biochemistry behind the responses and exchanges therein. Everybody told me to prepare for kidney ailments, and yes, I did get them!
38. Your homework books should provide you many questions pertaining to it, so make sure that you do these passages. These type of questions are usually around the MCAT.
39. Know your endocrine hormones in which they come from, how they are administered, what their purpose is, and where they move. These questions, whether directly or indirectly asked, will also be often found on actual MCATs.
40. Compare equations replies with variables by throwing in a easy, easy-to-work-with number in place of a factor and seeing how the equation would change number. At times it’s hard to know which variable changes, but that should be given somewhere in the question, passage, formulation you’ve memorized, or a new formula you’ll be able to make by fusing the formulation given and a formula you’ve memorized. Work on figuring out how to extract this info and work it into the formulas.
41. There’s no need to spend too much time preparing for the writing department. As long as you’re able to complete the given tasks in a grammatically correct fashion, you will do fine. Little emphasis is placed on the writing section. Just be sure that you give yourself about 25 minutes to write every query and 5 minutes to shine it up, because you won’t have a rest in between the documents. You’ll have 60 minutes completely.
42. When writing the essay, simply produce a central idea, synthesis ideas and theories, present them logically, and write clearly (including grammar, syntax, and punctuation).
43. Total all three as asked, and do not fret about being politically correct or using a certain opinion. How you write is what’s rated, not exactly what your comments are. You just have to get ready for the writing section by completing the essays on your own practice FLs.
44. Although you do not have to spend time preparing for the writing department, do finish the essays accordingly once you take your full scale practice exams. If you neglect the composed part during FLs, then you will be worn out much quicker on the afternoon of the MCAT since you didn’t build your endurance. In addition, if you get a significantly low letter rating for your writing samples, that will hurt your odds for a medical school interview.
45. Sometimes the questions offer enough information to answer them and this saves a lot of time. However, this isn’t something you’d want to begin trying on your MCAT day. It doesn’t work for everyone, but I found myself skimming through the passages and spending more time on reading and solving the queries. I had the time to spare and scored maximum in PS on the big day.
46. Being a great physician means processing information and coming to a decision immediately, especially when a patient rolls in on a stretcher and is coated in blood. You will have to think quickly on the MCAT too. The largest gripe of MCAT-takers is they did not have enough time. Exercise being accurate, effective, and fast while you do passages.
47. Review what you’ve been studying at least once a week. That usually means rereading the chapters and performing some of the passages you skipped before. Do not redo passages!
48. You are the sole you out there. You have a exceptional method of learning information and solving problems in the very best manner you can. Do not do what your classmates are doing just because they may be better students or insist on a fantastic strategy. Do what works best for you, and as soon as you learn what that is, stick to it.
49. Do not worry about saving your undergraduate textbooks to prepare for these. MCAT prep books are designed to teach you exactly what you need to know and sift out the less important info.
50. You’ve got 60 minutes to complete about 12 passages.
51. You have 60 minutes to reply about 6 or 7 passages.
52. You have 60 minutes to answer approximately 6 or 7 passages.
53. Each 30-minute essay will give you a statement or query. You will have to clarify what it means, give examples, and respond to both essay questions in 60 minutes, one at a time.
54. You’ll get 10 minute breaks in between each part of the MCAT. Use them to get some fresh air, munch on a protein-rich bite, and rehydrate. There is, however, no break between essay questions.
55. Ideally, you would like to have about an average of 10 in every section and anything acceptable on the writing sample (N or above should do it).
56. In this manner it will be a lot easier to study topics you’ve already learned.
57. Take the MCAT after your Junior year or Senior year of undergraduate college, once you’ve finished your pre-medical pre-requisites. It’ll make studying easier because you will have been familiar with all the topics.
58. The more applications AMCAS/AACOMAS have, the longer they will take to review and submit them into medical schools. The more time you wait to file your MCAT scores, the more medical school seats that have already been filled.
59. Everything considered, the ideal time to take the MCAT is when you are prepared. Keep in mind tip 3, however!
60. Don’t retake the MCAT over 3 times (unless you have a very compelling reason). If you get a low score, it’s not looked down to retake the MCAT, provided that your score improves. Be ready to explain your difference in scores at your medical school interview.
MCAT Verbal Reasoning Tips
61. You can up your overall MCAT score by doing well in verbal reasoning, and it doesn’t require understanding or pruning a wealth of theories. Follow these strategies.
62. While reading a passage in verbal reasoning, speech these 3 questions: 1). What is the author talking about?, 2. What is the author’s overall mood and opinion towards it?, 3. What specific information is in every paragraph? (You are going to have to refer back to the passage to answer detail-specific query, so remember where to find the information. You won’t have much time to search around.)
63. Do verbal every morning, first thing in the morning, at the exact time of if your registered MCAT will begin. This acclimates your brain to the urgency and immediacy of the actual exam. Rituals are great.
64. Don’t choose answers only due to a gut-feeling. The testmakers purposefully choose answers with words you’ve read before in the passage, which means that your mind automatically wants to select what is already familiar. This is a lousy idea. Do not fall for their own traps. Gut-feelings are good to fall back on when you’re totally stumped, but do not choose an answer just because you have read these words before.
65. Don’t employ concepts you’ve learned in your mathematics classes to natural sciences verbal passages. The passages can often contradict facts you’ve learned. Again, it’s about what the author is writing and believes, not about what is correct.
66. Approach verbal passages exactly the ideal way. Read every word, understand the overall idea and sense for the passing, and answer questions as best and fast as possible. I discovered that I felt hurried the most on the verbal section, but do it quickly yet efficiently helped give me my very great score.
67. Accuracy is more important than speed. Think hard and guess on the rest if you are running out of time.
68. Eliminate answers that directly conflict with the author’s opinion of the subject or which are irrelevant to his/her opinion, unless of course the question is specifically asking for the response that least fits with the writer’s opinion.
69. Follow the advice on verbal plans given in EK 101 Passages in MCAT Verbal Reasoning. It is dead-on accurate.
70. Write off your start times for each passage (e.g. 60-52-44-36-28-20-12-4 for 7 passages) on your own scratch paper so that you divvy up the time appropriately for every passage. Mark and return to questions you were unsure about.
71. Answer each question in verbal, but attempt to answer the easy ones first so you can spend additional time on the harder questions. You might even wish to read the least intimidating passages too, but don’t waste time looking for easy passages. It is not easy to tell what is or isn’t easy. If you’re not good at deciphering, just progress.
72. Bear in mind that it takes a while to your score in VR to increase. Provided that you do it each morning in precisely the same time, you will gradually watch it rise. I began with fives and sixes and finished using twelves and thirteens. Be patient.
MCAT DON'TS
73. Do not Cram – you’ll forget 90 percent of it.
74. Do not rely upon Kaplan. In reality, don’t use it at all, unless you are using the practice exams. Simply compare their evaluations on Amazon if you don’t believe me.
75. Don’t study one subject at a time. Mix it up – insure every topic each week. The MCAT will probably be all muddled up also; anatomy shows up in the Physical Sciences department and chemistry formulas show up at the Biological Sciences section. You use different areas of your mind to study unique subjects. Switching between subjects is a lot more effective than block-studying.
76. Don’t wait till after work or after hanging out with buddies to review your own passages. Adjust your passages immediately. Read the chapter, do passing 1 and examine it instantly; do passage 3 and 2 in a row when timing yourself, then review 2 and 3 directly later.
77. Do not relieve your bladder mid-way by means of a section in your clinic FL. On the test day you might just have the ability to visit the toilet on your breaks, and you do not want to waste valuable time choosing mid-test bathroom breaks.
78. Do not skip breaks during your examination. Use the breaks to close your eyes, breathe, and calm your nerves. You do not need to burn.
79. They give you an alert but passive focus. You’ll make dumb mistakes. I weaned myself off of coffee a week beforehand. It is nice to believe the buzz, but it’s nicer to stop the crash.
80. Whatever you do, do not leave questions unanswered. In case you have 3 minutes left on the proctor clock, then fill in the rest of the answers in that segment and also the return to what you were working on. Unanswered questions are erroneous answers. Guessed answers have up to a 25% random prospect of being right, and that is much better to bet.
81. Do not read a question over and over again, expecting to each the surprising understand it differently. Paraphrase it and ask the new question to yourself quietly.
82. Never retake a practice test. If you do, don’t even think about your score to be more true. Whether you remember the info or not, some part of your mind will comprehend replies. This may completely discombobulate your score.
83. Do not worry. It is a waste of valuable energy.
84. Do not intensify your studying as your exam day approaches. In reality, you can actually hurt yourself and your MCAT score outcome if you don’t end up and take a minumum of one day off before the MCAT. Ensure that you are well rested. Ideally you’ll be done with all your studies one week before the examination so you can just review some substances to get a few hours every day during this last week.
85. Don’t invest in an expensive course simply because you wouldn’t know where else to get started. It depends upon how you understand, but investing in the right materials and managing your own time effectively is simply the perfect method to prepare for the MCAT. Some prep-courses are extremely interactive, which is very good for someone who can not learn by themselves, but most men and women learn quicker and in larger amounts on their particular if done the right way. If you want to excel, you will need to buy the perfect prep books, make a program, and spend approximately 75 days preparing the right way.
86. Become accustomed to waking up early (if you signed up for an 8am examination). I strictly went to bed early and woke up at 5:30am for the entire week before my actual test day, and more or less stuck into that same “rise-and-rest” MCAT study schedule for my whole 75 days of prep. Establish your studying times, especially the clinic FLs, in exactly the same time you’ll be taking your examination.
87. Get physical exercise during your analyzing months. Folks perform at their peak when they’re fit. Have a jog after you’re done studying for the day. I jogged just about every single day once I researched, but you don’t need to go every day. A couple of times weekly function just fine.
88. Eliminate distractions while you examine. Close your programs on your computer, switch off your ipod, and put your phone off and on silent.
89. Avoid drinking alcohol on study days. If you need a beverage on your break days, drink. Alcohol is generally pretty bad for you, particularly for your brain and instructional performance. An occasional glass of red wine will not hurt, though.
90. Great friends will encourage you and your dedication.
91. Eat well.
92. Read news in the morning or at night. Don’t only read medical information, but create your internet homepage CNN (or some other neutral newspage) and browse around the different articles offered. Reading everything you normally wouldn’t (for me it was politics) assists your brain adjust to understanding all the different kinds of passages in the verbal section on the MCAT. These include social sciences (psychology, sociology, political science, and anthropology), natural sciences, and humanities (english, history, philosophy). Most mathematics majors are very comfortable with all the natural sciences but struggle with the social sciences and humanities. Brush up in your free time.
93. The night before the exam, be kind to your body and mind and find a minimum of 9 hours of sleep. That means going to bed at 8 or 9pm and being asleep within an hour or two. You’ll feel refreshed and awake the following morning.
94. Bring protein-rich, sugar-free snacks (e.g. Larabars plus a few walnuts) to your testing centre to your breaks. Do not forget juice or water. You do not want to crash from a lack of food or a sugar once you begin the BS section.
95. Most test centers supply either (or both) earmuffs and earplugs. Whatever you have been practicing with along is best to use on the true test day; should you have been using earplugs while you study, ask for a pair at the exam centre.
96. The MCATs being administered vary, and question issue also changes. If you can not figure something out, make an educated guess, proceed, and return to the marked query once you complete that section when you have time.
97. Don’t worry excessively about the writing department. Practice typing your essays when you take the practice FLs, but don’t stress if your score is not phenomenal. What makes an impact is if you score tremendously well, or exceptionally poorly. A superb score in writing can offset a low verbal score.
98. Relax. A stressed mind can impair your access to crucial information. This single exam isn’t the conclusion of your life.
99. Be confident. You have got this! Confidence boosts performance.
100. Close your eyes and take a deep breath in and out in between passages. Move on and forget about the last passing. I discovered that my eyes burnt because I had been so attentive to the passages I must have forgotten to blink.
101. Unless you have been enlightened by a better line of reasoning, resist the urge to change an answer you have already clicked.
102. Beware of tricks! The MCAT test-makers frequently throw in trick replies! Gut feelings are not necessarily the ideal feelings. Know why you are choosing an answer, don’t just go with a sense.
103. Smile.
104. Focus on what you’re reading, what you know about the topic, and what response makes the most sense (or which replies make the least feel). Push out extraneous thoughts and focus. This is really the secret to both memorization and critical thinking.
105. In case you’ve got the money, you might also get Examkrackers MCAT Audio Osmosis. The CDs condense several significant concepts into a collection of compact, conversational lectures, and you’ll be able to hear them while driving or working out in the gym.
106. As you did for your undergraduate studies, always keep your eyes to the goal. Daily as a pre-medical pupil is one step nearer to a dream. When times get tough, recall your prize waiting for you in the end of the trip! Remember why you chose this particular field, then just take it one day, night, concept, passage, or question at a time.
107. Listen to my podcasts, so I usually try to incorporate some of my insights and experience on or about the MCAT in every episode!
108. House says we should finish by restating both most important and essential tips! All of the things I made are important, however, the two main ones are 1) selecting the best stuff and 2) knowing when you’re ready and fully ready. There is a reliable way to know when you’re prepared: take a lot of full-length clinic tests by AAMC and then determine if, normally, you are prepared!
109. Please like and link to this page if it had been helpful :-RRB-, others will need to benefit from this, also.
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17. Practice tests are not necessarily a huge indicator of how you will do. It is based on the practice tests and just how difficult they are. You might also get a really bizarre MCAT. Don’t get thrown off, discouraged, or confident by your scores. Normally, but the FLs are an excellent indicator for you to know if you’re ready or not.
18. Create one page outlines of what you learn for every chapter. Decorate these outlines with sketches and distinct colored highlighting so as to make it stay in your memory for easy recollection. This technique can be applicable throughout medical school. If you did not believe you had a photographic memory, you might think again after training with this.
19. Download free of charge full-length practice tests here and here. Taking practice tests frees you both through practice and routine. Chances are slim.
20. It doesn’t matter if you take 3 practice tests per week or 1 per week, but it’s ideal to take the examinations after you’ve finished a fantastic quantity of your studying. Assessing the answers to the full-scale evaluations after you have completed them is studying, too.
21. Extensively review your tests. Again, reviewing is critical. Figure out why you have a question wrong, be in a position to correctly do the issue, and find your weak spots. Consider failing a query as an opportunity develop and to learn. Consult friends or professors to solve a question which you can’t fix. I finished a FL about every 3 times after analyzing the material (day A: FLdaily B: inspection first half FLdaily C: review last half FL, replicate).
22. Practice carrying FLs in locations. During the authentic exam, you’ll be with a number of other students taking various MCATs. They sniffle, cough, shift, and tap their pencils. You ought to get used to this beforehand.
23. If a training class appears right for you, do it. Honestly, I think 90 percent of you should be OK without it since your desk and your brain should be everything you desire, but people have experienced favorable results with training classes. In particular, I am thinking about the Berkeley Review one in CA (difficult to take though in case you live in NE America, such as me).
24. If group work helps, research with a buddy. Two heads are better than one because they can offer unique perspectives and approaches to understanding and solving problems. I find studying in classes makes me remember the information. I end up explaining it to someone and never forget this, or vice versa.
25. The actual MCAT doesn’t have an alarm clock which rings or beeps every hour. Practice timing yourself silently.
26. Study during the day. Your brain is more lively and absorbs info best during the daylight.
27. There is no trivia on the MCAT. Practice deciphering complex biological systems and figuring out exactly what’s going on and what’s being requested. Recognizing concepts in anatomy is more important than memorizing physiological systems.
28. Take your clinic tests on a pc using a plug in keyboard. That is what the actual MCAT would be like.
29. Practice carrying FLs using earplugs or head muffs. Most testing centers offer both or one. Take advantage of them.
30. Bring on the flash cards. Learn all the concepts – that means understand them, and memorize the necessary facts, names, formulas, and reactions. Put the ones that you have learned. The EK novels will tell you exactly what is absolutely necessary to memorize and what is not. This was really helpful to me.
31. Keep all your flashcards at precisely the same pile and shuffle frequently. Topics are almost always intertwined on the MCAT. This can allow you to learn how to bridge information.
32. Actively try to bridge ideas – link unrelated information in a realistic way while you review. If you are learning about purines in chemistry and about deciding the velocity of objects in physics, you might consider solving and comprehension the way quickly caffeine (a purine) gets absorbed into the blood flow. Then you could bridge biology and determine where the compound will travel to anatomically or what enzymes it may encounter in different regions of the human body.
33. Memorize the necessary formulas and definitions; ditch the rest. It can be tough to distinguish, but this is critical. Remember that the MCAT often provides you reactions or formulas you’ve never noticed. It’s your responsibility to employ them in helping you answer questions properly.
34. Make your personal mnemonics to recall names and definitions, particularly in mathematics. Examkrackers provides many tricks and catchy ways to remember difficult things.
35. You will build stamina as you continue to study. It’s useless studying material while your mind is elsewhere. Within a couple of weeks before your test date, you should not be taking breaks.
36. Learn how to eliminate incorrect answers so as to choose your final response. That is something that the Berkeley Review pressures in their prep publications, and rightly so! You won’t have time to consciously think through the most precise explanation or answer. In your limited quantity of time you need to eliminate incorrect answers and make educated guesses. I guessed on many questions, but all these guesses were informed guesses. There is no time to prove why response B is right, just choose it, proceed and return to reaffirm your response when you have time.
37. Know everything about major organs, but especially the kidneys. Know how Bernoulli’s Equation uses, know the path of flow, what goes in and comes out in each component of the kidney, and also understand the biochemistry behind the reactions and exchanges therein. Everyone told me to prepare for kidney ailments, and yes, I did get them!
38. Understand the O2-hemoglobin dissociation curve. Your homework books should give you many questions pertaining to it, so make certain that you do those passages. These type of questions are often on the MCAT.
39. Know your endocrine hormones where they come from, how they are administered, what their purpose is, and wherever they go. These questions, whether directly or indirectly asked, are also often found on real MCATs.
40. Compare equations answers with factors by throwing in a simple, easy-to-work-with number in place of a variable and seeing the way the equation would change number. At times it’s difficult to know which factor changes, but that should be given somewhere in the question, passage, formulation you have realised, or a new formula you’ll be able to make by fusing the formulation given and a formula you have memorized. Work on figuring out how to extract this info and work it into the formulas.
41. There’s not any need to spend an excessive amount of time preparing for the writing section. Provided that you’re able to complete the specified tasks in a grammatically correct fashion, you will do fine. Just make sure that you give yourself about 25 minutes to write every query and 5 minutes to shine it up, since you won’t have a break in between the essays. You will have 60 minutes completely.
42.
43. Complete all three as asked, and don’t fret about being politically correct or having a certain opinion. The best way to write is what’s graded, not what your opinions are. You just need to prepare for the writing section by completing the essays on your clinic FLs.
44. Although you don’t have to spend much time preparing for the writing department, do finish the essays accordingly when you take your full scale practice exams. Should you fail the composed part during FLs, then you’ll be worn out much faster on the afternoon of the MCAT because you did not build your stamina. In addition, should you receive a significantly low letter score for your writing samples, that will hurt your odds for a medical school interview.
45. Sometimes the questions offer enough info to answer them and this saves a lot of time. However, this is not something you’d want to start trying in your MCAT day. I had the time to spare and scored maximum in PS on the big day.
46. Being a great doctor means communicating information and coming to a decision immediately, particularly when a patient rolls in on a stretcher and can be coated in blood. You will need to think quickly on the MCAT too. The largest gripe of MCAT-takers is they didn’t have enough time. Exercise being true, effective, and fast while you do quests.
47. Review what you have been analyzing at least one time per week. That means rereading the chapters and performing some of the passages you jumped earlier. Don’t redo passages!
48. You are the sole you out there. You’ve got a unique method of learning information and solving problems in the best manner you can. Don’t do exactly what your classmates do just because they might be better students or insist on a great strategy. Do what works best for you, and once you find out what that is, stick with it.
49. Do not worry about conserving your undergraduate textbooks to get ready for these. MCAT prep books are intended to teach you what you want to understand and sift out the important information.
50. The Verbal Reasoning Section has passages which you willl read and answer detail-oriented, comprehensive, and critical thinking questions on. You’ve got 60 minutes to finish about 12 passages.
51. The Physical Sciences section includes General Chemistry and Physics. You have 60 minutes to answer about 6 or 7 passages.
52. The Biological Sciences section includes passages on Biology and Organic Chemistry, including subjects you might have coated in Genetics, Biochemistry, Ecology, and Physiology. You have 60 minutes to reply about 7 or 6 passages.
53. Every 30-minute essay will give you an outline or query. You’ll have to clarify what it means |
small feature, but it could be useful in helping people manage their apps on such a large touchscreen.
Pricing isn't being announced just yet, but Dell says the Canvas should begin shipping sometime in April.About
We will adjust our project (another manufacturing method) to realize a lower price! If you are interested, pledge any amount (so we can send you the update through kickstarter) or visit www.sand-pen.com!
What is it?
The idea behind the Sand-Pen is a sand dispenser that allows users to draw colorful pictures on any surface. It can be used for creative in- and outdoor activities. If you are in for a long-lasting experience, the sand can be fixated with glue or clear coat. Whatever you prefer, a plain picture or a relief-like sculpture - there are no boundaries to your creativity. The Sand-Pen is a mixture between air-brush and pen. Holding the pen close to the surface results in a fine line while moving the pen higher up renders a broader effect. From doodling to fine arts - the Sand Pen makes it all possible!
The Basic Set
Our basic set includes the Sand-Pen, three tubes and five extra tips, as well as 21 oz (600g) of sand in different colors (white, yellow and red). Voting for other colors will be available at the end of the campaign!
The Extended Set
The Sand
With 21 oz (600g) of sand you can draw an 8000ft (2400m) long line! That's approximately the distance between Rockefeller Center and The Metropolitan Museum of Art!
Later you can reuse it or you simply order more sand. We don't want to ship tons and tons of sand around the globe, but we do want to offer the best solution for your Sand-Pen. That means you can order as many additional sand colors as much as you like. (Be aware that the price will depend on the shipping costs). But, what's even better - we want to teach you how to dye your very own sand. In order to do so, you will need a handmade sieve which is included in one of our packages. If you are curious, we will post some video tutorials on how to color sand and which sand is best to use.
How does it work?
A tube filled with colored sand is inserted in an ergonomic pen. Once the built-in motor is started, the pen starts vibrating. Due to the physical properties of sand, this soft vibration distributes the sand evenly.
By pushing the button on the side of the pen you can control the flow of the sand. This enables you to draw even the finest of details.
What can I use it for?
The Sand-Pen allows you to draw on any possible flat surface. From stone to paper, from wood to metal, the sand can be applied anywhere, and therefore, anything can be transformed into a piece of art.
No further preparation is required. Especially appealing is the fact that it can be used in public spaces. As it is a natural resource it is not harmful to the environment. Plus, the next rain will wash the sand away. For the permanent artist's experience you can draw on canvases and fix the sand in place, e.g. with glue or clear coat. The simple handy design makes the Sand-Pen the perfect creative tool not only for your home but also for the road. For Street Arts it gives unprecedented opportunities, for which we like to call it “silent” or “small” street art. You can quickly draw a small picture without damaging anything or hurting anybody.
What makes it special?
The Sand-Pen is a tool for doodlers, artists, children and grown-ups. This tool is fun for children as well as for adults.
While the idea behind the Sand-Pen is simple, the ideas that you can bring to life with our tool are endless. Using sand in this artistic context dates back a long time ago. Native Americans and other cultures have used sand to express themselves in artistic and religious contexts. We think it’s time to revive this tradition!
Technical details
Concept of the Sand-Pen
Early prototype (without the electric components)
The figure above shows an early concept drawing of the Sand-Pen. The calculation of sand movements is a very complex mathematical problem which we did not solve, but we did manage to get the sand out of the tube precisely when one presses the button. Our motor kicks-off the vibration that sends the sand spinning around and out of the tube. It required a lot of fine tuning time - but we think it was worth it!
The heart of our Sand-Pen
To avoid unexpected problems we did a lot of testing and produced not only one prototype but actually handmade a small batch of Sand-Pens.
You will be happy to hear that they work perfectly!
Our Team
We had a lot of helping hands from great sound designers, stonecutters, artists and engineers to a lot of people who tested our prototype. But this is our core team:
Why do we need your support?
We want to introduce the sand pen to a larger audience. Our current prototype needs a lot of time to assemble and is very cost intensive. (E.g. The plastic needs 48 hours to harden!). The costs for moulds are very high but only with this manufacturing method we can achieve a good looking and working Pen. With your help we will be able to produce the Sand Pen for a reasonable price.The most senior bishop of the Church of England has welcomed to his official London residence two Pakistani preachers who celebrated the killer of a politician who campaigned to protect the nation’s Christians.
“Great to welcome Pakistan’s Shaykh Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman at [Lambeth Palace] today”, tweeted the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby last month.
The men reportedly discussed countering “the narrative of extremism and terrorism” and interfaith relations, and Mr. Welby uses the ‘Nasrani’ symbol in his Twitter name to show “solidarity” with persecuted Middle Eastern Christians.
Great to welcome Pakistan's Shaykh Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman at @LambethPalace today. pic.twitter.com/n5FLOlXFY4 — Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) July 18, 2016
However, the men he welcomed to his home are some of Pakistan’s most prominent supporters of Mumtaz Qadri, who was executed this year for murdering the governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, for campaigning against the country’s brutal blasphemy laws used to target Christians.
Mr. Taseer, a liberal Muslim and businessman, also spoke out after the killing of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minorities minister who was the only Christian in the government and was assassinated by the Pakistani Taliban.
The hate preachers embraced by the archbishop have been filmed praising Mr. Qadri as a “martyr” at his funeral, where crowds of hundreds of thousands gathered to celebrate the killer and his attacks on “apostates”.
Both men have also been photographed meeting a man described as Mumtaz Qadri’s brother in Dubai.
Earlier this year, an Ahmadi Muslim shopkeeper from Glasgow, Asad Shah, was murdered for “disrespecting Islam” after he praised his “beloved Christian nation”, by a Bradford man who was also a dedicated follower of Mr. Qadri.
Despite this, the Home Office allowed the two hate preachers into the UK to spread their message, visiting cities and towns including Derby, Rochdale, Rotherham, Oldham, Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle.
They have also met with Mohammed Shafiq, the allegedly “moderate” Chief Executive of the Ramadhan Foundation.
The son of Salman Taseer, Shahbaz Taseer, recently told IB Times he was shocked the two preachers had been welcomed in the UK.
“These people teach murder and hate. For me personally I find it sad that a country like England would allow cowards like these men in”, he said, continuing: “It’s countries like the UK and the US that claim they are leading the way in the war against terror [and] setting a standard. Why are they allowing people [in] that give fuel to the fire they are fighting against?”
His brother, Shehryar Taseer, added: “They supported and incited my father Salmaan Taseer’s murder. The UK government should deport them and Pakistan should prosecute them for the incitement of violence under the terrorism act.”
“I find it disrespectful that a man like this has been entertained by the archbishop. My family has been on the front lines when it comes to inter-faith harmony and these people disrespect anyone and everyone who speaks about religious harmony.”
Since Mumtaz Qadri was executed for his crimes, he has found huge support among prominent Muslims here in the UK as well as becoming a cult figure in Pakistan.
The imam of Glasgow Central Mosque was just one of many to praise him, calling him a “brother” and “true Muslim”. A prominent imam from Bolton flew out to his funeral and a mosque in High Wycombe was accused of “hate preaching” after allegedly praising Mr. Qadri.– Anime Expo® -- North America's largest anime, manga and Japanese pop culture celebration -- officially kicks off Thursday, June 28 with a star-studded Red Carpet and Opening Ceremony at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Anime Expo Official Guests of Honor will greet fans on the red carpet at 6 p.m. with the Opening Ceremony to follow at 7 p.m.Now in its 21st year, Anime Expo 2012 (AX) will present some of today's most exciting anime, manga, musical, game and fashion artists from Japan and the U.S.; main event concerts and contests such as the crowd favorite Masquerade; new and exciting interactive offerings and even Lounge 21, where over-21 attendees can enjoy wine, beer and cocktails.Announced Guests of Honors include composer Yuki Kajiura/”FictionJunction;” anime-inspired heavy metal band ANIMETAL USA; Culture Japan's Danny Choo; Fate/Zero” creative team Hikaru Konda, Ei Aoki and Rikiya Koyama; Madhouse creative team Asaka Morio, Kunihiko Hamada and Takuya Tsunoki; animation director Tatsuo Sato; voice actors Ryo Horikawa, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Jamie Marchi, Monica Rial, Steve Blum, Joel McDonald and Ian Sinclair; Japanese pop star LiSA, Lolita fashion designer Cyril Lumboy, Lolita model Misako Aoki; Tokyo-based Gallery of Fantastic Art and popular cosplayer Jessica Nigri.The following are highlights of the AX Main Events, all to be held in Hall G of LACC:6:00 – 6:40 p.m. Red Carpet7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Opening Ceremonies5:30 – 6:30 p.m. ANIMETAL USA Concert9:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m. Anime Music Video (AMV) Contest7:00 – 8 p.m. Yuki Kajiura/”Fiction/Junction” Concert2:00 – 3:00 p.m. LiSA Concert3:00 – 4:00 pm. Japan Fashion Mix at AX 2012: Fashion Show hosted by Misako Aoki and Danny Choowith up-and-coming J-pop singer Kyoka8:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m. Masquerade12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Art Auction1:00 – 6:00 p.m. SPJA Charity Auction6:00 p.m. Closing CeremoniesNow in its 21st year, Anime Expo is North America's larges celebration of anime, manga and Japanese pop culture. AX 2012 will feature and exciting schedule of exclusive screenings; artists' panels; live concerts; cosplay; dance parties, karaoke, and video competitions; non-stop video gaming and unsurpassed shopping from more than 3,000 vendors. AX 2012 takes place June 29-July 2, 2012 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. To register or for more information, please visit www.anime-expo.org. Connect with Anime Expo on Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube.The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to popularize and educate the America public about anime and manga, as well as provide a forum to facilitate communication between professionals and fans. This organization is more popularly known by its entertainment property, Anime Expo®. For more information, please visit www.spja.orgHow to Apply for U.S. Citizenship
How to Apply for U.S. Citizenship Learn the steps for becoming a U.S. citizen including how to apply, sample test questions and what is the naturalization process. Also, find information on dual citizenship, how to get proof of your U.S. citizenship if you were born abroad or replace your lost or stolen citizenship certificate.
Dual Citizenship or Nationality Dual citizenship (or dual nationality) means a person may be a citizen of the United States and of another country at the same time. U.S. law does not require a person to choose one citizenship or another. If you are a citizen of another country and have questions about that country's laws, policies, and mandatory military service, contact that country's embassy or consulate. For information on dual nationality from the point of view of another country, please contact that country's embassy or consulate. If you have dual citizenship and plan to travel to or from the United States, you must use a U.S. passport to enter and leave the United States. Information about giving up or losing your U.S. citizenship is also available. A licensed attorney skilled in citizenship matters can assist you with questions about your situation. A local bar association can often provide a good referral.
Establish Citizenship Without a Birth Certificate If you were born in the U.S. and there is no birth certificate on file, you will need several different documents to prove your citizenship: A letter from the vital records office in your birth state with your name and what years they searched for your birth certificate.
A Letter of No Record from the vital records office. You will also need secondary evidence of U.S. citizenship to prove your birth in the United States. If you were born outside the United States and your U.S. parent(s) did not register your birth at the U.S. Embassy or consulate, you may apply for a U.S. passport, but you will need: Your foreign birth record showing your parents' names
Evidence of your parent(s) U.S. citizenship
Your parents' marriage certificate If you were born outside the U.S. and your U.S. parent(s) registered your birth with a U.S. Embassy, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) will be able to help you get a copy of a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (Form FS-240).
U.S. Citizenship for People Born Abroad or in U.S. Territories You are a U.S. citizen if: You have a birth certificate issued by a U.S. state or territory. If you were born in a U.S. territory, but do not have a birth certificate issued by that territory, you may be able to verify your citizenship status using other documents.
You were born outside of the U.S. to at least one U.S. citizen parent and your parent(s) recorded your birth with the U.S. Embassy or consulate in that country: If the birth was recorded before your 18th birthday, the Embassy or consulate issued your parent(s) a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA or Form FS-240); this document is proof of your U.S. citizenship. Learn how to request copies, amendments, or corrections to a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA or Form FS-240) from the U.S. Department of State (DOS). If the Embassy or consulate did not issue a Consular Report of Birth Abroad and you are 18 years of age or older, learn how to get a Certificate of Citizenship from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) instead. This document is proof of your U.S. citizenship.
Learn more about births of U.S. citizens abroad.Boy oh boy do celebrities ever love talking about auctioning things off for charity. They want you to remember that they're such sweet, kind Disney Princesses that it's hard to see their faces, what with all the birds flying around their heads braiding their hair and basking in their goodness. But did you know that some celebrities' "charity" auctions are actually actually just sales that end up supporting celebrities' images and pocketbooks much more than they end up supporting the charities themselves? Who's actually giving it away? Who's pocketing the cash? Let's find out!
It should surprise exactly no one that Kim Kardashian, of the 72-day wedding-for-profit scheme, is a member of the 10% to Charity Club. According to Fox News' Pop Tarts blog, Kimmy K has been running threads through eBay's GivingWorks for years now. The site only requires sellers to give a minimum of 10% to charity, so that's what she's done. It doesn't take a Math Expert to know that 100% minus 10% means that Kim's "charity" auctions actually pay her 9 times more than they pay the charity of her choice. Kim's sister Khloe and Khloe's husband Lamar Odom have also generously agreed to pocket 90% of the proceeds from auctioning off their personal items.
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So what's the difference between a 10% donation and a 100% donation? When it comes to celebrity auctions, the trick's in the wording. If an auction promises to give "all proceeds to charity," it's safe to assume that's what's going to happen. "Some proceeds to charity" means just that— and it could mean that as little as 10% is going to support something besides the deceptively charitable celebrity's bottom line.
Not all celebrities Kardashian out on their charitable giving. Miley Cyrus, Sienna Miller, Steven Tyler, and Charlie Sheen have opened their closets or houses to auctions that gave 100% of the proceeds to charity in recent years. Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler also routinely give away all of the money they raise through charity auctions. And, as much as U2's music makes me want to set myself on fire, The Edge has put his money where his mouth is and given away all the money auctions of his personal effects has raised.
In Kim's defense, The Dream Foundation, designated Kardashian auction beneficiary, has no problem with Kim's giving, saying she goes "above and beyond," which is pretty much the only thing that any charity would ever say about any donor. In fact, the only time I've ever seen a charity try to guilt trip people for not giving enough money was when Ira Glass called to nag listeners who didn't contribute to public radio on air. And that was hilarious. Even though she's been straightforward about the 10%-to-charity figure, what Kim's doing just seems misleading, and, well Kardashian (Kardashian, in this context, is an adjective meaning "scammy and fame-whoring.")
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Giving to charity is commendable, but when the Kardashians are getting more out of giving to charity— both money-wise and career-wise— than the charities themselves, can we really call it "charitable?"
When celebs auction off their stuff to charity, they often keep most of the profits [Fox]Columbus Crew midfielder Wil Trapp (20) celebrates with Justin Meram (9) after their game against the New York Red Bulls in leg one of the Eastern Conference championship at Mapfre Stadium on Nov. 22. (Photo11: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports)
Becoming an international soccer player is a tough task, no matter the player, no matter the country. For Justin Meram, the route was a little more unusual, and much more painstaking, than most.
Meram, an attacking midfielder with the Columbus Crew, hit the headlines last week for scoring after just nine seconds of the Crew’s 2-0 victory in the first leg of its Major League Soccer Eastern Conference final against the New York Red Bulls.
Yet rare as such a speedy score is – Meram’s strike was the quickest in MLS playoff history – the 26-year-old is no stranger to taking the path less trodden.
Last year, Meram, born in Shelby Charter Township just north of Detroit, earned a call-up to the Iraq national team and has since become a regular member of its squad, a process that has involved consistently jetting to the Middle East to take part in World Cup qualifiers.
“I never even knew it was a possibility,” Meram told USA TODAY Sports in a telephone interview. “Then it all just happened.”
Meram was initially tracked down by members of a Facebook group founded by supporters of Iraqi soccer. The group seeks to find players with Iraqi heritage playing in leagues around the world, then alerts the country’s soccer authorities of their availability.
Meram had never been to Iraq, and still hasn’t, as FIFA prohibits international matches from being played there due to safety concerns, but was eligible for qualification as both his parents hailed from Mosul in the north of the country.
“It took nearly two years to get the all clear and become able to play,” he said. “The soccer governing bodies need proof and it wasn’t easy to come by.”
While Meram’s mother had kept documentary records that quickly established her credentials, things were much more difficult on his father’s side. Mosul is currently under the control of the Islamic State and in a state of devastation. It took several months before evidence of his father’s baptism was unearthed, followed by records of his middle school education.
Meram was then able to make his Iraq debut and has enjoyed some success, playing in the previous three qualifiers before being surprisingly dropped for last week’s victory over Chinese Taipei and seeing no playing time after making a 27-hour flight with two layovers.
Justin Meram celebrates scoring the first goal with teammates during the 2018 FIFA World Cup Qualifier match between Thailand and Iraq at Rajamangala Stadium on Sept. 8, 2015 in Bangkok. (Photo11: Getty Images)
There was no explanation for his omission, which has left Meram puzzled. However, soccer in Iraq remains intensely political, though things have improved beyond recognition from an odious period in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Back then, Saddam Hussein’s son Uday controlled Iraqi soccer and had underperforming players subjected to punishments such as imprisonment, floggings with electric cable or being thrown into pits of raw sewage.
Assimilation has been a challenge for Meram. His family is Chaldean Catholic and Meram spoke little Arabic at the time of his call-up.
“There are some players and a trainer who speak English, but I am trying to pick up as much of the language as I can,” he said. “Soccer is a universal language so it doesn’t make such a difference on the field, but I want to be part of it, get to know the players better and learn about their lives.”
Iraq’s performances have been solid enough that barring a late collapse, reaching the next Asian qualifying stage for the 2018 World Cup should be accomplished in March. Either four or five of the 12 teams to make it that far will go on to Russia for the biggest show in soccer.
For now, Meram’s primary focus is to help Columbus get past New York in Sunday’s second leg and reach the MLS Cup final for only the second time in the league’s 19-year history. Mercurial Argentinean import Guillermo Barros Schelotto masterminded a title game victory over the Red Bulls in 2008.
“We are in a good spot but there is still a lot of work to do,” Meram said. “There will be no complacency, in the MLS playoffs you have to expect the unexpected.”
The same could be said for Meram’s unique career journey.Setting a new Guinness World Record, Canadian inventor and engineer Catalin Alexandru Duru has traveled a distance of 275.9 meters (905 ft 2 in) by hoverboard on Lake Ouareau, Quebec – over five times longer than the previous hoverboard flight record.
Perhaps this comes as no surprise for avid Back To The Future fans as the second installment of the comic sci-fi movie franchise practically foretold this for 2015.
Gif composed from video by YouTube user MOVIECLIPS
Standing atop a propeller-based, drone-like prototype, Duru was lifted to a height of about 5 meters (15 ft) above the surface of the lake.
Afterward, Duru said that he wanted “…to showcase that a stable flight can be achieved on a hoverboard that a human could stand and control with their feet."Share
When you think of Nintendo and racing, you probably think of Mario Kart — or if you’re on the right side of the N64 debate, Diddy Kong Racing. But Nintendo has dabbled in more serious racers on the Famicom, often based around Formula 1. Many of those games never reached Western shores — at least not in an English-language format. Until now.
Thanks to the efforts of RomHacker member, AgentOrange and MrRichard999, English speakers can now enjoy fully readable menus and in-game text in games like Famicom Grand Prix: F1 Race, Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally. and Super F1 Circus 2.
The first of the three, the original Famicom Grand Prix, was a floppy-disk game released for Famicom’s Family Computer Disk System in 1987. It features a top-down view, much like later releases such as Micro Machines, as NintendoLife points out. Although simple, it adds depth through in-race car management, as well as a number of upgrades and tracks to race on. Although it doesn’t really affect gameplay, Mario is featured in the pit crew and on the box art.
The sequel, Hot Rally, changes things up considerably. The perspective is a much more traditional, third-person view and has you racing against the clock while hitting repair power-ups to keep your car running. As with the Grand Prix I ROM, both AgentOrange and MrRichard999 created a fully functioning English version, complete with English menus and name inputs.
Super F1 Circus 2, originally released for the Super Famicom, doesn’t have quite such a fully fledged English translation but the two intrepid translators have made a good go of it. The game features enough English that you can get by without knowing Japanese, which makes it completely playable.
Although lacking the Mario endorsement, that game features an accurate 1993 landscape of Formula 1, complete with teams, drivers, and circuits for that season.Capitol Hill lawmakers want to change the color of money amid growing concerns about the federal deficit and the constant pressure for Washington to live within its means.
The House and Senate each have introduced legislation that would replace the dollar bill with a $1 coin.
“Change can be difficult,” Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said. “But doing things as we’ve always done has contributed to our debt. We've got to latch on to any reasonable handhold we can find to climb out of this hole.”
This is not the first time Washington has considered eliminating the paper dollar, which became part of the U.S. currency during the Lincoln administration in the early 1860s.
The Government Accountability Office has examined the issue five times over the past two decades as a way to help reduce government spending, each time concluding the switch would save from roughly $200 million to $500 million, said Enzi.
The money would be saved in part because the coins stay in circulation longer.
He is joined by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and John McCain, R-Ariz., in support of the Currency Optimization, Innovation and National Savings (COINS) Act.
The companion bill was introduced in September by the Republican-controlled House, but a hearing has yet to be scheduled, a House Financial Services Committee staffer said Thursday.
The effort on Capitol Hill continues despite Americans' preference -- or at least sentiment -- for the paper dollar.
A survey this year of voters across the country found roughly 70 percent of them oppose the change. The survey, by Lincoln Park Strategies, a Democratic-leaning public opinion research firm, asked voters in 12 states.
Beyond the debate in Congress or in supermarket lines, the bigger fight appears to be between the Dollar Coin alliance, a collective that includes small businesses and transit agencies, and Massachusetts-based Crane & Co., a company that supplies the cotton-fiber paper for the bills.
Crane has reportedly hired a team of lobbyists and is part of Americans for George, which has papered a Metrorail hub with pro-greenback advertisements.
The coalition in part argues the GAO report shows the dollar coin would cost the government money in the first four years and would not break even for at least the next 10 years.
Dollar Coin has the leadership of former Rep. Jim Kolbe, from Arizona, a large mineral-mining state.
“In a time of record budget deficits, this type of common sense change is a no-brainer,” he said"It's great to have someone who can keep you laughing when you're working hard in the studio, and I remember Mike was really funny when we were working on Pet Sounds," Brian Wilson tells me of his former Beach Boys band mate Mike Love. "I try to forget the bad stuff. Mostly, we had a lot of fun in the studio. I remember Al Jardine had to stand on a little block, because he was kind of short, when we all stood around the microphone, and that Mike kept making jokes, making us laugh. Those were really great times."
Pet Sounds turns 50 today, and it will get another deluxe reissue on June 10th in celebration of that milestone. But Wilson says he never tires of talking about his most famous creation—and the Beach Boys' artistic peak—though he still prefers the original monophonic version.
"I do listen to it, yeah," says Wilson, who, remarkably, is largely deaf in one ear. "I think the stereo and surround mixes, and all the outtakes, are really good and very well done, but I do prefer the original mono version, because of my hearing."
Michael Ochs Archives Getty Images
The Beach Boys' 1966 album has been transformed into one of popular music's most important recordings in the past 25 years after a rocky start, considering it was released by one of the premiere bands of the 1960s at the height of their fame. A strident departure from the themes of fun, sun, cars, and girls of the Beach Boys' early hits, the group's 11th studio album was met largely with indifference upon its release—especially in America—but has since found itself atop countless critic and fan polls. Pet Sounds, which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998, is now one of popular music's most-cited influences, and critics regularly hail it as one of the greatest albums ever recorded. It recently topped MOJO magazine's Greatest Albums of All Time, and Rolling Stone ranked it Number Two in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. But those accolades were a long time coming.
It really did belong in another time, I think—as Brian would tell us in the song, "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times."
"Maybe because it wasn't successful—or as successful—it's had a longer life," says Al Jardine, who is currently on tour with Brian Wilson, playing Pet Sounds in its entirety. "It still sounds modern, even though it's now 50 years old. It really did belong in another time, I think—as Brian would tell us in the song, 'I Just Wasn't Made for These Times.'"
"Pet Sounds simultaneously ended the Beach Boys' career as a pop band beloved by teens and kick started Brian Wilson's mythologized legacy as a studio guru to be adored by serious music fans," author Pat Thomas says. "They did so much with those 35 minutes. For instance, almost by accident—and totally unlike the rest of the album—they made a significant contribution to the folk-rock canon when they wove their magic on the song 'Sloop John B', when for a moment they sounded like fellow Los Angeles wizards the Byrds."
"I arranged the guitars on 'Sloop John B' so they'd sound real sparkly, and real nice," Wilson recalls. "Al Jardine came over to my house and asked me if I'd arrange it. He played the song to me and I learned the song, and then I did the arrangement for it, and he did the vocals. He still sings it today, and it still sounds great and really fresh."
"I think we were working on 'California Girls' at the time," Jardine recalls of the genesis of one of the first songs recorded for Pet Sounds. "I really had to strategize, because I felt strongly about the song, but I'm a guitar player who taught myself a little piano. So I had limited resources with which to get the song across to Brian, who is a keyboard guy, of course. I took this little three-chord folk song that had a great melody, I thought, and tried to give it a Beach Boys vibe by adding a minor chord. It really helped open up the possibilities, and Brian heard that right away. But the breadth and depth of the vocal arrangement that he came up with took it to a whole other level. His production of this really simple idea that I presented him was just a masterpiece."
While it pointed a way forward for Wilson, Jardine says there are plenty who don't feel "Sloop John B" belongs on Pet Sounds.
"Paul McCartney has always said he doesn't like it and doesn't feel like it belongs on the album," Jardine says with a shrug. "And maybe it doesn't belong on Pet Sounds thematically. But from a production point of view, it's just a masterpiece of work. And you also need that relief, and it provided that. Even now, when we play 'Sloop John B' live, I get a standing ovation. Of course, right after that, Brian does 'God Only Knows' and he gets a bigger ovation."
"God Only Knows" is perhaps Wilson's greatest song, with everyone from Elvis Costello to Paul McCartney citing it as a masterpiece. But it came easily, Wilson says, and he insists he had no problem handing the lead vocal duties of the peerless creation to his brother, Carl Wilson. "I remember him asking me, kind of surprised, 'Do you really want me to sing this one?'" he remembers. "And I said, 'Yeah! I would love for you to sing it.' People always wonder why I didn't sing it, but I always had Carl in mind. I just thought he'd be good for the song. And I wanted to give him a chance to really sing!"
"'God Only Knows' was a massive hit in the U.K.," music journalist Jon Savage says. "And 'Sloop John B' was a massive hit, too. And then 'Good Vibrations' was Number One in the fall. But where they did do badly, comparatively, was in the U.S. Pet Sounds was considered a flop at the time, especially by the Beach Boys' label. But it was another one of those records where its influence and reputation has grown and grown over the years."
"The group did not have as many hits in England as they'd had in America, so when Pet Sounds came out, it defined what the Beach Boys were capable of, without judgment, for the U.K. audience," Beach Boys biographer Domenic Priore says in agreement. "It had a tremendous effect not only on the Beatles, but the entire European pop music scene in a way that only slightly happened in America."
"I'm really grateful for the fans in England, yeah," Wilson says of the hits Pet Sounds spawned there. "But it was a hard time when it didn't do as well as I'd hoped."
Michael Ochs Archives Getty Images
"It seemed like just this non-stop hit machine at the time," Jardine recalls. "We were we a hit machine called the Beach Boys, and the Beach Boys didn't record'serious music.' We were really just a bunch of southern California dudes who happened to sing pretty well. We didn't have an audience for the kind of music Brian was doing. That audience had to develop and come appreciate what incredible music was underlying all of that excitement that we were generating. Besides, when Pet Sounds wasn't getting any kind of reception from our fans." Capitol Records wasn't particularly supportive of the Beach Boys' envelope-pushing sound, either. "Our label immediately put out The Best of the Beach Boys," Jardine says, "so Pet Sounds was pretty quickly put on the back burner and never heard from again until about 30 years later when there a new appreciation for it started to develop."
For Wilson, the technological hurdles were what he recalls most about the making of the album, and he says the very technical limitations he faced may have even helped him in his quest to outdo the Beatles. "I didn't use Pro Tools back then, because we didn't have Pro Tools," Wilson says of the digital recording system that allows endless takes and tweaks unimaginable in 1966. "But I managed to get the album produced on just a four-track machine. I think in some ways having to make decisions right away about arrangements and which takes to use inspired me very much, though."
Michael Ochs Archives Getty Images
And it wasn't just his rivalry with the Beatles that pushed Wilson to the heights he reached on Pet Sounds. "A lot of Phil Spector's records inspired me," Wilson admits. "They were really fantastic records. I especially liked his drums and his use of echo." Beach Boys biographer Priore reiterates Spector's influence on the album. "The very first time I had the opportunity to have a casual conversation with Brian Wilson, it wound up being about how Phil Spector went more for cacophony, to create effect," he says. "With Pet Sounds, Brian [was trying] to create aural space in sound with the same kind of grandiose power as Spector, but with more breathing room and, ultimately, romance."
"The Beach Boys' fame for vocal arrangement is one thing, but I think Brian goes far beyond the vocal thing of the Beach Boys with his instrumental arrangements on Pet Sounds," Priore says. "Musical instruments have more dynamic range than the human voice, so even on 'Caroline, No,' perhaps Brian's best vocal of all time, it is swept away by the accompanying instrumental textures."
Wilson, perhaps surprisingly, agrees. "'Caroline, No' is a cool song. That's one of my favorites on the album," he admits. "I knew I wanted it to be the last song on the album; that was my idea to do that. And I never had any ideas about any of the other Beach Boys singing it. But my favorites are 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' and the two instrumentals, 'Pet Sounds' and |
, though, to see what might happen if such a law was passed in a city like London. In an old but interesting review of London: City of Disappearances, a book edited by Iain Sinclair, we're told that London "is a city of the forgotten." It is where anyone "can still disappear without trace." Indeed, London is a city "built upon lost things"; it "towers above forgotten underground rivers and discarded tunnels. It is built upon old graveyards and burial pits."More to the point here, entire streets have disappeared: "Catherine Street, Jewin Street, Golden Place are just three of the vanished thoroughfares named in a litany of sorrowful mysteries," our reviewer points out. "Other streets have been curtailed. Swallow Street has been swallowed by burgeoning London. Grub Street has been renamed Milton Street."So what if someone who liked "getting out and looking for hints of ancient roads" were to set about such a task elsewhere? I'm reminded here of China Miéville's short story " Reports of Certain Events in London " – a perennial reference on BLDGBLOG – in which "unstable" streets appear and disappear throughout the city. One night they're there, the next night they're not.But what to make of entire unstable geographies that flash in and out of county land registers, with distant echoes appearing in the hand-written captions of family albums and in old, yellowing letters between loved ones? Could you re-trace ancient roads based on such sources? What if the county's land archivist was Borges Perhaps it'd be a bit like reconstructing all of postwar Berlin, or Dresden, or Hiroshima, based only on geographical descriptions found in the journals of former residents.How piece together a whole city from a position of extreme textual remove?I suppose the answer to that question might be found in Vermont over the next few months, with people jogging up and down hillsides, and in and out of archives, tracking down the specters of an older terrain – territorial marks of a vanished world on top of which they've been living all along.
Newer | OlderStructure Edit
Sodium azide is an ionic solid. Two crystalline forms are known, rhombohedral and hexagonal.[1][6] Both adopt layered structures. The azide anion is very similar in each form, being centrosymmetric with N–N distances of 1.18 Å. The Na+
ion has octahedral geometry. Each azide is linked to six Na+ centers, with three Na-N bonds to each terminal nitrogen center.[7]
Preparation Edit
The common synthesis method is the "Wislicenus process", which proceeds in two steps from ammonia. In the first step, ammonia is converted to sodium amide: 2 Na + 2 NH 3 → 2 NaNH 2 + H 2 The sodium amide is subsequently combined with nitrous oxide: 2 NaNH 2 + N 2 O → NaN 3 + NaOH + NH 3 These reactions are the basis of the industrial route, which produced about 250 tons per year in 2004, with production increasing owing to the popularization of airbags.[5] Laboratory methods Edit Curtius and Thiele developed another production process, where a nitrite ester is converted to sodium azide using hydrazine. This method is suited for laboratory preparation of sodium azide: 2 NaNO 2 + 2 C 2 H 5 OH + H 2 SO 4 → 2 C 2 H 5 ONO + Na 2 SO 4 + 2 H 2 O C 2 H 5 ONO + N 2 H 4 · H 2 O + NaOH → NaN 3 + C 2 H 5 OH + 3 H 2 O Alternatively the salt can be obtained by the reaction of sodium nitrate with sodium amide.[8]
Chemical reactions Edit
Treatment of sodium azide with strong acids gives hydrazoic acid, which is also extremely toxic: H +
+ N −
3 → HN
3 Aqueous solutions contain minute amounts of hydrogen azide, the formation of which is described by the following equilibrium: N −
3 + H
2 O ⇌ HN
3 + OH −
(K = 10 −4.6
) Sodium azide can be destroyed by treatment with nitrous acid solution:[9] 2 NaN 3 + 2 HNO 2 → 3 N 2 + 2 NO + 2 NaOH
Applications Edit
Safety considerations Edit
Sodium azide has caused deaths for decades.[16] It is a severe poison. It possesses the NFPA 704's highest rating of 4 on the heath scale. It may be fatal in contact with skin or if swallowed.[17] Even minute amounts can cause symptoms. The toxicity of this compound is comparable to that of soluble alkali cyanides.[18] No toxicity has been reported from spent airbags.[19] It produces extrapyramidal symptoms with necrosis of the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and basal ganglia. Toxicity may also include hypotension,[20] blindness and hepatic necrosis. Sodium azide increases cyclic GMP levels in brain and liver by activation of guanylate cyclase.[21]Courtesy of Archie Comics, Flickering Myth has the premier of the covers and variants for Sonic the Hedgehog #253 and Sonic Universe #56.
The biggest, most shocking event in Sonic comic history is underway, and YOU can grab a front-row seat in Countdown to Chaos Part One! Sonic and Tails are on a journey to the Mystic Ruins jungle in search of their missing pals. What they encounter is sure to surprise you! Meanwhile, Dr. Eggman begins the long trek back to his deadly Death Egg II battle fortress. Will our heroes find him and stop him before he launches again? And just who, or what, is the “Sky Patrol” and what does it have to do with the missing Freedom Fighters? Don’t miss a moment of the chaos, featuring the first in a series of ALL-NEW inter-connecting covers by Sonic art superstar Ben Bates, and bone-chilling variant cover by T.REX!
Sonic The Hedgehog #253 is written by Ian Flynn and features artwork by Tracy Yardley, Lamar Wells, Terry Austin, John Workman, and Matt Herms, and goes on sale October 2, 2013.
Ahoy, ye mateys! Tharr be trouble on the high seas! Blaze—a pirate prisoner! Amy, Cream and Marine—lost! Bean—an oddball, be we knew that already! It’s a race against time as Cpt. Metal begins his plan for the Sol Emeralds and his new, completed Egg o’ War! And now that ye mention it — there’s something REALLY familiar about that battle station, but I just can’t put me hook on it! There’s mystery and mutiny a’foot in Pirate Plunder Panic Part Two! Featuring new cover art from Tracy Y’ARRRR-dley, and a special Sega variant cover!
Sonic Universe #56is written by Tracy Yardley, and features artwork and covers by Yardley, Jim Amash, Jack Morelli, and Thomas Mason along with an addition covers by Steve Downer; the latest issue in the series goes on sale September 18, 2013. is written by Tracy Yardley, and features artwork and covers by Yardley, Jim Amash, Jack Morelli, and Thomas Mason along with an addition covers by Steve Downer; the latest issue in the series goes on sale September 18, 2013.
Variant Cover art for Sonic Universe #56 provided by SEGACLOSE SportsPulse: USA Today Sports' Nancy Armour and Trysta Krick discuss how realistic it is for Team USA to sit out at the Pyeongchang Olympics in February. USA TODAY Sports
Salt Lake City could host another Winter Olympics in either 2026 or 2030. (Photo11: Doug Mills, AP)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah officials studying the possibility of Salt Lake City making a bid to host another Winter Olympics said Monday they would rather host the games in 2030, but could be ready if they're needed for 2026.
Hosting the games after the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles would provide a better opportunity to raise sponsorship dollars, said Fraser Bullock, co-chairman of the committee and a key player in the city's 2002 Olympics. Los Angeles has exclusive rights to negotiate first with potential sponsors to help fund their games, meaning hosting the games before them would be more complicated than after, Bullock said.
"But if nobody else bids for 2026, we would certainly be available," Bullock said.
Denver and Reno, Nevada have also expressed interest in the U.S. Internationally, cities considering making a bid include Sion, Switzerland; Calgary, Canada; and Sapporo, Japan.
The Salt Lake City committee held its second meeting Monday, discussing in broad strokes budget, venues, staffing, transportation and environmental issues.
The group is leaning toward recommending that the city make another bid but will issue its full report to state leaders on Feb. 1. It will include a budget estimate and other detailed plans.
MORE:
Salt Lake City's pitch would be centered on being able to host the Olympics for less money than other cities by using existing venues. Some venues need improvements and refurbishing, but officials say they wouldn't have to build anything from scratch.
It's likely to still cost $1.2-$1.6 billion, officials have said.
"Our budget will be a fraction of every other bid city that is out there," Bullock said.
Even though the 2030 Olympics would normally be awarded in 2023, Bullock said Utah must have its bid ready much earlier. Bullock says there's a chance the International Olympic Committee awards the 2026 and 2030 games at the same time in 2019.
That's what the IOC did in September for the first time ever, awarding the 2024 Summer Olympics to Paris and the 2028 Summer Olympics to Los Angeles.
Salt Lake City would first have to persuade the United States Olympic Committee it's a better candidate than Denver and Reno because the country can only put one city in the bidding per cycle.
The USOC has until next March to pick a city for 2026, though chief executive Scott Blackmun said earlier this month that officials believe the 2030 Winter Olympics are more realistic. He said though they are still keeping open the possibility of making a bid for 2026.
Denver, which famously rejected an offer to host the 1976 Winter Olympics, has assembled a committee to take a tough-minded look at whether the city should pursue a bid for another Olympics. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock has asked the group, which includes former Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning as well as Gov. John Hickenlooper and the heads of companies such as Vail Resorts and Liberty Global, to look at whether the Olympics could be privately financed, gauge community support and study the possible environmental impact.
Among the international cities with interest, Bullock said he thinks Sion, Switzerland, is the best candidate. But, he said the European country needs to generate support first from its residents and lawmakers. Utah officials say they have polling that shows nearly nine in 10 state residents approve the idea of hosting the Olympics again.
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert thinks Salt Lake City should make the bid, saying that the state still reaps benefits from hosting the 2002 Winter Olympics, which not only brought billions in spending but invaluable exposure.
"Foreign direct investment in Utah comes with this exposure," Herbert said. "It was a great door opener for us on international business."
If Utah officials decide to bid, they may have to answer questions about a bidding scandal that marred the 2002 Games and resulted in several International Olympic Committee members losing their positions for taking bribes.
Bullock said he's not worried because the 2002 Olympics were a success and the current IOC members remember that and not the scandal.
"We have a new group of IOC members who think of Salt Lake City very fondly," Bullock said.
Gallery: Awesome photos of 2018 Winter Olympic, Paralympic hopefuls
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Service workers can do a lot more than make web pages work offline but for most people, myself included, this will be their first experience with them. I recently implemented a simple offline page for my blog and was surprised with how easy it was. Full of confidence, I wanted to do more. I decided to start saving blog posts for offline reading and things escalated quickly. I soon learnt the rabbit hole is deep.
This is not a criticism of service workers, it's an indication of how powerful and versatile they are. I think in time, as the concepts become more familiar, and the complexities are abstracted away, offline content will become common place. In fact, I drank the kool-aid and can see why many people think that, within a few years, offline content will become as ubiquitous in web development as responsive design today.
Having said that, there are a few things I wish I had known before getting started.
Browser support & caching
Service workers are an easy candidate for progressive enhancement and on the surface, it's easy to check for support before registering a service worker. You do that like this:
if ('serviceWorker' in navigator ) { navigator. serviceWorker. register ( '/sw.js' ) ; }
It seems simple enough but there is one gotcha. If you look at the MDN page for the service worker cache API, you will see that different versions of Chrome support different caching methods. This means that, despite diligently checking for feature support, versions of Chrome between 40 and 45 will get an error when using the addAll method. This is less of a problem now than it was when these versions were more widely used. I checked Can I Use and at the time of writing this, it looks like it might impact around 1.15% of users.
I read several blogs and tutorials on getting started with service workers, some advocate using only put rather than addAll, others recommend using a cache pollyfill, while others still make no mention of it. Obviously these were all written at different times and it took me a lot of research to work out what the right approach was.
In the end, with such a small number of users, that is only getting smaller, I opted to check for the addAll method and treat browsers that don't support it, like those that don't support service workers at all.
So, my feature detection now becomes:
if ('serviceWorker' in navigator && ( typeof Cache!== 'undefined' && Cache. prototype. addAll ) ) { navigator. serviceWorker. register ( '/sw.js' ) ; }
This is a bit verbose, and I'm really going out of my way here just to avoid a console error, but I tested this in all major browsers, including critical versions that don't support the addAll method, and I'm happy with it. It was so much fun!
Where to put service workers
When you register a service worker you point to a JavaScript file with the service worker logic, and this brings me to the second thing I wish I'd known. That is, if you want to implement service workers across your domain, you must place the service worker in the root directory of your site. For security reasons, service workers only control pages in the same directory as the service worker or below. Effectively this means, not in your site's JavaScript directory as I attempted at first. I'm sure this was written as clear as day, somewhere that was obvious to everyone but me.
While on this topic, it's worth mentioning that service workers only work over HTTPS or localhost domains. Luckily for me my blog was already configured to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS. If you can do this, it's a great idea, if not, you could check you are on a secure domain before registering a service worker.
Can we service worker yet?
Yes, we are now ready to service worker! When getting started I recommend reading, Jake "The Service Worker" Archibald's Offline Cookbook. It's still a great place to start and the links and references contain a wealth of information.
You'll soon learn that, where offline content is concerned, there are 3 main events we listen for in a service worker:
install,
activate, and
fetch.
The install event is fired only once when the service worker is first registered. Here we setup the cache prime it with essential resources. My install event is pretty simple, nothing special here. I cache the homepage, CSS and an offline page:
var CACHE_NAME = 'v1::madebymike' ; var urlsToCache = [ '/', '/offline.html', '/css/styles.min.css' ] ; self. addEventListener ( 'install', function ( event ) { event. waitUntil ( caches. open ( CACHE_NAME ). then ( function ( cache ) { return cache. addAll ( urlsToCache ) ; } ) ) ; } ) ;
The activate event is fired after install and every time you navigate to the domain managed by the service worker. It's not fired for subsequent navigation between pages on the same domain.
My activate event is also pretty standard. I'm only using one cache for my service worker. This pattern checks the names of any caches to ensure they match the variable CACHE_NAME, if they don't, it will delete them. This gives me a manual means of invalidating my service worker cache.
self. addEventListener ( 'activate', function ( event ) { event. waitUntil ( caches. keys ( ). then ( function ( cacheNames ) { return Promise. all ( cacheNames. filter ( function ( cacheName ) { return cacheName!== CACHE_NAME ; } ). map ( function ( cacheName ) { console. log ( 'Deleting'+ cacheName ) ; return caches. delete ( cacheName ) ; } ) ) ; } ) ) ; } ) ;
Finally, the fetch event is fired every time a page is requested. The fetch event is intercepted regardless of whether the user is offline or not. Like I said earlier service workers!= offline content. Offline content is just one implementation of service workers. And this is really good news! Service workers have the ability speed up everyday web browsing, like, a lot.
Here is my first example of a fetch event. It's really little more than custom error page, but it's a start.
self. addEventListener ( 'fetch', function ( event ) { e. respondWith ( fetch ( event. request ). catch ( function ( error ) { return caches. open ( CACHE_NAME ). then ( function ( cache ) { return cache. match ( '/offline.html' ) ; } ) ; } ) ) ; } ) ;
A better service worker (down the rabbit hole)
At this point I was pretty happy with myself and if you want to implement offline content, aiming for the above is a great start. Brazened by my success I could see the potential. I needed to cache blog posts for offline reading, and where possible, I needed to return pages from the cache for connected users.
It took me a lot of testing and several mistakes to finally arrive at this pattern. You need to be really careful when serving cached pages by default. You could end up showing really old content, or even breaking your site.
self. addEventListener ( 'fetch', function ( event ) { var requestURL = new URL ( event. request. url ) ; event. respondWith ( caches. open ( CACHE_NAME ). then ( function ( cache ) { return cache. match ( event. request ). then ( function ( response ) { return response || fetch ( event. request ). then ( function ( response ) { if ( response. ok && requestURL. origin == location. origin ) { cache. put ( event. request, response. clone ( ) ) ; } return response ; } ). catch ( function ( ) { return caches. match ( '/offline.html' ) ; } ) ; } ) ; } ) ; ) ; } ) ;
This pattern always attempts to serve content from the cache first, but at the same time I start a network request. If the network request resolves successfully, and is not an error page, I update the cache. This means that when a user visits my website, they will see the last cached version, not necessarily the latest version. On a subsequent visit or a refresh, they will retrieve the updated page from the cache. If I make major changes, such as to CSS and I want to manually invalidate the service worker cache, I can change the CACHE_NAME in my service worker script.
A better offline page (deeper down the rabbit hole)
The generic offline page, from my first fetch example, is still served when the content is not cached and the network request fails. I wanted to do more with this. If we can't show the page they want, I thought it would be helpful to list pages the user has available in their cache. So I went down the rabbit hole again.
There is a method for communicating with service workers and web workers called the channel messaging API.
IMPORTANT UPDATE
I don't need to use the channel messaging API to get a URL from the cache in this example (Thanks to Nicolas Hoizey for brining that to my attention). The channel messaging API is useful when you want to respond to an event that only the service worker is aware of. In this case, since I am only grabbing a list of pages fron the cache I can access the window.caches object in the offline page. The only thing the service worker is aware of that my ofline page is not, is the CACHE_NAME variable. It contains the cache version and I didn't want to update it in multiple places each time it changed, but since it follows a predictable pattern I can do something like the following:
window. caches. keys ( ). then ( function ( cacheNames ) { cacheName = cacheNames. filter ( function ( cacheName ) { return cacheName. indexOf ( "::madebymike" )!== - 1 ; } ) [ 0 ] caches. open ( cacheName ). then ( function ( cache ) { } ) }
Channel messaging API
This is the old method I used to fetch cached pages from the service worker. Although it turned out I didn't need to message the service worker to do this, it's still a valuable technique for other purposes.
In the service worker, I listen for a message event. Once received, I get a list of pages from the cache that match the URL pattern for blog posts on my site and post a response back to the offline page.
self. addEventListener ('message', function ( event ) { caches. open ( CACHE_NAME ). then ( function ( cache ) { return cache. keys ( ). then ( function ( requests ) { var urls = requests. filter ( function ( request ) { return request. url. indexOf ( "/writing/" )!== - 1 ; } ). map ( function ( request ) { return request. url ; } ) ; return urls. sort ( ) ; } ). then ( function ( urls ) { event. ports [ 0 ]. postMessage ( urls ) ; } ) ; } ) ; } ) ;
In my offline page I send a message to the service worker and listen for a response. It's not very clever. At the moment it doesn't matter what message I post, I will always get the same response. But this is sufficient for now and I didn't want to complicate it more than necessary.
var messageChannel = new MessageChannel ( ) ; messageChannel. port1. onmessage = function ( event ) { } ; navigator. serviceWorker. controller. postMessage ( "get-pages", [ messageChannel. port2 ] ) ;
My worst case offline experience now looks something like this:
What next?
I'd like to give users an indication of when they are reading something offline. I think this could be helpful, and in poor network conditions it might not always be obvious. This would probably would use the message API as well, but I might also investigate push notifications. I'll update this post if I ever get around to it.
I hope explaining my experience implementing offline content can help make it easier for you or just inspire you to get started. I think the most difficult thing was understanding the impact of choices when serving cached content to all users. Making sure you get this right is important and it takes some time to understanding how service workers, and caching in general works. I'm not an expert at this so please, if I've got anything wrong, let me know so I can update it.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Chris Hogg reports on the fears for workers inside the nuclear plant
Workers at Japan's quake-hit nuclear plant are trying to prevent radioactive water from seeping into the sea.
Highly radioactive liquid has been found inside and outside several reactor buildings.
Small amounts of plutonium have also been detected in soil at the plant - the latest indication that one of the reactors suffered a partial meltdown.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said his government was on maximum alert, and the situation remained "unpredictable".
Japan's Nuclear Safety Agency said there was still no confirmation that radioactive water has seeped into the sea from flooded tunnels within the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Water levels in underground tunnels adjoining reactors 1, 2 and 3 had been stable, the agency said.
Workers from plant operator Tepco have been piling sandbags and concrete blocks around the shafts, which lie between 55m and 70m from the shore, the agency said.
FUKUSHIMA UPDATE (29 MAR) Reactor 1: Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas explosion. Highly radioactive water detected in reactor
Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas explosion. Highly radioactive water detected in reactor Reactor 2: Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas blast; containment damage suspected. Highly radioactive water detected in reactor and adjoining tunnel
Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas blast; containment damage suspected. Highly radioactive water detected in reactor and adjoining tunnel Reactor 3: Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas blast; containment damage possible. Spent fuel pond partly refilled with water after running low. Highly radioactive water detected in reactor
Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas blast; containment damage possible. Spent fuel pond partly refilled with water after running low. Highly radioactive water detected in reactor Reactor 4: Reactor shut down prior to quake. Fires and explosion in spent fuel pond; water level partly restored
Reactor shut down prior to quake. Fires and explosion in spent fuel pond; water level partly restored Reactors 5 & 6: Reactors shut down. Temperature of spent fuel pools now lowered after rising high
Reactors shut down. Temperature of spent fuel pools now lowered after rising high Plutonium: Found at five locations in soil - levels said to represent no danger to human health Q&A: Fukushima radiation alert A new way to look at radiation Q&A: Health effects of radiation
Water in the tunnel linked to the No 2 reactor was measured at more than 1,000 millisieverts an hour, a dose which could cause radiation sickness. Radiation levels in water in tunnels adjoining reactors 1 and 3 were much lower.
Work to safely remove the contaminated water is a priority, government officials said, but stressed more water would need to be used to continue to cool fuel rods.
"We need to avoid the fuel rods from heating up and drying up. Continuing the cooling is unavoidable... We need to prioritise injecting water," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference.
Tepco and the safety agency say the exact source of the radioactive leak is unknown.
But, like the discovery of plutonium, the high levels of radiation found inside and outside reactor buildings are likely to have come from melted fuel rods.
Theories for the leak centre on two possibilities: steam is flowing from the core into the reactor housing and escaping through cracks, or the contaminated material is leaking from the damaged walls of the water-filled pressure control pool beneath the No 2 reactor.
The plutonium - used in the fuel mix in the No 3 reactor - is not at levels that threaten human health, officials said.
Engineers are battling to restore power and restart the cooling systems at the stricken nuclear plant, which was hit by a powerful quake and subsequent tsunami over two weeks ago.
Operator Tepco has been accused of a lack of transparency and failing to provide information more promptly. It was also heavily criticised for issuing erroneous radiation readings at the weekend.
On Tuesday, National Strategy Minister Koichiro Gemba said the government could consider temporarily nationalising the energy giant.
His comments came a day after shares in the company dropped to their lowest level in three decades.
Human suffering
The massive 9.0-magnitude quake and the tsunami on 11 March are now known to have killed more than 11,000 people, with at least 16,700 people still missing across north-eastern Japan.
During the day, these frail, crumpled people sit bundled up in blankets around the space heater that is inadequate to warm the large common room Karen Mueller, Red Cross, northern Japan Aid worker's diary
The authorities are struggling to identify about 4,000 bodies in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.
''They were collected at places far from their residential areas (due to being swept away by the tsunami), or their families as a whole must have been washed away by the tsunami,'' a senior official at the National Police Agency was quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying.
Police are posting information about clothes and physical appearance online, the report said.
Some 190,000 people are continuing to live in temporary shelters, many having to cope with food, water and fuel shortages.
The breakdown of local administration has also left municipal offices struggling to assess the damage and casualties in some coastal areas devastated by the tsunami, national broadcaster NHK reports.
Prime Minister Kan is expected to visit the city of Rikuzentakata, in Iwate prefecture, on Saturday.This is not the first time the roiling debate on college campuses over divestment from Israel has led to charges of anti-Semitism. Earlier this year, students at the University of California, Los Angeles, asked a Jewish student who was a candidate for a campus judicial committee whether her religion would influence her decision-making. While that incident was captured on film and in official minutes, the case at Stanford is far more murky, with no official record.
“Allegations that any of our endorsees are precluded from affiliating with or receiving endorsements from other groups are unfounded,” the Students of Color Coalition wrote. “We reject the notion that religious or cultural identification might prevent someone from being an effective senator. Such a stance is in direct conflict with S.O.C.C. values.”
Stanford’s undergraduate senate voted in February to ask the university to divest from companies doing business in the West Bank as a way of punishing Israel, but the university’s board of trustees said Tuesday that such a decision would be divisive and it would not take up the matter again.
After her interview with the coalition, Ms. Horwitz filed a complaint with university officials, who met with her and promised a swift investigation.
Lisa Lapin, a Stanford spokeswoman, said that officials had found “conflicting accounts of what occurred” and expanded the investigation after The Stanford Review, a student publication that has criticized the Students of Color Coalition in the past, published an article about Ms. Horwitz. The article also said that the student group had asked candidates it chose to endorse to sign a contract prohibiting affiliation with Jewish groups, and Ms. Lapin said university officials were investigating that as well.
“This is a particularly important teaching moment,” said Vlad Khaykin, the associate director of the Central Pacific Region of the Anti-Defamation League. “Having aspersions cast on their ability to reflect the interest of the student body on the basis that they are Jewish is obviously very troubling to us. The university needs to make it clear to students and student groups that singling out identity and questioning on those kind of issues is discriminatory.”
On Tuesday night, the Students of Color Coalition held what they billed as a “community town hall” meeting at the campus’ Black Community Services Center to discuss the matter; a reporter and photographer from The New York Times who arrived to cover the event were not let in and were asked to leave the area.A NEWLY released Roy Morgan Research pre-election poll shows Labor and the Greens ahead of the Nationals in the seat of Richmond.
The State of the Nation Report, issued on June 15, revealed the top seven Greens seats in Australia, with Richmond in fifth position.
Polling predicted ALP with 30.5 points, Greens with 29, LNP with 27, and others with 13.5, as at June, 2016.
Two weeks out from the election, the results represent a 11 point swing to the Greens, who in 2013 had 17.69% of the primary vote.
Nationals candidate Matthew Fraser received the highest primary vote (37.6%) in 2013.
Labor incumbent Justine Elliot got 33.51% of the primary vote and won the seat with 52.98%, after preferences.
In response to the latest polling Richmond Greens candidate Dawn Walker issued a statement today stating the party had the "chance to make history in the northern rivers".
See the Roy Morgan Research report here, on page 28:
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6856-roy-morgan-state-of-the-nation-june-2016-201606161810
See the 2013 election results for Richmond here:
http://results.aec.gov.au/17496/Website/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-17496-145.htmDemocrats are holding more than 7 times as many town halls as Republicans
Welcome back to PULSE. And in case you've been focused on the holiday and not health care, don't worry — nothing's settled on Republicans' repeal effort yet. But POLITICO's been tracking the fight across the recess, and here are key threads to watch.
HOW CLOSE ARE THEY? DEPENDS WHO YOU ASK — Republican leaders took to the airwaves on Sunday and proceeded to give out conflicting messages.
Story Continued Below
— "We are getting close," according to Marc Short, President Donald Trump’s director of legislative affairs, appearing on "Fox News Sunday."
— "We're at an impasse," said Sen. Rand Paul, on the same show.
Republicans also continued to promote ideas that go against what's in their repeal bill. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy — who's publicly undecided but has dropped hints that he can get to yes — used his appearance on "Meet the Press" to again tout his plan with Maine Sen. Susan Collins, which would allow states to preserve major elements of the ACA.
The idea to'repeal now, replace later' not getting much traction. Trump's tweet on Friday, urging the GOP to fall back on simply repealing Obamacare if they can't strike a deal to replace it, has the backing of conservatives like Paul and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse.
But key decision-makers like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and HHS Secretary Tom Price have rejected that approach for now. "McConnell and his senator … are working to try to get this piece of legislation on track," Price said on "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
Meanwhile: The CBO is pressing forward. The budget office is analyzing two versions of McConnell's bill — including one with a proposal, backed by Sen. Ted Cruz and other conservatives, that would create parallel health insurance markets in states, POLITICO's Sarah Karlin-Smith reports.
One market would contain protections for people with pre-existing conditions and coverage of essential health benefits like maternity care and mental health services, and the other would allow the sale of skimpier plans, likely without federal subsidies. More. There are questions about whether that proposal would meet budget reconciliation rules, however.
CRUZ, MIKE LEE ARE PLAYING NICE — The two firebrands aren’t firebombing McConnell on TV or on the Senate floor after many tangles with him in the past, but instead are intent on using their status as conservative negotiators inside the room as part of McConnell’s working group, POLITICO's Burgess Everett reports. More.
BRIAN SANDOVAL: THE SENATE'S 53rd REPUBLICAN? — The Nevada governor commands outsize clout in the health care fight and he's been loudly critical of efforts to roll back Medicaid, POLITICO's Jennifer Haberkorn and Rachana Pradhan note. Sandoval was the first Republican governor to expand Medicaid through the ACA, and he appeared with Sen. Dean Heller when the Nevada senator ripped the GOP health effort last month.
But Sandoval also is gettable, congressional Republicans believe — and a switch in the Nevada governor's thinking could trigger Heller to follow suit and give McConnell the votes he needs. “At the end of the day, it comes down to Sandoval,” one Republican aide said of Heller's position. More.
— 200,000-plus. That's how many Nevadans have gained coverage through the state's Medicaid expansion.
OBAMACARE
THE CONSEQUENCES OF REPEAL
Red-state school leaders fear Medicaid cuts. About $4 billion in annual Medicaid spending goes to U.S. schools to pay for nurses, therapists and school-based screenings and treatment for children from low-income families, POLITICO's Kimberly Hefling reports. And school leaders in economically depressed parts of Appalachia, the Rust Belt and elsewhere say those Medicaid funds are critical to providing services they are required to provide to special education students.
One Kentucky school superintendent said he’s seen firsthand how mental health services funded by Medicaid have connected families to help at a time when his state is struggling with an opioid addiction crisis. More for Pros.
A popular telemedicine program in poor, rural areas would lose funds. The program has helped school nurses become de facto medical guides, POLITICO's David Pittman reports, and GOP leaders have been strong proponents of the technology, arguing that it delivers health care at low cost to far-flung and underserved areas where doctors are few and far between.
But “if the Medicaid reimbursement isn’t there, you’re not going to make it,” Steve North, medical director and founder of the Center for Rural Health Innovation, said of school-based clinics. “You’re not even going to come close.” More.
KEEP YOUR EYE ON THIS: House subcommittee readies provision to stop IRS enforcement of mandate. The House Committee on Appropriations financial services subcommittee approved a bill last Thursday that would restrict the IRS from carrying out key enforcement and reporting activities related to the mandate, the NYT's Robert Pear writes. The restrictions would take effect on Oct. 1 and are intended as a backup if Republicans' effort to repeal-and-replace the Affordable Care Act runs aground.
“While Congress works to pass President Trump’s health care plan, stopping the I.R.S. from implementing the harmful individual mandate helps provide relief for the families suffering under Obamacare," a spokesman for Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.), |
par Noé’s extremely provocative coming-of-age romance “Love” to the Sundance sensation “Dope,” there’ll be no shortage of unforgettable movies to stream through the winter.
Below are all of the titles hitting the streaming library next month, plus Indiewire’s personal suggestions for what to stream.
Available 2/1
“A Picture of You” (2014)
“Armageddon” (1998)
“Charlie’s Angels” (2000)
“Collateral Damage” (2002)
“Cruel Intentions” (1999)
“A Faster Horse” (2015)
Indiewire Pick: “Full Metal Jacket” (1987)
Vietnam-era Marine recruits endure the grueling ordeal of basic training and later face the unrelenting Viet Cong during the 1968 Tet Offensive, in this grim Stanley Kubrick drama based on a novel by Gustav Hasford. The ensemble cast includes Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Dorian Harewood and Arliss Howard.
”Game Face” (2015)
“Jennifer 8” (1992)
“Johnny English” (2003)
“The Little Engine That Could” (2011)
“Losing Isaiah” (1995)
“My Side of the Mountain” (1969)
“Para Elisa” (2012)
“Pokemon the Movie: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction” (2014)
“Scooby-Doo” (2002)
“Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed” (2004)
Indiewire Pick: “Sin City” (2005)
Robert Rodriguez takes the stylish noir of Frank Miller’s graphic novel and brings it to the screen with a killer cast and visionary style. In these intertwined tales, an ex-con avenges a hooker’s death, a gumshoe gets mixed up with dangerous vixens, and a cop saves a dancer from a rapist, and it’s all told in what amounts to one of the best graphic novel adaptations ever made.
“Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” (1989)
“Stardust” (2007)
“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” (2006)
“Teen Witch” (1989)
“Tin Man: “Search for the Emerald” (2007)
“The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom” (2011)
Available 2/2
“Land Before Time: XIV: Journey of the Brave” (2016)
Available 2/3
Indiewire Pick: “I Love You Phillip Morris” (2009)
When Texas cop Steven Russell realizes he’s gay, he changes his life and pulls con jobs that land him in jail, where he meets his one true love. When the man is transferred to another prison, lovesick Steven mounts a series of jailbreaks. Filmmakers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa bring out the best in Jim Carrey, who gives one of his most overlooked performances.
Available 2/4
Indiewire Pick: “Love” (2015)
Marking his first feature film since 2009’s “Enter the Void,” “Love” finds writer-director Gaspar Noé taking intimacy to startlingly graphic new levels. Starring Karl Glusman and Aomi Muyock, the drama centers on an American in Paris as he falls in love and experiments with drugs and sex.
Available 2/6
“Lila & Eve” (2015)
Available 2/10
“The Girl in the Book” (2015)
Indiewire Pick: “Dope” (2015)
A standout at the Sundance Film Festival last year, the hip-hop-driven story follows Malcolm (Shameik Moore) as he carefully survives life in a tough Los Angeles neighborhood while juggling college applications, academic interviews and the SAT. “Dope” co-stars Tony Revolori, Kiersey Clemons, Blake Anderson, Zoe Kravitz, Chanel Iman and ASAP Rocky.
Available 2/13
“The Face of Love” (2013)
Available 2/15
“Open Season” (2006)
“XXY” (2007)
Available 2/16
“Asthma” (2015)
Indiewire Pick: “Atonement” (2007)
Keira Knightley has been the undisputed queen of romantic period pieces for the past decade, and her work in Joe Wright’s Oscar-winning “Atonement” not only proves why she’s become the go-to romantic period love interest, but it also ranks near the very top of her best performances to date. The passion between Knightley and co-star James McAvoy shows that the will to love is worth it, no matter what life-changing obstacles stand in the way.
Available 2/22
“3rd World Cops 2” (2015)
Available 2/23
Indiewire Pick: “Bare” (2015)
Dianna Agron leaves her sheltered life behind in Natalie Leite’s directorial debut, “Bare.” In this drama, Agron’s Sarah falls in love with Pepper, a drug-dealing drifter played by Paz De La Huerta. As Sarah joins Pepper’s world, she disconnects from old friends and starts to strip at the club where Pepper sells drugs.
Available 2/25
“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny” (2016) – Netflix Original
“Theo Von” (2016) – Netflix Original
Available 2/27
Indiewire Pick: “Finding Vivian Maier” (2013)
This unforgettable documentary uncovers Vivian Maier, a nanny who secretly took over 100,000 photographs. The photographs were eventually discovered decades later, hidden in several storage lockers, and Maier is now ranked among the 20th century’s greatest photographers.
Available 2/29
“Ashes and Embers” (1982)
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.It hasn’t taken Kansas University basketball newcomer Tarik Black long to invest himself fully in strength coach Andrea Hudy’s weight program.
“Three days in a row now … it’s serious, and I love it. It’s what I need. I can feel it right now, and I can see it right now. Over time, I’m going to develop and get better,” said Black, KU’s senior transfer from the University of Memphis, who says he has reported to campus for summer school at 6-foot-9, 260 pounds.
“By the time the season starts, the measurements will be different, so look out for new numbers,” added Black, immediately eligible for the 2013-14 season thanks to a rule that allows transfers to play without delay provided they have earned an undergraduate degree.
A recent Memphis graduate in the field of organizational leadership, the 21-year-old Black plans to lead a young KU team.
“Even though I’m new to this program, I’m not new to college basketball. I’m not new to big games. I’m not new to taking over games. I’m not new to anything that has to do with the college level,” said Black, who averaged 8.1 points and 4.8 rebounds while coming off the bench in 27 games and starting five his junior season for the Tigers (31-5).
“I have experience to spread. I’m already spreading it. I’m not saying I’ll step into the gym as a leader. I have to earn that role and earn my keep. I have to earn guys’ respect for me and (have the) coaches expect to trust me, that I’ll be a leader and not steer guys wrong, which I plan on doing. It’s not going to happen tomorrow. I wouldn’t call me a leader just yet.”
Still, just a few days into the first session of summer school, Black has been not been shy around KU’s five freshmen on campus. The sixth member of the freshman class, Andrew Wiggins, is in his home country of Canada.
“He’s definitely one of the oldest in the room,” freshman guard Wayne Selden said of Black. “He’s definitely leading us and helping us. In three days, I’ve got some good advice already.”
Such as … “different stuff, not basketball, but different stuff,” said Selden, who has also been impressed with Black during pick-up games.
“Powerful. He can go get the rebound. He’s strong,” Selden said emphatically.
Black signed a financial-aid agreement with KU on May 20, choosing the Jayhawks over Duke, Oregon, Ohio State and Georgetown. On Thursday, he for the first time explained what went into his decision. He had waited until reporting to campus to agree to his first interviews as a Jayhawk.
“For one, the masters program that provides me what I want to do, assures me I’m going to learn something new for my future and what I want to do in my future,” Black said.
After what he hopes is a long pro career, he plans to open his own nonprofit organization.
“Looking at basketball, I’m just looking for an opportunity to propel myself into the situation I want to be in, which is to try to get to the next level,” Black said. “More important, just to win big at the collegiate level and be the best player I can be at the college level.”
A Memphis Ridgeway High graduate who was ranked No. 47 nationally by Rivals.com in the Class of 2010, Black said it was difficult to leave coach Josh Pastner’s program.
“Memphis is my heart and soul. It was more so telling my city, telling my family, which is not only my blood family but just my family sitting in Memphis — the Tigers — everybody, that I made a decision to go to another university,” Black said. “It hurts, but I had to make the best decision for myself.
“If I’m really truthful, I’ll tell you what I’ll miss the most … I’ll miss looking up in the stands before every game, seeing my mom standing there and my brothers and my father and looking up and blowing them kisses, blowing my mother a kiss, my brother giving me a look like, ‘Yeah, little brother, you just did it.’ But I’m older now. I’m out here now. I made a decision for myself. It’s time for me to finish and accomplish what I set out to do.”
Black said he knew KU was the school for him on his campus visit earlier in May.
“We had to drive from the Kansas City airport. We saw a sign that said, ‘Lawrence.’ My dad said, ‘That’s my name,'” Tarik said of Lawrence Black. “Coach (Kurtis) Townsend said that’s the name of the city as well. Coach Townsend said, ‘It’s only right.'”
Black’s older brother, Bilal, who played college ball at Langston University in Oklahoma, helped Tarik choose the number he’ll wear at KU — 25. Tarik (pronounced TAR-ick) wore 10 at Memphis.
“He said, ‘You should go to 25. I feel it’s right for you,'” Black said. “He said, ‘2 times 5 equals 10 anyway, so you’ll still have your number on.’ I said, ‘Cool, so I’ll go to 25.'”
He thinks his one and only season at KU will be special.
“We’re young but so talented, and Andrew Wiggins has not even got here yet,” Black said. “Even without him being here (currently), I see us being one of the top teams in the country because I played the top teams in the country. I understand what the talent is like on those teams. We possess that. We just have to mature.”
A reporter surmised that Black “must be smart” to have earned an undergraduate degree in three years.
“I’d rather be called ‘intelligent’ over ‘smart,’ but I’m both,” Black said with a smile. “Just putting in a lot of hours, understanding there’s a goal and I have to reach it … accomplishing what I set out to do. It’s willpower, knowing I wanted to graduate in three years, sticking to it and getting the job done.”
Selden, a 6-5 guard from Boston who will wear jersey No. 1 at KU, also met the media Thursday.
“It’s been a great experience,” Rivals.com’s No. 12-rated player in the Class of 2013 said of his first days in Lawrence. “Just getting together with the guys, just hanging out with the guys, and we’re just trying to become one team. That’s all it is right now.”›› 90 days from now
Want to figure out the date that is exactly ninety days from now without counting?
Today is February 26, 2019 so that means that 90 days from today would be May 27, 2019.
You can check this by using the date difference calculator to measure the number of days from today to May 27, 2019.
Need to calculate 90 days from a specific date? Use the Days From Date calculator.
›› May, 2019 calendar
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May 27th, 2019 is a Monday. It is the 147th day of the year, and in the 22nd week of the year (assuming each week starts on a Monday), or the 2nd quarter of the year. There are 31 days in this month. 2019 is not a leap year, so there are 365 days in this year. The short form for this date used in the United States is 5/27/2019, and almost everywhere else in the world it's 27/5/2019.
›› What if you only counted weekdays?
In some cases, you might want to skip weekends and count only the weekdays. This could be useful if you know you have a deadline based on a certain number of business days. If you are trying to see what day falls on the exact date difference of 90 weekdays from today, you can count up each day skipping Saturdays and Sundays.
Start your calculation with today, which falls on a Tuesday. Counting forward, the next day would be a Wednesday.
To get exactly ninety weekdays from now, you actually need to count 126 total days (including weekend days). That means that 90 weekdays from today would be July 2, 2019.
If you're counting business days, don't forget to adjust this date for any holidays.
›› July, 2019 calendar
Su M Tu W Th F Sa 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
July 2nd, 2019 is a Tuesday. It is the 183rd day of the year, and in the 27th week of the year (assuming each week starts on a Monday), or the 3rd quarter of the year. There are 31 days in this month. 2019 is not a leap year, so there are 365 days in this year. The short form for this date used in the United States is 7/2/2019, and almost everywhere else in the world it's 2/7/2019.
›› Enter the number of days to count Type in the number of days you want to calculate from today. If you want to find a previous date, you can enter a negative number to figure out the number of days before today. Due to date calculation restrictions, the allowable range is from -42808 to 6901. Number of days from now:
›› Days From Now calculator
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Matthew Stewart owes $62,668.78 for drugs, surgeries, and other treatment. With both bankruptcy and possibly fatal liver failure looming, he doesn't even bother opening his bills anymore, he told The Week. "There was no point. They just upset everyone," he says.
Stewart is 29 years old, and was pursuing his Ph.D in American history at Texas Christian University until ill health forced him to withdraw. He lives in Ft. Worth, Texas, with his wife of six years, who is a junior high school teacher in a low-income district. They own their home. Before he came down with complications from cirrhosis caused by autoimmune hepatitis, he says he led a scrupulously healthy lifestyle — he does not drink or do any other non-medical drugs, he says, and was a devoted hiker before disaster struck. And he was insured — indeed, he had a gold plan from the ObamaCare exchanges, the second-best level of plan that you can get.
But now he faces imminent bankruptcy and possibly death.
The incomprehensible brutality of Stewart's story is an object lesson in how the American health care system mercilessly crushes American citizens when they are at their weakest and most vulnerable. With a liver transplant, Stewart might well live a full life. But before he can even be eligible for one, he must thread his way through a Kafkaesque labyrinth of private and public bureaucracy — and hope he doesn't die before he makes it through.
With cirrhosis, it's typically just a matter of time before your liver starts failing — and you usually run into very serious complications long before total shutdown happens. (Cirrhosis is most often caused by alcohol abuse, fatty liver, or viral hepatitis, but in Stewart's case it was just an immune system gone haywire, he says.) The liver does an astounding variety of things, but first among them is cleaning the blood of toxins and metabolic byproducts. So when it stops working properly, about the first thing that happens is a blood backup. Veins from various parts of the digestive system come together into the portal vein, which feeds blood into the liver to be cleaned. But if the liver is damaged, the blood can't get through properly, and pressure builds up in the portal system, causing what's called portal hypertension. That in turn can lead to ascites, a huge build-up of fluid in the belly. (In a separate process, a failing liver can also cause hepatic encephalopathy, where unprocessed waste gets into the brain and damages it.)
But a more direct result of portal hypertension is dilation of veins in the portal system, most commonly in the esophagus — creating esophageal varices. These small veins can stretch significantly under the strain, and as one might expect, sometimes they rupture.
That's what happened to Stewart on Sept. 24, 2016.
It began feeling like an intense flu, but soon he started vomiting blood. The varices in his esophagus had burst, and were pouring blood into his stomach. To avoid an hours-long wait at the emergency room, he went to an urgent care clinic to get a quick diagnosis, and when the seriousness of his situation became clear, he was transferred to the emergency room.
That is where Stewart's billing problems started, he says. The clinic sent him to an out-of-network hospital, because it had the first available bed, despite the fact that his in-network hospital was only a block away. "At no time was I ever asked or given any choice in what hospital the ambulance was taking me to," he says. By that time he was nearly dead from blood loss, so surgery to close up six different hemorrhaged varices had to be started immediately.
His claim list shows 13 separate charges on this date with a sticker price totaling $73,859.36, of which his insurance covered $9,695.87, leaving him with a bill of $46,020.36 (reduced somewhat by negotiation between the insurance company and the hospital). In an emailed statement, his insurance company said, "We value all of our members and are seeking to learn more — including this member's name — so that we can review the circumstances surrounding this situation." The hospital that provided his emergency surgery did not respond to a request for comment.
After the surgery, Stewart spent two days in the ICU at the out-of-network hospital, then was finally transferred to the in-network one. At some point, a social worker claimed that the transfer would allow him to bill the first hospital stay as in-network, but no: "Instead, we just got separate large bills from both hospitals," he says.
Stewart only spent about 12 hours being monitored at the second hospital, but had to return on Oct. 1 to deal with an attack of ascites, and again on Nov 7. for a checkup which resulted in two more varices being fixed.
All that added up to a total bill of almost $63,000 and counting — he hasn't been billed yet for the final varices surgery. He attempted to contest one single charge, and it "seemed like there was no way to actually verify how the charge was billed or even exactly what it was for," he says. "Everyone had a different story." He consulted with a bankruptcy lawyer and decided declaring bankruptcy was the only realistic option for dealing with the titanic bill, he says, as it would allow him and his wife to protect some of their assets, particularly his home.
But wait, you might be thinking. Doesn't ObamaCare have out-of-pocket limits that would prevent this sort of thing?
It does indeed. But there are numerous loopholes that medical providers can and do take advantage of.
The biggest is that spending on out-of-network services do not have to apply to out-of-pocket limits. Affordable Care Act regulations stipulate insurers are supposed to cover quite a bit of spending on emergency procedures (depending on a complex formula), and Texas law says that Stewart's insurance should pay the "usual and customary rate" (which probably accounts for the $9,695.87 payment) and count whatever he spends on his emergency care towards his out-of-pocket limit. "However, this still doesn't obligate the insurance carrier to pay for the remainder of the out-of-network care," Maxine Harrington, professor of law at Texas A&M University, told The Week. Only in-network care has to be covered once the out-of-pocket limit is reached, even if it is an emergency. (In an emailed statement, a representative from the Department of Health and Human Services noted that new regulations are set to be implemented in 2018 that will provide somewhat more protection against surprise balance billing.)
At any rate, even if there were some other way to avoid bankruptcy, it would take money, time, and energy Stewart does not have. It would mean hiring a lawyer to conduct a months-long haggling campaign with the insurance company and hospitals with the nearly certain result that any reduced bill would still be light-years outside his ability to pay — in addition to considerable attorney fees. Not to mention the fact that a man with advanced liver disease tends to get tired when confronted with extreme stress and complexity. Even the bankruptcy proceeding is going to cost $2,000 he'll have to borrow from family.
All in all, from Stewart's perspective, his insurance was reasonably good for prescriptions and routine care, he says. But when it came to serious illness — when he really needed it most — it basically did not exist.
The 2005 bankruptcy reform bill restricts Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the simplest and best kind for Stewart. In Texas, the income limit for a family of two is $56,296. Stewart's wife's salary combined with his $10,000 per semester grad student stipend puts them just slightly over the Chapter 7 limit. Income is measured by a six-month average, so now that he's withdrawn from school, they should drop below it by about February, he says. Despite the fact that they are facing more than their entire gross income in medical bills, that's the earliest they could declare bankruptcy.
But surely if he can make it through February he'll be okay? Not even close. Here's where Stewart's story gets really bad, where the crumbling ObamaCare exchange in Texas combines with that state's refusal of the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion and the longtime sociopathic billing practices of American medicine to seriously threaten Stewart's life.
Open enrollment for the exchanges started on Nov. 1, 2016. As has happened every year since ObamaCare was first implemented, he says, Stewart's insurance provider withdrew from the exchange. In previous years, this caused serious distress, because cirrhosis treatment is very complicated, every person's body is different, and therefore patients need a good, consistent relationship with a liver specialist to get it done properly. Quality care means careful adjustment of numerous drugs, learning how each patient responds to each one, and then more adjustment of more drugs to treat the side effects. It's a delicate art, and having to start from scratch with a new doctor every 12 months, hauling around a huge pile of paperwork each time, was immensely disruptive.
Stewart's liver will almost certainly give out at some point in the next few years, at which point he'll have to have a transplant to survive. He is a good candidate: healthy, young, and, unlike many people with advanced liver problems, not an alcoholic. There's a good chance a transplant would cure him permanently. But because transplants are largely restricted to people whose livers are closer to failure, Stewart will have to wait until his liver has degraded quite a lot more — to a point where the ascites and encephalopathy will have probably reduced him to a near-vegetable state — before he can qualify for a transplant. And there's no chance at all if he can't get insured.
Before he can get to that point, he must manage his dying liver with complex and expensive care, managed by a liver specialist. If he cannot get access to one, "I will be dead within a year," he says.
But now, not only did Stewart lose his insurance, there is no liver specialist available to him on the exchanges, he says, mostly because "pretty much all the insurers have dropped out." There are only two providers available in the Ft. Worth area for him: one with a liver specialist in a high-deductible HMO he cannot afford, and another very small, county-only plan without one.
That leaves Medicaid. But because Texas refused the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion, adults must either have dependents or be disabled to get it. Stewart should qualify for disability easily, assuming he can navigate the notorious Social Security Disability Insurance bureaucracy. But his wife's salary alone puts them over the income limit for Medicaid, he says. She could quit her job, but that would leave them unable to pay their mortgage and other expenses. They could get divorced and stay together, but that would be legally questionable and leave her unable to make important decisions in his stead should he be incapacitated. So she might go back to grad school, slashing their income enough to qualify — though then she would be without insurance.
Perhaps the best hope is to move to New York, where Stewart is from and where his mother still lives, and which has more generous Medicaid provisions and a pretty good teaching market. After two years on disability he'd be eligible for Medicare, "so that I could die comfortably, in bed," he grimly jokes. But dealing with all the various paperwork to wrap up their lives in Texas will take months. Before they can sell their house, they complete the bankruptcy or risk forfeiture, which will take several months. Then they'd have to put their house on the market, wait for it to sell, and wait the usual 60 days for a traditional loan to clear — and they will need that money to be able to move. All told, it will take at least until August of this year, he says, and only then will he be able to leave for New York. All that time Stewart will be without access to a liver specialist if he can't get insured — and if he fails to put all those ducks in a row, access to Medicaid could be fatally impeded.
He might not make it to 2018.
The details of Stewart's story are immensely complex, but the basic reality is fairly simple. A man got very sick, and had to have a serious medical procedure, or die. That care was available, and he did get it. But the medical system then bled him of every last penny it could legally get its hands on, despite his supposedly good insurance. The immense cost wrecked his finances, but merciless means tests made it all but impossible to access the skinflint social insurance system in Texas.
Thus Stewart and his wife will likely flee to another state almost as refugees, something which weighs on his mind. "I feel as though my wife is having to make decisions about her future and life on account of me, that are either delaying or altering her golden years. I've cried some over this whole situation I admit, but only as I've told her because I regret that all this has happened to her as much as me and I haven't been able to give her a better life as a result," he says.
The American health care system is such a hideously complicated tangle of institutions that blame for Stewart's situation might plausibly be laundered among dozens of different actors. But that must not distract from the profound evil revealed by this story.
It would be simple and easy to arrange the medical system so that someone like Stewart — and his story is very far from unique — would get the care he needed, and as good a chance as possible of living long enough to get the transplant he needs. The national income is there, the medical institutions to provide that care are there, and the risk pools could easily be made large enough to make the system solvent.
The fact that ObamaCare — a reasonably good-faith effort to make the system better — did not stop the vicious cruelty of medical billing, and in many ways only added to the system's psychotic complexity, ought to weigh on us all.
"How many catastrophes would it take to undo the security in your life?" Stewart wonders. "That is a question I think every person should ask themselves, and consider in judgment of others. I think the truth is it's usually a lot less than you'd think."The investigators made this discovery using data gathered from the Stanford-Ellison cohort, a long-term program begun 10 years ago by Davis and study co-author Cornelia Dekker, MD, professor of pediatric infectious diseases, to study the immunology of aging. In that program, healthy participants ages 20-30 and another group older than 60 were monitored annually via surveys, blood draws and reviews of their medical histories.
For the new study, the researchers compared blood drawn from older versus younger study participants to see which genes tended to be more highly activated in older people. They zeroed in on two clusters of genes whose activity was associated with the production of a potent circulating inflammatory protein called IL-1-beta. The genes within each cluster appeared to work in coordination with one another.
The researchers also looked at two particular groups of older participants: One with high activation of one or both inflammatory gene clusters, and the other with one or both clusters exhibiting low activation. On reviewing these individuals’ medical histories, the scientists learned that nine of the 12 subjects with high cluster activity had high blood pressure, compared with only one of the 11 subjects with low cluster activity. Follow-up studies by study co-author Francois Haddad, MD, a clinical associate professor of cardiovascular medicine, revealed that individuals in the “high” group were much more likely to have stiff arteries — a risk factor for cardiovascular complications — than those in the “low” group.
Furthermore, those in the low group were eight times as likely as those in the high group to report having at least one close family member who had lived to age 90 or older. Not only that, but participants in the high group who were older than 85 in 2008 were substantially more likely to have died by 2016 than were those in the low group. The high group’s blood also showed signs of increased activity of free radicals, which can harm cells, compared with the low group’s blood. The high group also had elevated concentrations of IL-1-beta, as well as of several nucleic-acid breakdown products that can be produced by free-radical action.
The researchers found that incubating a type of immune cell with two of those nucleic-acid metabolites boosted activity in one of the gene clusters, resulting in increased IL-1-beta production. When injected into mice, the substances triggered massive systemic inflammation, along with high blood pressure. In addition, immune cells infiltrated and clogged the animals’ kidneys, increasing renal pressure substantially.
How caffeine may affect longevity
Intrigued by the correlation between older participants’ health, gene-cluster activation and self-reported rates of caffeine consumption, the researchers followed up and verified that blood from the group with low cluster activity was enriched for caffeine and a number of its metabolites, compared with blood from the group with high cluster activity. (Examples of these metabolites are theophylline, also found in tea, and theobromine, which abounds in chocolate.)
Incubating immune cells with caffeine and its breakdown products along with the inflammation-triggering nucleic acid metabolites substantially prevented the latter from exerting their powerful inflammatory effect on the cells.
What we’ve shown is a correlation between caffeine consumption and longevity.
“That something many people drink — and actually like to drink — might have a direct benefit came as a surprise to us,” said Davis, who noted that the study did not prove a causal link. “We didn’t give some of the mice coffee and the others decaf. What we’ve shown is a correlation between caffeine consumption and longevity. And we’ve shown more rigorously, in laboratory tests, a very plausible mechanism for why this might be so.”
Other Stanford co-authors are postdoctoral scholars Junlei Chang, PhD, Christopher Bohlen, PhD, and Gabriela Fragiadakis, PhD; former graduate student Matthew Spitzer, PhD; life science research associate Edward Ganio; assistant professor of anesthesia, perioperative and pain medicine Brice Gaudilliere, MD, PhD; professor of microbiology and immunology Garry Nolan, PhD; and professor of hematology Calvin Kuo, MD, PhD.
Researchers from the Sidra Medical and Research Center in Qatar, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research and the University of North Carolina also co-authored the study.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (grant U19AI090019) and the Ellison Medical Foundation.
Stanford’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology also supported the work.The operation is being led by Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, which has ordered several searches in three European cities.
Sources familiar with the investigation said that a number of the detainees have ties to one another, and that they are allegedly involved in recruitment and propaganda work for the so-called Islamic State group (ISIS). They are also believed to have been sending combatants to conflict zones in Syria and Iraq.
Counter-terrorism sources said that more than 1,000 individuals are on their radar
The suspects are alleged to have been in possession of video material containing inflammatory messages by ISIS leaders and showing acts of violence.
Sources at the Spanish Interior Ministry said that a cell based in Palma de Mallorca was meeting on a weekly basis to determine the willingness of youths sympathetic to their cause to travel to combat zones. This group had progressively increased the number of individuals under its influence.
The investigation began in 2015, when authorities found a website with videos that illustrated the process of recruiting a young Muslim man living in Spain, indoctrinating him and sending him to Syria.
The person behind the video footage was found to be a Salafist imam who has been arrested in Britain and who is under investigation by several European countries. This individual had traveled to Palma de Mallorca and was priming a group – whose members have now been arrested as well – for recruitment, indoctrination and radicalization activities. He was also their spiritual leader.
This Salafist preacher, whose public rhetoric was well known to European police and intelligence services, was privately devoted to the task of securing combatants and funds for the fight in Syria. His personal security measures, which included constant residency changes, had made his arrest particularly difficult.
A UK-man based man is believed to be the spiritual leader of several of the suspects arrested
The suspect held in Germany also looked to the UK-based preacher as his spiritual and ideological reference point. He was in direct contact with the other detainees, and had participated in the propaganda videos made by the group.
The coordination work involved in this international raid forced judges, prosecutors and information service officials to remain at their posts for 24 hours. Very little information about the raid trickled out in an effort to ensure that the suspects would be found. Their identities and nationalities have not been released, as the operation is still underway.
Collaborating agencies include Spain’s National Intelligence Center, the German Federal Police, the London Metropolitan Police and Europol, among others.
Two years ago, Spain set the threat of a terrorist attack on Spanish soil at Level 4 (with 5 being the maximum). Since then, 172 alleged jihadists have been arrested. Three of these were held in Madrid on June 21, although two were subsequently released.
Since the Islamist attacks on Madrid commuter trains on March 11, 2004, there have been more than 700 arrests in Spain. More than a hundred of those detained have completed prison terms and have been subsequently expelled from the country for a period of 10 years. There is no evidence that any of them have returned.
Counter-terrorism sources said that there are over 1,000 individuals on their radar, that 259 people are under formal court investigation, and that 500 telephones are being tapped.
A silent “army” of more than 3,000 law enforcement officers, spies, prosecutors, judges and analysts are working in the shadows to stop jihadists from striking again in Spain, where 192 people died and over 2,000 were injured in the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
English version by Susana Urra.Ms. Young and Mr. Dakhlalla are among a number of people who have been detained nationwide for exhibiting what officials say are Islamic State sympathies. In many cases, the authorities say, they have developed their views, in part, by watching online videos and were arrested after creating social media posts that attracted the attention of the F.B.I.
The |
fibre is connected. For a majority of connections, the Coalition is now changing the NBN from a fibre-to- the-premises network to a fibre-to-the-node one, and will use Telstra's copper for the "last-mile" connection.
Mr Turnbull also defended the Coalition government reneging on its election promise to deliver minimum 25 megabits per second download speeds to all Australians by 2016. He partly blamed the Labor government for not being "transparent" about progress of the NBN rollout. "What I said in the lead up to the election was that our goal was to ensure that everybody had access to at least 25 megs [download speeds] by … [the] end of 2016," Mr Turnbull said. "This assumed of course that the fixed-wireless and satellite performed as promised." But he said there wasn't "a lot of transparency on that" from the Labor government. Therefore, he said, in the Strategic Review "the NBN Co's best estimate — people might say it's a conservative estimate — is that they will not be able to achieve that by 2016", Mr Turnbull said. "But [NBN Co] will nonetheless by 2019 — which is the second part of our goal — ensure that over 90 per cent of the fixed-line footprint has 50 megs or better. It's really just a question of practicality."
Mr Turnbull also blamed Labor for the NBN roll-out being delayed "The NBN is a project that sadly had run off the rails and getting it back on the rails and moving again is obviously going to take, so [NBN Co] believe, somewhat longer than we had anticipated." Removal of 'unnecessary regulation' Later on Thursday, Mr Turnbull indicated at an annual Internet Industry Association dinner in Sydney that he expected about 280 pages of regulation would be repealed from the communications portfolio alone as part of the Abbott government's crackdown on what it believes to be unnecessary regulation. "This overhaul will start next month, when we have our first regulation repeal day," Mr Turnbull said.
He said the Australian Communications and Media Authority chairman, Chris Chapman, had embraced the removal of so-called red tape "with a passion". "He knows the heavy burden of regulation and is determined to cut as much of it away," Mr Turnbull said. "Even the regulator is a passionate deregulator," he added. This reporter is on Facebook: /bengrubb Follow IT Pro on TwitterPentax D FA 100mm Macro WR Review Posted
An all-metal weather-sealed macro lens
By bdery in Review Announcements on Sep 2, 2015
Today we are glad to present our latest in-depth review in which we take a close look at the popular SMC Pentax-D FA 100mm F2.8 Macro WR prime lens! Note that this review replaces our aging and less comprehensive 2011 review of the same lens. We are currently in the process of refreshing old reviews and you can expect more such updates in the coming months.
Macro is an important part of photography, and Pentax has long kept a tradition of offering excellent macro lenses. Many consider the company’s latest macro lens a classic in its own right. With weather sealing, a compact metal body, super protect coatings and very high sharpness, it certainly has the makings of a great lens.
Is it just hearsay or can it be confirmed by experimentation? We have 14 pages of pictures, tests and analysis to answer this question. Sharpness, bokeh, aberrations will all be tested. Two dozen sample images will also let you see how the lens performs in real life.
Don’t hesitate and head to the review now!
Continue to the in-depth review of the Pentax 100mm MacroProfessor John McAdams of Marquette University appeared on Breitbart News Daily Friday morning to discuss his defense of traditional marriage, and how politically-correct enforcers are threatening his position at the university.
Sirius XM host Stephen K. Bannon pointed out that Marquette is a Jesuit university, and wondered how a position in defense of traditional marriage could make trouble for a professor at such an institution.
“I didn’t actually even defend traditional marriage,” McAdams said. “Simply the right of a student to defend traditional marriage without being bullied and demeaned. That was the whole point about my blog post.” In that post, McAdams described the case of a student who was told to drop a class by an angry leftist professor, who exclaimed that defending marriage between men and women was intolerably “homophobic, racist, and sexist.”
“As for so-called Catholic universities, first you have to understand that Jesuits are thin on the ground these days,” McAdams continued. “The president of Marquette’s not a Jesuit, the provost isn’t, the dean of arts and sciences isn’t… there are so few Jesuits that so-called Jesuit institutions pretty much aren’t run by Jesuits.”
He added that the Jesuit order itself was no longer a “bastion of Catholic orthodoxy.” This left universities like Marquette to suffer at the whims of “whatever fads prevail in academia generally.”
“For example, if it’s pandering to the gay lobby, they’ll pander to the gay lobby, and they’ve done so a lot,” said McAdams. “If it’s pandering to racial minorities – blacks, American Indians, Hispanics – they’ll do that, too. And, like all universities, there’s kind of a confluence of ideology and bureaucratic interest – that is to say, the administrators who run the university have an interest in hiring bureaucrats that work in their offices, so they’re always very happy to hire another assistant provost for things Hispanic, or associate provost to set up a bias reporting system, which Marquette has now.”
The once-great institution of Marquette has been hit especially hard by political correctness, but McAdams warned there was a general trend of “nonsense in academia” sweeping through institutions of higher learning across the country, citing the example of Emory University students claiming they “felt so hurt and were so unsafe” because someone “put pro-Donald Trump messages on the sidewalk.”
As for his own case, McAdams reported that Marquette University said they would suspend him without pay for the remainder of the calendar year. He would be allowed to return in January, “if I abase myself and apologize” for his blog post.
He also said he would be required to “promise to adhere to Marquette’s guiding values and mission statement… which of course, in my view, I’ve done.”
Unfortunately, McAdams noted the bureaucrats at Marquette seem to interpret their mission statement not as a high-minded commitment to academic inquiry and free expression, but simply as, “you don’t make trouble for the institution.”
Professor McAdams declared he would not make the apology demanded by P.C. enforcers. “I’m not going to sign any ‘loyalty oath’ to Marquette’s mission – since I’m, in fact, probably a stronger proponent of Marquette’s claimed mission than the people running the university,” he chuckled. “But I’m against loyalty oaths. Interestingly, a lot of older liberals remember loyalty oaths in the 1950s, where professors were required to swear they were loyal to America and had no sympathy for Communism… liberals hated that. And now what you have is a liberal administration at Marquette demanding a loyalty oath from me.”
He declared his determination to fight the university, cheerfully noting that his lawyers are working pro bono, so “Marquette can’t run me away by having me build up huge legal bills.”
“I think it’s pretty clear, the odds are there’s going to be a huge lawsuit,” he predicted.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00AM to 9:00AM EST.
You can listen to the full interview with Professor John McAdams below:Apparently we're in an economic war. Who with, and to what end?
I've blogged before about the project of the political class to attack working conditions and living standards, in some cases with calls for British workers to give up leisure activities and follow the selfless example of Indian proles.
This project has been being referenced more openly by senior politicians. When government figures talk about “winning the global race” in the context of economic recovery, they are essentially talking about two things. First, the ability to attract investment to the UK. This means providing a good “investment environment” to capital – a “flexible” workforce, low wages, etc. And secondly, a “business-friendly” legislative approach for UK businesses: more deregulation, privatisation, and a pliant workforce. Given that this has been the project of capital since the 70s, it does make you wonder when we've had a “business-unfriendly” government.
This theme was centre stage in a bizarre speech David Cameron gave to the bosses' union, the CBI, at the beginning of the week:
You know what the global race means because you’re living it. And I’m here today to tell you this Government gets it. We get that the world is breathing down our neck. And we get what British business needs. Quote:
Nothing new here, but the bizarre part came later:
When this country was at war in the 40s, Whitehall underwent a revolution. Normal rules were circumvented. Convention was thrown out. As one historian put it, everything was thrown at the overriding purpose of beating Hitler. Well, this country is in the economic equivalent of war today - and we need the same spirit. We need to forget about crossing every ‘t’ and dotting every ‘i’ and we need to throw everything we’ve got at winning in this global race. Quote:
On the face of it, this is pretty odd. The economic war footing Britain actually had during the second world war involved a command economy, with a union general secretary becoming minister of labour. Neither of these things are likely to be what Cameron meant.
But the rhetoric of a war footing, and therefore the analogy that opponents of austerity are fifth columnists is likely to become more common. It is part of the ideological cover that is overlaying the most significant attack on working class living standards since WW2.
Living standards are already on the slide. The Office of National Statistics have published figures showing median real wages wages declining since 2007. According to the TUC:
and that is true, but only for the period before the global recession hit. Comparing wages in 2007 and 2011 (with the 2007 wages increased in line with 2011 prices),the median wage fell from £12.97 an hour to £12.62. For someone working a 35 hour week that is £12.25 – £637 a year. As a proportion of their earnings, the losses have been worst for workers at the bottom of the income distribution. The chart below shows the fall in real wages as a percentage of workers’ 2007 wages, with workers arranged in percentiles (hundredths) from left to right: Quote:
Earlier in the year, the Resolution Foundation reported its predictions for deepening inequality, with living standards falling for low- and medium- income families for the rest of the decade. What is even more troubling about this is that the study is premised on very generous and optimistic growth forecasts. The indications from all quarters are that this is highly unlikely.
So, sliding living standards now, sliding living standards for the next eight years. This is the reality, and the political class want to intensify policies which will inevitable exacerbate the situation.
The striking political assumption throughout all this is that there will be no countervailing pressure from the workforce to push up wages. The Winter of Discontent famously stemmed from the Labour Government's attempts to impose a length pay freeze. However, that came at the crest of workers' militancy and union strength in Britain, and at the end of a long period during which trade unions' role in mediating a dangerous workforce was widely accepted. Now, despite strike levels being higher than the previous two decades, the working class is broadly disorganised and fragmented. That doesn't mean that victories are impossible: witness the IWW cleaners' recent success. What is clear is that the working class is in an increasingly dire position, and a class response to these attacks in an urgent necessityEven though there may not be any new footage from Star Wars: The Force Awakens debuting at D23 this weekend, fans were still given a pretty fantastic treat that is simultaneously something we weren’t sure that we would get to see, but also something unsurprising.
The new Star Wars: The Force Awakens poster has been revealed with illustrations from famed poster artist Drew Struzan, the man behind the final theatrical posters for the special edition of the Star Wars trilogy as well as the prequel trilogy, and it’s just as gorgeous as we all hoped. Plus, it also gives us a tease of a certain elegant weapon being used by someone we haven’t seen wield one yet. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.
Here’s Drew Struzan’s poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakens:
The one big reveal is Finn (John Boyega) wielding Luke Skywalker’s old blue lightsaber (which belonged to his father Anakin Skywalker before he became Darth Vader), confirming that he’ll be using the weapon at some point in the movie. That’s not a total surprise since we’ve seen some images where the weapon is hanging off his character’s jacket. However, since it’s both Finn and Rey (Daisy Ridley) who come into possession of the weapon, it’s a safe bet that they may both end up using it at some point if they find themselves in a tight situation.
Otherwise, there’s nothing too revelatory here other than new shots of characters that we’ve seen before and the fact that this is a new Drew Struzan poster for a new Star Wars trilogy, both things which fans never thought they’d ever get to see again. This is also a D23 exclusive poster handed out at the expo, so if you want to get your hands on it, you’ll have to hit eBay.
And since this is a D23 poster, this likely isn’t the official theatrical one sheet for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, so maybe there will be another Drew Struzan poster in our future.
Struzan has been essentially retired for years, though he was coaxed out recently to do a poster for the documentary Batkid Begins, and there were rumors that he would return to design a poster for The Force Awakens, but without confirmation. In case you need a reminder, here’s all six of the previous posters Struzan designed for Star Wars:
In addition, Struzan has also designed dozens of covers for Star Wars expanded universe books like The Han Solo Trilogy, Shadows of the Empire and many more, not to mention the posters for the Back to the Future trilogy and the Indiana Jones trilogy. Plenty of poster artists have tried to emulate his style, and some succeed rather well, while others use poor Photoshop skills to try to mimic them, but without the artistry that comes with it.Appearing today on Laura Ingraham’s radio show, RNC chairman Michael Steele said that he wrote his book Right Now before he became chairman. The problem is, the book itself doesn’t read like it could have possibly been written before January 2009 — it was clearly written in late 2009, either in November or December, and is based entirely on current events up to that point.
“I wrote this book before I became chairman. Because of the clock and the calendar, I wound up doing it now,” said Steele. It’s not clear whether this might have been intended to somehow deflect criticism from other Republicans over the book –Â GOPers have said they didn’t know Steele was writing a book until it was released — or whether he might have been speaking figuratively that he decided to write the book earlier. It’s hard to know exactly what he meant.
When we here at TPM heard that Michael Steele had a new book, we immediately bought a copy and I proceeded to read the whole thing cover to cover. Unless Steele is remarkably clairvoyant, it seems as though it could not have been written before he became chairman — it is overwhelmingly a commentary on the political situation in America under President Barack Obama, as of late 2009.The book is full of references to current events in 2009: The stimulus bill, the health care debate, foreign policy, ACORN, the party switch of Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Tea Parties and the 9/12 March on Washington, etc.
On page 38, Steele uses a partial quote from Barney Frank, which was spoken on the Ed Schultz show on October 26, 2009. Steele also takes the quote amazingly out of context, as a Nexis search would demonstrate, to give the misleading impression that Frank was openly admitting that Democrats want to control every last area of the economy — but that’s another story.
On page 61, Steele says of Obama: “He champions bipartisanship, but he supports a process where Nancy rams a 2,000-page healthcare bill through the House of Representatives on a Saturday night with just a single Republican vote.” That vote occurred on November 7, 2009.
In his chapter, “Take Back National Security,” Steele discusses the Iranian elections, the Honduran political crisis, and the Fort Hood shooting, among many other hot topics of this past year.
A few stray parts of the book may have predated Steele’s chairmanship, and been incorporated into the overall narrative. A speech he gave on February 2, 2008, is included at the end as an appendix, as is Ronald Reagan’s “A Time For Choosing” speech from 1964. There is Steele’s discussion of the values he learned from his working-class mother, a theme that has run through his whole political career. There is his take on how the Republicans failed to live up to their small-government principles and lost the confidence of the electorate in 2008.
But even those are mixed in with current events. For example, the chapter on previous Republican failures also includes, on pages 27-29, a discussion of the November 2009 elections. He refers to the gubernatorial victories of Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Bob McDonnell (R-VA), and the three-way roller-coaster ride in NY-23 of Democrat Bill Owens, moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava, and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.
And finally, Steele refers to himself on pages 14, 28, and 73, as being the chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Late Update: Steele’s publisher, Regnery Publishing, told the Hotline that Steele had been “working on parts of the book before he was chairman. He’s made some updates recently.”Parents still on the run over baby's vaccine
Updated
Authorities are still searching for a Sydney couple who are in hiding after refusing to have their newborn baby vaccinated against hepatitis B.
The mother of the four-day-old baby boy has had the virus for several years and doctors say the child runs a high risk of contracting it unless he is immunised within days.
The New South Wales Department of Community Services has taken out a Supreme Court order to force the parents to immunise their child, but has so far been unable to locate the couple.
A DOCs spokeswoman says the department will have to go back to court tomorrow if the parents are not found.
The parents, who are from Croydon Park in western Sydney, believe the illness can be managed more effectively than any potential damage from the vaccine.
The couple believes aluminium in the vaccine could cause the baby more damage than contracting hepatitis B.
The parents have the support of the anti-vaccination group the Australian Vaccination Network.
The baby's father, who is seeking an injunction against the court order, was adamant the family would stay on the run indefinitely.
One of the doctors who alerted state authorities to the couple's refusal to have the baby vaccinated, Professor David Isaacs from Sydney's Westmead Children's Hospital, said yesterday that the child's rights were being ignored.
"If you do not immunise a baby in this situation, you're putting that baby's life at risk," he said.
He said if a baby gets hepatitis B at birth he or she will become a chronic carrier of the virus.
"About a third of those chronic carriers will die young from cancer of the liver or cirrhosis of the liver... this is a horrible disease," he said.
While vaccinations are not compulsory in Australia, New South Wales state health policy mandates that parents of all babies born to hepatitis B-positive mothers must be offered immunoglobulin for the child within 12 hours of birth and four doses of the vaccine over six months.
New South Wales Assistant Police Commissioner Frank Mennilli yesterday declined to say whether the parents would be charged once they were found.
"It'll be something that'll have to be assessed once that child is located," he said.
Topics: law-crime-and-justice, community-and-society, family-and-children, babies, family, parenting, states-and-territories, health, diseases-and-disorders, hepatitis, vaccines-and-immunity, courts-and-trials, sydney-2000, nsw, croydon-2132
First postedBrian Wood has announced the closing of his ongoing Vertigo title DMZ.
The writer has teased the beginning of the end of his comic as it enters into the run-up to its final issue.
"So DMZ ends at 72, but this week's issue, 65, I would call the first of two endings," he wrote on Twitter. "Some major, long-running plotlines wrap up."
In July's issue #67, DMZ will enter into its final arc, titled 'The Five Nations of New York'.
Wood and artist Riccardo Burchielli's comic launched in 2005 and is set in a near-future Manhattan in a United States gripped by a second civil war.
Wood has been rumoured to be taking over writing duties on DC Comics' Supergirl, a title that has passed through a string of different creators' hands since Sterling Gates's departure in December.
His recent projects also include a four-issue miniseries The New York Five. A collaboration with artist Ryan Kelly, the last issue was released last month.Further investigation into social media accounts, news reports, and legal documents support the allegation MN State House of Representatives Candidate Ilhan Omar married her brother, who is not a US citizen, in 2009.
As Alpha News reported last week, Powerline Blog raised some interesting questions about the current state of the DFL candidate’s marriages and the possibility of her committing immigration fraud.
Research by Alpha News suggests that Omar was involved with Ahmed Nur Said Elmi (her legal husband) and Ahmed Hirsi (her cultural husband and father of her children) at the same time.
…
Since last Friday when Powerline Blog’s article broke on the potential marriage/immigration fraud, Ilhan Omar restricted access using privacy settings on her Instagram account. All social media accounts related to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi were deleted within the last week. Alpha News has screenshots of the pre-existing accounts. Ahmed Nur Said Elmi used the same handle for his Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn and other social media accounts (@ahmednelmi). Omar, whose Instagram handle is @hameey, has recently made her Instagram public again. However, she has deleted any pictures of her and Elmi from her visit to the United Kingdom in 2015. Screenshots of Elmi and Omar were featured on Powerline Blog and Alpha News….This is a wonderful little game, I must say.
The story being told is simple, but strong enough to keep you from wanting to quit. You really do find yourself wanting to know more about this boy and girl and how their relationship goes. Of course, this story doesn't quite have a happy ending, but stories would become boring if everything ended happily ever after, wouldn't they? Yeah, I think they would. Overall, the tale is powerful even if it is fairly simple, and it keeps you thinking even after the game has ended.
The gameplay is also simple, but the game is challenging enough to make you think long and hard about the puzzle you're being confronted with. But as stated before, your desire to continue the story helps prevent you from giving up. And that's definitely a great accomplishment. I also would like to add that I deeply enjoyed the little leitmotif you had going on throughout the game; ya' know, that eerie music? It definitely gives you the feeling of being in some kind of dark factory, but it doesn't completely scare you away. It's strangely mystical, much like the story. So it was a wise decision to add it to the game. I commend you for that!
All in all, it's a very nice, challenging game with a thought provoking, sad story. I may not necessarily return to it, as it's quite short (that shortness being the reason it's getting a 4.5 rather than a complete 5 stars) and there's nothing else for it to really offer besides the story, but I will be sure to keep it in mind for quite some time. And I'm very glad that I played it. It really did earn the honor of being called an "art game".
Thank you for sharing this game with everyone online.
~TheGreatCatherine~Out of the ashes rose a green phoenix
Greensburg today
When the initial shock subsided and the time to rebuild arrived, the residents realized that they had an opportunity to turn a tragedy into a triumph—an opportunity to make Greensburg something even better than it had been before. Living close to the land, they knew the value of solar and wind power and of using water efficiently. Conversations began about translating these concepts to rebuilding as a model “green” community, and the idea quickly picked up steam. Soon after the tornado, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) dispatched a team, including its own energy experts and some from its National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), to Greensburg to assist the residents with the technical aspects of rebuilding. DOE’s ultimate goal was to demonstrate energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions that would help Greensburg and could be replicated in other disaster recovery and general rebuilding efforts across the country. Researchers on the DOE/NREL team were interested in understanding how far a city, with the opportunity to completely rebuild, could go toward becoming a net-zero energy community. Project goals included helping rebuild the city as a model community of clean, affordable, and energy-efficient technologies and buildings; facilitating renewable electricity generation for long-term, clean, and economical power; and supporting the reconstruction of Greensburg with access to information and materials to achieve national goals related to energy diversity and reliability.
Burlington, Vermont: Vermont’s largest city reached their 100 percent renewable energy generation in 2014.
With little fanfare, the Burlington Electric Department crossed the threshold this month with the purchase of the 7.4-megawatt Winooski 1 hydroelectric project on the Winooski River at the city’s edge. When it did, Burlington joined the Washington Electric Co-operative, which has about 11,000 customers across central and northern Vermont and which reached 100 percent earlier this year.
Kodiak Island, Alaska: The year was 2012, some people were able to pretend Sarah Palin had never happened. The small community of Kodiak Island, who had been working on a renewable energy plan since 2002, were far ahead of schedule.
Chester County Ready for 100% is pleased to acknowledge Kodiak Island, Alaska for its foresight and determination in having made the change to 100% renewable energy as of 2012! In 2002 the Kodiak Electric Association created a strategy to lower their reliance on expensive diesel fuel and began to plan for wind power, hoping to be 95% powered by renewable energy by 2020. We are so impressed that the Kodiak Electric Association not only reached this goal, but managed to reach it 6 years ahead of schedule! By 2014 it was reported that the 15,000 residents of Kodiak Island were receiving 99.7% of their power from wind and hydropower. The shift to these combined renewable energies has saved the local residents $22 million compared to diesel costs. Before adding the wind turbines, the Kodiak Electric Association had been burning roughly 2.8 million gallons of diesel a year. The change not only saves residents money, but they have also reduced their carbon dioxide emissions by 62 million pounds per year!
Aspen, Colorado: Aspen added its name to the list of American cities that don’t want to end up on history’s “Dark ages” list. Already developing wind power, solar power, and geothermal heat, Aspen was able to push themselves to the max in 2015.
Aspen's transition to 100 percent renewable occurred Thursday after the city signed a contract with wholesale electric energy provider Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, in order "to achieve this final leg of our goal," Hornbacher said. The city had been using about 75 to 80 percent renewable energy beforehand, former city Project Coordinator Will Dolan said. Aspen eliminated coal and added to its wind power to replace the remaining 20 to 25 percent of non-renewable energy and reach its 100 percent goal, Dolan said.
Georgetown, Texas: Mayor Dale Ross is getting lauded for turning this central Texas city on to 100 percent renewables. In a state that is floating on oil, it was the cheaper alternative energy that drove their decision.
"We're worldwide; today we had a crew from Japan filming, and did an interview with commissioner of Wales on UK last Friday, so we truly are an international kind of story... people have a lot of interest in what's going on in Georgetown," said Georgetown Mayor Dale Ross. The city is currently using wind power from a wind farm West of Amarillo and will use a new solar panel unit in West Texas. It's scheduled to go online in 2018.
Yeehawww! Just remember who is telling you it can’t be done. It can be done. It’s being done. Let’s get it done.
(Via)Just before ending his keynote at Future Unleashed in Mumbai, India, Satya Nadella made the big announcement. Finally, Surface Pro 4 will hit the shelves in India in January 2016.
Apart from the availability, no other details were shared, and of course would follow up in a press event around the launch. As yet, no Surface device had been launched in India, and with the Surface Pro 4, the lineup makes the debut in India.
Surface Pro 4 Specifications:
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro
CPU: 6th-Generation Intel Core m3, i5, or i7 (Skylake)
Graphics: m3 Intel HD graphics 51, i5 Intel HD graphics 520, i7 Intel Iris graphics
Display: 12.3-inch PixelSense Display at 2763 x 1824 (267 PPI)
Storage: 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB SSD options
RAM: 4GB, 8GB or 16GB
Rear Camera: 8MP
Front Camera: 5MP
Dimensions: 11.50 x 7.93 x.33 in (292.10 x 201.42 x 8.45 mm)
Weight: i5/i7: 1.73lbs (786g), m3: 1.69lbs (766g)
Are you excited about the Surface Pro 4 hitting the Indian market? Would you be looking to pick one up? Let us know in the comments!If you're going to mess about on the bottom of the ocean feeding sharks, you'd better be prepared for a bit of rough-and-tumble.
That’s the lesson that a group of divers off the Bahamas' Bimini atoll discovered in January this year when they were feeding and filming a medium-sized hammerhead.
The shark began circling the divers before lunging at one of them.
But the experienced diver was able to push the ocean predator away by grabbing onto its head.
As hard as the shark tries, it just can't get close enough to the tasty rubber-suited human to take a chunk out of him, and the diver seems to know it.
There are three species of hammerheads that are considered dangerous to humans.
However, there have been no fatalities among 33 recorded attacks by the sharks.
Their fins are prized by fisherman for the Chinese market, where they are used in shark fin soup.
Overfishing has endangered a number of hammerhead species.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2019You've undoubtedly heard all about the Washington State Cougars by now.
Correction: the ranked Washington State Cougars.
You read that correctly. Mike Leach and his Washington State Cougars are sitting pretty right now with an 8-3 overall record and the #20 spot in the College Football Playoff rankings. Not too shabby for a team that opened the season with a somewhat uninspiring loss to the Vikings of Portland State. That dark day led to a firestorm among the fanbase with our sister site even going so far as to analyze Mike Leach's contract situation to determine the financial consequences of letting their coach go.
Yet, here we are with Cougar nation having gone from up and arms to completely mollified. I offer as evidence two different editorials from Coug Center authored by two of their most experienced writers. In the first - following the PSU loss - Brian Floyd argues that it is time to panic. In the other, from just this week, Jeff Nusser argues that even if Luke Falk misses the game, he's not worried.
The comeback story with the Coug fanbase might be even better than the one of the team itself.
Since that dreary day in Pullman to open the season, it has been a good run for the Cougs. They've won eight of their last ten, scored over 30 points in seven of them and, importantly, played enough defense to prevent more than 30 points in six of them. That's the Mike Leach formula. It seems to be working.
With all of this success, it is somewhat shocking that the Washington Huskies are showing up in Bill Connelly's S&P projections as not only a favorite to beat WSU in the Apple Cup, but a prohibitive favorite. Per Connelly, the Huskies - who have a negative offensive FEI (meaning that on a strength of opponent adjusted basis the offense creates negative points per possession on offense) - have a projected win margin of over 11 points AND more than a 74% win probability.
Before we get into a crazy rabbit hole conversation about advanced stats and projections, it is important to acknowledge that, YES, we all agree that the game needs to be played on the field and, YES, there are limitations to any statistical exercise whose purpose purports to predict the future. All that you can say is that this kind of analysis establishes context for one to form expectations on how the game is most likely to turn out. Connelly has had remarkable success with this method. For the season, his teams that show up in the 70-79% win probability range have actually won 84% of the time.
So, that's good.
Beyond the analysis, however, lies a more interesting question. Why is WSU showing up as such a decided underdog? Keep in mind that this isn't Vegas we are talking about. This analysis isn't affected by subjective assessments or personal opinions. The crunching of objective data is turning out a decided result despite the fact that the Huskies have had a terrible time on offense all season, are 5-6 overall and are sporting true freshman in key positions all over the roster.
This is a question that merits some consideration as fans gear up for the Apple Cup.
I won't bore you with a breakdown of the actual numbers. Rather, I've observed three trends that I think, when boiled down to their underlying statistics, skew this particular model towards Washington.
WSU's Convenient Schedule
The Cougars have benefited greatly from a watered down schedule which, in turn has put a damper on the baseline statistics making up the core of Connelly's S&P based analysis. Recall that everything that they do with this method is adjusted for the strength of the opponent. The Cougars have four wins against very bad teams - at least statistically - in Rutgers, Wyoming, Oregon State and Colorado. They also have two wins against teams - Arizona State and Arizona - that are good wins but don't move the needle too much in terms of overall strength of schedule. The wins against Oregon and UCLA are the two bright spots on the schedule and serve to put upward pressure on that strength of schedule rating. Interestingly, the Cougs benefit from the fact that Vernon Adams contributions to the Ducks schedule overall is positive, but that they didn't have to face him in their victory over Oregon.
Missing from all of this is a win over a top 20 type of team. The Cougs lost to Stanford and missed two very tough matchups in Utah and USC in this year's rotating schedule. Of course, this is not WSU's fault and isn't to say that WSU would not have won one or both of those games. However, the Cougs do not benefit from missing them in the context of this type of analysis.
Compare and contrast this to UW who has played a more difficult schedule overall. A non-conference game against Boise State and conference matchups against Utah and USC add up to a stiffer level of competition than what WSU has faced with Rutgers, Colorado and UCLA. Add in the fact that UW has had tight losses (ASU, Oregon) to teams that WSU had tight wins against and you can see why WSU hasn't blown UW away in strength of schedule analysis.
The Name of the Game
We often talk here about how the only stat that matters is the final score. Indeed, the point of playing is to win and the way to win is to score more points than your opponent. Thus, score differential is a critical "basic" stat that many people pay attention to. It goes without saying that the larger the score differential, the better job the team is doing in consistently beating their competition.
WSU has had a bunch of nail-biters. Rutgers was a three point win. Oregon, Arizona and UCLA were all single digit affairs. Even their "easiest wins" - Oregon State and Wyoming - were by margins that were less than the experts would have predicted. Outside of Arizona State - which they won by 14 - WSU has had games too close for comfort (both in victory and defeat) all season.
UW, on the other hand, has benefited from two significant blowout victories with Arizona and Oregon State. They also played the good teams as closely in defeat as WSU did in victory. One common opponent - Cal - resulted in close defeats for both programs. Again, this doesn't mean that UW played "better" than WSU against those opponents. But it changes the math in the formulas underlying this statistic.
The Zen of Football
You will hear much this week about how WSU has resurrected their defense. And they have. Don't doubt that for one second. However, statistically, this means that they went from very bad to something resembling |
record back to the beginning of the break). This style was copied and improved upon by early hip hop DJs Afrika Bambaataa and Grand Wizard Theodore.This style was extremely popular in clubs and dance halls because the extended breakbeat was the perfect backdrop for breakdancers to show their skills.
In recent times, the term breakbeat has become synonymous with the many genres of breaks music which have become popular within the global dance music scene, including big beat, nu skool breaks and progressive breaks. DJs from a variety of genres, including house and techno, work breaks tracks into their sets. This may occur because the tempo of breaks tracks (ranging from 110 to 150 beats per minute) means they can be readily mixed with these genres, whereas the comparatively fast speed of jungle and drum and bass (160-180 bpm) may have restricted the utility of these subgenres to DJs playing slower-tempo music. Some artists well known for breakbeat include The Freestylers, NAPT, Dj Loopy, Pendulum, Soul Of Man, Dj deekline and wizard, Ben & Lex, The Breakfastaz, Ctrl Z, Stanton Warriors, Dj Icey, Freq Nasty and Plump DJ's.
Breakbeats are used in many hip hop, rap, jungle, and hardcore songs, and can also be heard in other music, from popular music to background music in car and jean commercials on the radio or TV.
(Source: Wikipedia.com) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakbeat× Amber Alert cancelled for missing Indianapolis infant at request of IMPD
Update: Willie Wilson was found not guilty of murder. Read more here.
Original story:
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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (August 29, 2014)-- The Amber Alert for a missing 6-week-old baby boy has been cancelled at the request of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD).
"I'm thinking they should be out here searching," said Delano's uncle, Romel Perkins, after hearing about cancellation. "He's out here somewhere."
The family of Delano Wilson is offering a $10,000 reward as the search for the 6-week-old boy enters its third day. Police were conducting a grid search concentrated on woods in the area where the boy was last seen, and IMPD have set up a command unit nearby.
At least 100 people are involved in the effort to find the little boy, who was reported missing Wednesday. His father, Willie Wilson, claims a man and woman tried to rob him at gunpoint before hitting him and taking off with the baby in a blue Taurus. Wilson says the abduction happened just after noon Wednesday in an alley in the 1400 block of Henry Street, near the family’s home on Chase Street.
Thursday’s search turned up empty. Police said they’ve received numerous tips in the case. The search area will be released, giving the “all clear” to people in the area. It is possible other areas could still be searched.
Over the past three days, missing person detectives believe the Amber Alert message has reached its maximum audience. With the decrease in tips, detectives have requested the cancellation of the Amber Alert.
"It doesn't diminish the seriousness of what we're trying to do," says IMPD Sgt. Kendale Adams. "I think we've pretty well saturated the area with the information."
Detectives feel confident the continued use of the department’s internal messaging, use of its social media links, continued coverage by local media, and information for the public is sufficient and yields the best opportunity to find Delano. Additionally, detectives believe that the Amber Alert has increased awareness surrounding Delano's alleged abduction.
An Amber Alert is not issued for every missing child. According to in.gov/amberalert, the victim must be under the age of the 18. The child must also be in immediate danger, and there must be a description of the suspect or suspects.
The cancellation of the Amber Alert does has no barring on the active investigation into Delano's abduction. IMPD will continue to use all necessary resources and techniques to bring Delano back home.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Delano is asked to call 911 or text 888777 keyword “IMPD” with information.On a warm day in April 2013, I was sitting in a friend’s kitchen in Paris, trying to engineer serendipity. I was trying to get my computer to write music on its own. I wanted to be able to turn it on and have it spit out not just any goofy little algorithmic tune but beautiful, compelling, mysterious music; something I’d be proud to have written myself. The kitchen window was open, and as I listened to the sounds of children playing in the courtyard below, I thought about how the melodies of their voices made serendipitous counterpoint with the songs of nearby birds and the intermittent drone of traffic on the rue d’Alésia.
In response to these daydreams, I was making a few tweaks to my software—a chaotic, seat-of-the-pants affair that betrayed my intuitive, self-taught approach to programming—when I saw that Bill Seaman had just uploaded a new batch of audio files to our shared Dropbox folder. I had been collaborating with Bill, a media artist, on various aspects of computational creativity over the past few years. I loaded Bill’s folder of sound files along with some of my own into the software and set it rolling. This is what came back to me:
I was thrilled and astonished. It was exactly what I was hoping for: The computer had created alluring music—music I wanted to listen to!—from a completely unexpected manipulation of the sonic information I had given it. The music was at once futuristic and nostalgic, slightly melancholy, and quite subtle: Even the digital noise samples it used—basically sonic detritus—seemed sensitively integrated. It gave me the distinct, slightly disorienting, feeling that the computer was showing me something vital and profound about an art form that I had practiced for over 20 years. This fragile, beautiful music had qualities that were utterly new to me, and I wondered what else I could learn from the computer about musical possibility.
When I returned to the United States, I met Bill in his studio in a repurposed tobacco warehouse on the campus of Duke University, where we are both on the faculty. I showed him the software processes that produced the music that excited me. We immediately began brainstorming workflows that imagined the computer as a full-fledged collaborator. We wanted to invent a silicon-based life form to help make music that mere carbon-based life forms could never imagine on their own. Our rationale was that the computer could quickly navigate vast amounts of sonic information and return results that would have never occurred to us. If we could increase the probability that the computer would deliver compelling and unusual results, we would have essentially built the ideal artistic collaborator: miraculously inventive, tireless, and egoless.
Also in Music Ingenious: Jonathan Berger By Kevin Berger I was electrified by Jonathan Berger’s music before I knew he wrote about music. His chamber works arise out of a lightning storm of modernist angles, dramatic and startling, though anchored to melodies that sail like a swallow, as one...READ MORE
Bill and I had another—you might say lofty—goal. We wanted to spotlight the creative process in both humans and computers. We wanted to show how it was similar, how it was different, and how the two processes together could expand the scope of artistic expression.
As Bill and I saw it, human creativity can be defined as making connections—governed by unpredictable, subjective forces—between seemingly unrelated bits of information. Music is particularly well suited to serve as a model for the creative process. Human composers have multiple components of information—melody, harmony, rhythm—at their fingertips. But composers don’t normally don’t write the melodies, harmonies, and rhythms of a piece sequentially. These elements tend to implicate each other and emerge together from the composer’s imagination. Bill and I wanted to emulate this organic emergence of interrelated elements in the computer.
Photo by Kyle Yamakawa
In fact, we wanted to show that computers can be profoundly creative, can do things that humans can’t. For most of human history, our creative intuitions have been inextricably linked with memory: What we call inspiration is often a remix of ideas that we have encountered in the past, in the works of others. Computational processes make it possible to disentangle memory from the creative impulse by generating results that do not rely on what Ray Kurzweil calls the human brain’s 300 million “pattern processors.” All human knowledge, according to Kurzweil, is reducible to patterns of information that are stored, through learning and experience, in the neocortex.
Imagine asking a human composer to write a melody using only the white notes of the piano; then give a computer the same instructions. The computer wouldn’t have spent a lifetime being conditioned by voluntary and involuntary musical consumption, nor would it have the kind of muscle memory that years of piano lessons produce in a composer. Furthermore, computers are unburdened by questions of taste and style, and don’t tend to make wrongheaded assumptions that might bypass innovation. There’s nothing inherently wrong, of course, with the remix model of creativity. Observing the influence of one artist on another affirms the communal aspect of artistic expression, the fact that artists don’t work in a vacuum. But there’s also no reason that human creativity should be limited by human physiology.
After three years of discussions and experiments, Bill and I produced an album of electronic music called s_traits. It came out on this past November and we were thrilled when The New York Times named it one of the “Top Music Recordings of 2014,” calling it “emotive and eerily beautiful.” We were certainly glad to take the credit, but it didn’t belong entirely to us. Although we created the computer system that produced the album, we were consistently startled at the musical intelligence it seemed to possess.
We began by amassing an enormous database of more than 110 hours of audio, the trove of information that our software system would eventually use to form its own compositions. The database sources included fragments of discarded pieces; field recordings; recordings of our respective early works; acoustic instrumental samples, including recordings Bill and I made on a beautiful Steinway at Duke; electronic drones; soundtracks from obscure, old documentaries; and digital noise generated by opening PDFs as raw data in a sound editor. One of the discarded pieces was the early electronic version of my percussion duo Straits (2010), a work inspired by the Kenneth Koch poem of the same name, which now exists only as an acoustic piece. I Dropboxed the electronic track from Straits over to Bill, who chopped it up into tiny slivers of sound.
At first we put whatever we wanted into the database. After a while, however, we found that we were evolving an unspoken set of criteria for what stayed and what went. We’d periodically survey the database contents and delete anything that struck us as out of place. Here are a few examples of sound files that survived the culling:
These sound files made the cut because they have a mysterious allure. They contain kernels of melodic or rhythmic information and are spacious enough to be integrated with other samples. I should also mention that these samples were themselves probably generated from other sound files in the database. We added a degree of self-referentiality to the database by generating new samples from existing ones.
We knew that whatever information we put into the database would have a real but unpredictable effect on the music generated from it. Every sample could potentially be chosen by the system at any moment, but it was impossible to know when that might occur. By organizing the samples into categories of roughly equal size—drones, melodies, chords, rhythms, noise, and so forth—we would be able to maximize the variety of system’s output. After about three years of hoarding audio, we were finally satisfied that the database contained the right quantity and mix of samples. We could start thinking seriously about what kind of software processes were needed to extract the full, crazy potential from our expansive sound world.
So just how did we get our system—which we now call bearings_traits—to compose music instead of simply outputting random sounds? The easiest way for me to describe the design-thinking behind bearings_traits is to take a brief detour into the world of frogs.
We wanted to invent a silicon-based life form to help make music that mere carbon-based life forms could never imagine on their own.
One day when Bill and I were discussing some aspect of our project, he mentioned a 1959 paper co-written by the American cognitive scientist Jerome Lettvin and the Chilean biologist and cyberneticist Humberto Maturana titled “What the Frog’s Eye Tells the Frog’s Brain.” The part of the article that most interested me described how the complex phenomenon of sight arises from the concurrence of four simple operators, namely, the fibers of the frog’s optic nerve that detect the contrast, convexity, movement, and dimming of an object in its field of vision. In isolation, the information each bundle of fibers delivers to the frog’s brain isn’t terribly exciting. But firing in concert, they produce a composite image of the frog’s surroundings that allows it to hop and swim and hunt.
This gave me the idea to build bearings_traits as a network of many tiny software functions, arranged like the bundles of amphibian optic fibers I read about. I was fascinated that something as miraculous as sight could arise from connecting simple binary processes such as light/dark detection. Of course, car engines also work this way, if less mysteriously: spark plugs fire, pistons move, and you get to where you’re going. Invigorated by this biological detour, my thinking about bearings_traits veered toward mechanical analogies. I thought of the individual software processes making up bearings_traits as little machines that each perform one simple task contributing to the larger, more complex goal of creating computer-generated music.
Courtesy of John Supko
Perhaps the most basic example of one of these machines is the kind that simply determines the duration of a sound file. Before bearings_traits can do anything compelling with a sample, it has to know how long it is. Some of the machines operate on only a portion of a given sample, randomly selecting the start- and endpoints of the portion it will play. If a sound file is only 22 seconds long, for example, we wouldn’t want the system to try to play anything past 22 seconds because there’d be nothing to play. Once bearings_traits knows the sizes of the files it’s dealing with, it can pass that information to other machines that do more interesting things, such as creating strange rhythmic loops from the chosen files based on precisely calculated durations.
During the development phase of bearings_traits, I would typically code some aspect of the system using the popular visual programming language Max/MSP and show it to Bill. For example, perhaps we were working on a way for the system to transition smoothly from one rhythmic pattern to another. We would load in a few sound files and listen to what the computer was doing with them. Then we’d try to figure out how to improve it—maybe the transition functionality was too fast or too slow—or to elaborate it further. To give you an idea of what these brainstorming sessions were like, I’ll input those sound files I showed you a moment ago into a very early version of the system. Let’s see what happens.
At this point, Bill would come up with a million new ideas, which he’d rattle off, rapid-fire, as I hunched over my laptop trying to turn the damn thing off: Maybe the system could detect the pitch information of what it was writing and then call up banks of harmonizing drones or compose new contrapuntal melodies? Maybe the system could record itself and then pass those recordings back into the system, automating the generative process? I’d get confused and overwhelmed and wild-eyed. Then I’d go home and try desperately to incorporate some of Bill’s brilliant suggestions into the system. Afterward we’d meet again and repeat the entire exercise.
When the software began at long last to spit out what seemed to us like “first draft” compositions—meaning that we perceived both a structural integrity to the music as well as the potential for further development—we started to intervene as the computer’s collaborators in order to bring the “drafts” to completion. Our approach was to keep the computer’s staggering inventiveness but to refine it in ways only a human (at least for the moment) can. For instance, if I heard something—a melody, a chord progression—that had an emotional attraction for me, I would draw attention to it in the mix, repeating it and developing it further if necessary. If there was potential for a dramatic moment of attack or climax, I’d try to bring it out. Bill made similar interventions. All 26 tracks of s_traits were the results of this triangular collaborative process. Here’s one of them, titled “flung overboard as poetic justice”:
To foster emergence, and fresh connections, one of the most versatile little machines that we created in bearings_traits is something we call a “generative looper.” We call this machine generative because it literally generates its own rhythmic profile in real time. Every time bearings_traits triggers the looper it plays a different segment of the sound file loaded into it. This ensures that the looper will never exactly repeat itself. The duration of the chosen segments can be fixed or variable. If the looper is set to find a new segment as soon as it finishes playing the previous segment, a glitchy rhythm can be prolonged indefinitely. Depending on the nature and length of the sound file, and the average length of the chosen segments, the resulting effects can range from subtle undulations to rather dramatic convulsions.
Several copies of the generative looper can be bundled into a larger device we call an engine. In one such engine, the output of up to five loopers operating simultaneously on five different samples can be superimposed, instantly creating complex, polyphonic textures.
In contrast to the generative looper engine’s continuous, multi-layered textures, another engine comprised of machines that each look for a tiny amount of sound in the database—let’s call this one the fragment engine—can play up to five different fragments in alternation in order to create unpredictable rhythmic patterns. The number of sound files used to create a pattern, the duration of the fragments extracted from each file, the playback direction (backward or forward) of each fragment, and the order in which each fragment is played are all subject to discrete decisions made by the system. Bearings_traits can also decide (or be set) to make patterns in which all sound fragments have the same duration, which would create a more or less regular rhythmic feel, or to make a random decision about how long each fragment will be, creating much stranger, asymmetrical grooves.
Bearings_traits has two basic methods for integrating the audio produced by its various components into a “final” mix. One method amounts to the computer controlling a mixing board, deciding which faders to boost and which to attenuate. In this way, discrete channels of audio from one engine can be replaced by those of another engine. Crossfades—the simultaneous fade-in of one sound as another fades-out—are also possible at varying speeds, from imperceptibly gradual to almost instantaneous. An entire subset of machines is dedicated to managing these mixing board functionalities. These machines detect when sound is coming through a channel they control and can decide to fade it in or out.
Not only can computers process more information than humans can, they are also unburdened by questions of taste and style.
The other method amounts to bearings_traits remixing the music it composes in real time. Bill wanted to give the system the ability to record itself and then modify the recording in various ways, adding the modified version back into music it was making. One way bearings_traits can modify its recordings is by changing the playback speed. Not only does this change the pitch of the material in the recording, it also has the potential to create a static, drone-like effect if the playback speed is very slow, or a burst of manic sonic energy, if the recording is speeded up significantly. Bearings_traits can also play back portions of its self-recordings at regular or irregular time intervals, creating idiosyncratic interjections in the musical texture. At any moment, the speed of each interjection can be modified. By linking these two simple functionalities—playback time intervals and playback speed—a much more dynamic result emerges. The music doesn’t simply repeat mechanically; its patterns feature strange little anomalies, such as fragmentations and pitch changes, which create interest.
When we listen to the results of these operations on the sound material that we load into bearings_traits, it’s tempting for Bill and me to believe that we’ve gotten closer to the dream of engineering serendipity, or at least increasing its frequency. To see what we mean, here is a new “draft” composition generated especially for Nautilus by the current version of bearings_traits. I’ve been demonstrating the capabilities of only components of the system. This short recording will give you an idea of what bearings_traits can do when all the component machines are linked together. You’ll also probably hear why we consider these “drafts” ripe for further development by human musicians. Our compositional process always begins this way, by turning on bearings_traits and following the unpredictable results to places we couldn’t have imagined before.
The spoken words you hear are fragments of a long text Bill wrote for s_traits as a response to the poem “Straits” by Kenneth Koch, which had inspired my earlier percussion duo. At the beginning of each new composition it generates, bearings_traits chooses one text fragment recording, read by Bill, to serve as a title as well as a suggestive prompt to color the listener’s experience of the music.
Most of the generative processes I’ve been describing use some form of repetition. The dynamic handling of repetition is a major aspect of the design of bearings_traits. In music, as in most forms of human expression, repetition is used to distinguish what is important from what is less so; it’s how meaning is elaborated by the composer and perceived by the listener. In a Mozart piano sonata, the thematic building blocks of the music are identifiable because they are usually the most prominently repeated elements in the piece. That’s no mystery. It’s exactly what you’d expect. What is mysterious, however, is the proportion of repetition to variation of the material, the thought processes that lead a composer to diverge from a repeated pattern in order to introduce a new detail. Indeed, that new detail might then itself become structurally important to the music by dint of repetition.
Bearings_traits plays with the proportions of repetition and variation in the music that it generates, but does so in quirky, improvisational ways. Perhaps more than anything else, this detail of the system demonstrates that the work Bill and I are doing privileges the artistic result over any kind of scientific or technological standard. In attempting to harness computational creativity, we never nursed the hope of one day replacing ourselves as composers. Once we started being delighted and astonished by the system’s output, we could stop pretending to be computer scientists and concentrate on the business of making weird music.
Mondadori Portfolio / Contributor
Bill and I love the compositions bearings_traits is able to concoct. It’s often oddly beautiful, inside-out, upside-down music that inspires us to contribute surprising details of our own devising. The creativity of the system enables us to use our own creativity differently. And when we don’t like what bearings_traits comes up with, we simply throw it out and ask for more, with no hard feelings.
Bill and I always planned to refine the system’s compositions ourselves. At present, bearings_traits simply can’t observe what it’s doing and make value judgments. It can’t listen and say, “That’s amazing! I want to do more with that!” We reserved that role for ourselves because our ultimate goal was to make striking, original music for humans to listen to. Besides, adapting our human creativity to the computer’s strange musical material was an education in itself.
Our strong feelings about human intervention in the computer’s work shouldn’t suggest that we’re uninterested in continuing to develop the capabilities of bearings_traits. On the contrary, there’s an endless amount of exciting work still to be done. For my part, I aspire to make works that will continue to evolve and reinvent themselves long after I’m gone. To a certain extent, Bill and I have already accomplished this goal. We can install bearings_traits in a room and turn it on indefinitely, confident that it won’t ever come close to repeating itself. But we can go further than simply guaranteeing constant, endless invention. Giving the system a kind of self-awareness is an obvious next step.
In theory, every decision bearings_traits makes can be codified, recorded, and analyzed. Examples of these decisions might include: the sound files chosen (and which parts of them), the frequencies or pitches the sound files contain, the number of machines playing concurrently, and the resulting harmonies of the musical textures. From this information it would be relatively easy to give bearings_traits the ability to develop something akin to its own taste, assigning values to its past behaviors and allowing it either to increase or decrease—arbitrarily at first, then eventually with the weight of historical precedent—the recurrence of these behaviors in future compositions.
Ultimately, the music Bill and I wrote with bearings_traits showed us that computation could indeed complement human creativity with thrilling results. In the future, humans will continue to be the arbiters of their artworks, but the option to integrate computer-generated materials derived from raw information—a series of chords, images, choreographic movements—will only serve to enrich artistic practice. Moreover, technology will increase its potential to uncover unexpected, electrifying connections between seemingly disparate fields of information. And far from dehumanizing art, the development of technological processes to expand the scope of human expression follows a deeply human trajectory. Works of art developed with the aid of such technology will, in turn, ever more closely reflect the frenetic, promiscuous, voracious human minds that create them.
John Supko is the Hunt Family Assistant Professor of Music at Duke University, where he and Bill Seaman co-direct The Emergence Lab in the Media Arts + Sciences program. Supko’s music can be heard on the New Amsterdam and Cotton Goods labels.I wanted to title this graph, “Why Fantasy Football Is a Nightmare for People Who Love Math,” or maybe, “Not Even Bayesian Models Will Help You Win Your Fantasy Football League,” but they were too long.
I rarely make a graph that is personal, but after barely clinching a playoff spot in my league on Monday night, I needed to vent a little. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but I researched meticulously prior to my draft and built a detailed model for selection order (though some errant clicking and poor time management led to a couple mistaken selections). I even built a Bayesian model for informing my waiver wire pickups. And yet, my team is solidly average. When it comes to fantasy sports, I’ve lost faith in the notion that the advantage goes to the statistician.
Maybe I’m just bitter that LeSean McCoy has been so mediocre or that Julius Thomas is injured. Maybe I expected to do better when Yahoo graded my draft as an A-, the best in my league. Maybe I haven’t figured out how to account for garbage time or susceptibility to injury. Maybe I need to stop playing fantasy football – my wife would certainly support that decision.
Anyway, for me, this graph sums up why there is so much luck involved in drafting the perfect team. If points were based on ADP, we would expect to see strong negative correlations for each position. Though there is a weak correlation for some, it mostly just appears as a jumble of dots.
Clearly, the any-given-Sunday principle holds. So good luck in the playoffs, everyone. You’ll need it.
Data source: http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/An NRI IT consultant on Friday began a three-day hunger strike outside the Indian High Commission in London to protest the Indian government’s failure to introduce absentee ballots for NRIs around the world.
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Nagendra Chindam is the co-founder of the Pravasi Bharat group set up in August 2012 to campaign for the right of the diaspora to vote in Indian elections.
“This is the very last resort. We have written numerous letters, organised peaceful protests and a march in London in October 2012 but the government has failed to address the issue,” Chindam said soon after he began his fast.
He plans to consume only water until 1600 GMT on Republic Day, when he will break his fast near the iconic Mahatma Gandhi statue at Tavistock Square in the heart of London.
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“As January 26 is an auspicious day for us, we will gather to lay floral tributes to the Mahatma, sing our national anthem and together sign a petition to state that we are the concerned citizens of India residing abroad and concerned about the well-being of our nation,” he said, referring to an online petition titled ‘Vote by Special Ballot for Indian Citizens Living Abroad’ that has gathered hundreds of signatures from NRIs across the globe.
The Pravasi Bharat also filed a petition calling for the option of postal or online ballots for NRIs in India’s Supreme Court and a three-judge bench has directed the Election Commission to reply.
“While that case remains pending, the 2014 general election is round the corner and it is extremely crucial that people with the right to vote have a say in the result. These are educated, intelligentsia votes that have the potential to change the dynamics of politics in India,” said Chindam, who has been based in the UK for five years.
“There are many like me who have joined this fight, including doctors, scientists, IT professionals and students. They are concerned about the nation and have every plan to be a part of its future.”
Under the Representation of the People (Amendment) Act 2010, Indian citizens living abroad are eligible to vote in Indian elections but only if they are present in their respective constituencies on the day of polls.
The Pravasi Bharat group has issued a white paper outlining practical difficulties of this requirement and called on India to follow countries like the US, Canada and Pakistan in organising a credible absentee ballot system.
“Even Pakistan has created a software allowing its non-resident citizens to vote. It is not a big deal for a country like India, where scientists can go to Mars,” the group argued.
According to an estimate of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, there are 8 million NRIs across the globe.
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The group claims this could add up to an average of 15,000 votes per MP, per constituency and, because in some cases MPs win by fairly narrow margins, the NRI vote could swing the results in as many as 50 constituencies.Not Mr. VanRy, who is 40 and works for a supplier of stock film footage, video and music. He challenged the summons. He got a lawyer. He filed motions. He showed up in court four times. No, he corrected himself, make that five times. For one reason or another, delays kept coming.
It just didn’t seem right to him to be ticketed for sitting on his own stoop bothering no one. As he saw it, this was an example of “the government poking its nose into what heretofore would have been considered private parts of our lives or private parts of our space.”
“I also think,” he said, “that it goes against some long-held traditions, particularly in the outer boroughs, of sitting outdoors and meeting people that walk by randomly. You get to know each other’s names and their dogs’ names. That’s one of the charming parts of living in one of the boroughs.”
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As the case wore on, “the reaction of judges and even some court officers was sort of amazement that somebody would follow through on this,” he said. Also intrigued were many readers of a community newspaper, The Brooklyn Paper. They responded to, and debated, a series of articles about the Battle of the Stoop.
“There’s nothing more Brooklyn — or no Brooklyn icon maybe short of the bridge that is associated with Brooklyn more — than the stoop,” said Gersh Kuntzman, the newspaper’s editor.
Last week, a judge tossed out the case on a technicality. The matter had dragged on too long, he said.
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For Mr. VanRy, the victory was less than satisfying. Larger questions about stoop sitting and sipping were not addressed.
City law forbids alcoholic beverages to be drunk in “any public place,” which is defined as “a place to which the public or a substantial group of persons has access, including but not limited to any highway, street, road, sidewalk, parking area, shopping area, place of amusement, playground, park or beach located within the city.”
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Does one’s own stoop fall within this broad definition? And is it “public” because, as some in law enforcement assert, the public can see the drinking? While we’re at it, how many people does it take to form “a substantial group” on a stoop?
Much is left to the judgment of individual police officers, and that can put us squarely in the realm of the arbitrary. Neighbors drinking beer on their front steps get these “quality of life” summonses, but not people sipping wine at New York Philharmonic concerts in Central Park or knocking back frozen daiquiris at summer movie screenings in Bryant Park.
The very definition of “quality of life” comes into play. One could argue, as Mr. VanRy does, that a stoop-sitter improves the quality of life by “having another set of eyes on the street.”
Is it better, he asked, for people to “just come home at the end of the day, shutter themselves behind closed doors and not have any interaction with others in their neighborhood?”
So when the weather turns warm, might he test the law again? “In all likelihood,” he said.
Mr. VanRy grew up near Rochester, in a family that was active in local affairs. “I was just kind of raised with a sense that you don’t have to roll over and accept things as they are when something like this happens,” he said.Sen. Dick Durbin Richard (Dick) Joseph DurbinKids confront Feinstein over Green New Deal Senate plots to avoid fall shutdown brawl Overnight Energy: Trump ends talks with California on car emissions | Dems face tough vote on Green New Deal | Climate PAC backing Inslee in possible 2020 run MORE (D-Ill.) on Sunday called on Congress to pass new gun control laws following the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., that left 50 people dead and 53 more injured.
If Congress does not act, Durbin said it would be "complicit in the next killing."
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"We have the power to act, and we must," Durbin, the second-ranked Democrat in the Senate, said, according to Reuters.
"The bottom line is that we allow dangerous people to buy guns in America and that has got to change. In the coming days, Congress must take a stand against hate, terrorism, and this horrific gun violence.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York called the attack a “horrific reminder” for lawmakers about the need for more strict gun control legislation.
“It is far past time for Washington to act,” he said in a statement, according to The New York Times.
The shooting at an Orlando nightclub was the deadliest mass-shooting incident in U.S. history.
The suspect, Omar Mateen, was killed inside the club during a shootout with police.
The FBI confirmed Sunday evening that Mateen called 911 before the attack and said his remarks has general connections to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
An official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Mateen has legally purchased at least two firearms "within the last week or so."
The suspect had been interviewed by the FBI three times, in 2013 and 2014, before carrying out the attack, which President Obama called an act of terror.Science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson calls out politicians for denying science, says science is what made America great in the first place.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Climate change denial. Teaching creationism in school. Rejecting vaccinations for kids. Those forms of science denial — and others — worry science educator and communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson.
They bother him so much, in fact, he partnered with Redglass Pictures to make "Science in America," a four-minute video about the rise (and potential fall) of science in this country.
Tyson acknowledges that there will always be issues facing a nation but argues that science allows for truth, and denying it only delays whatever political solution leaders inevitably come to.
He calls on citizens to educate themselves on science issues, so they can be informed when they go to vote.
"Recognize what science is and allow it to be what it can and should be in the service of civilization," Tyson says. "It's in our hands."
You can watch the full video on Tyson's Facebook page.CloudFlare engineer Ben Cox says the official Github repositories of the UK Government, Spotify, and Python were accessed using likely compromised SSH keys.
Cox says the keys revoked this month are subject to a compromised Debian OpenSSL random number generator seed discovered and fixed in early 2008.
The security bod discovered the vulnerable keys in the hands of users with commit access to high profile respositories after he scraped some 1.4 million SSH keys from Github.
“I used g0tmi1k’s set of keys to compare against what I had in my database, and found a very large amount of users who are still using vulnerable keys, and even worse, have commit access to some really large and wide projects,” Cox says.
“The most scary part of this is that anyone could have just looped through all of these keys just trying to SSH into GitHub to see the banner it gives.
“It would be safe to assume that due to the low barrier of entry for this, that the users that have bad keys in their accounts should be assumed to be compromised and anything that allowed that key entry may have been hit by an attacker.”
The risk is that attackers could locate and crack the affected keys and a handful of others that used weak key strengths to insert malcode into popular projects.
Cox has not attempted to gain access to the compromised repositories.
Affected projects include:
Spotify’s public repos (and any private repos those employees had access to)
Yandex’s public repos (and any private repos the person had access to)
Crypto libraries to Python
Django
Python’s core
gov.uk public repos (and any private repos the person had access to)
Couchbase (and any private repos the person had access to)
A ruby gem that is used on a large amount of CI systems (compromise of |
am Aadmi Party leaders for accusing the Union minister of financial bungling in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA). Jaitley has sought Rs 10 crore in damages in his civil defamation suit.
The big question, however, is if the Delhi Chief Minister would again want the aam aadmi to pay for the bills of the lawyer who would defend him in this case.
SHOULD I PAY FROM MY POCKET?
Arvind Kejriwal had earlier courted controversy when reports of the Delhi government wanting to foot the bills of Ram Jethmalani had surfaced.
Ram Jethmalani had reportedly sent bills to the tune of nearly Rs 3.8 crore to Arvind Kejriwal for representing the Delhi Chief Minister in the defamation case filed by Arun Jaitley.
While the Opposition attacked the Delhi government for using public money to pay Jethmalani, Arvind Kejriwal's government maintained that the fight against Arun Jaitley was a public and not a private issue.
"There were allegations of corruption in DDCA. Our government formed a committee to probe this matter and free cricket from corruption," Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said.
Arvind Kejriwal, while addressing a rally ahead of the MCD election, said, "It was a case of corruption. Should I pay (Ram) Jethmalani from my own pocket?"
AAM AADMI MAY HAVE TO PAY
Before filing the fresh case against Arvind Kejriwal, Arun Jaitley asked Ram Jethmalani if the objectionable word, crook, was used as per instruction from Arvind Kejriwal.
Jethmalani replied in affirmative. "If this is so, I would aggravate the charges against the defendant (Kejriwal)," said the Finance Minister.
With yet another case filed against him, and perhaps another battery of lawyers defending him in the court, Arvind Kejriwal may again want the taxpayer or the aam aadmi to foot the legal bills.
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Jaitley again sues Kejriwal for Rs 10 crore after Delhi CM's lawyer Ram Jethmalani calls him a 'crook'
When Jaitley lost his cool over Ram Jethmalani in Delhi High Court
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ALSO WATCHEvery offseason, NFL teams add and subtract players. For every rookie added, there is a veteran watching and wondering if his time is running out with his current team. There’s also players who have job security looking for their team to draft them some help. The Los Angeles Rams aren’t immune to this process and will eventually be parting ways with even more of the 2016 roster. Here a few players that the 2017 NFL Draft may have affected most.
WR Pharoh Cooper
Rams added two WRs in rounds 3 and 4 of the draft. Cooper Kupp and Josh Reynolds should be considered safe due to their recent draft selections as should FA signing Robert Woods and veteran Tavon Austin. After that Cooper will be in a battle between fellow second-year WRs Mike Thomas and Nelson Spruce as well as special teams ace Bradley Marquez. Thomas was a key contributor on coverage units while Cooper rarely took a return outside the end zone. Pharoh has a huge training camp ahead of him to prove his special teams worth and offensive ability. The new staff likely won’t care about his draft status.
TE Corey Harkey
The one thing going for Harkey is that Rams Head Coach McVay loves TEs and none of the current TE group are known for being great blockers. The bad is that Harkey is getting older and has been more of a FB in years past. The Rams drafted FB Sam Rogers who is a personal favorite of McVay (who also mentioned FB Zach Laskey by name) and can do everything Harkey has done on special teams. Harkey has been a vocal leader for the Rams but guys who don’t play at a high level have expiration dates. Is Harkey’s coming soon?
RB Todd Gurley
It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t believe Gurley’s 2016 struggles were 95% of the offensive lines fault. Well, they didn’t add any OL talent through the draft and got much older at the C and LT position during free agency. It’s an offensive line that upgraded massively at LT but still has many questions along the rest of it. OL Coach Aaron Kromer went to bat for many of the lineman but if you believed the OL was the root of Gurley’s problems in 2016, its hard to suddenly feel that it won’t remain an issue for a good portion of 2017. There will be plenty of Kool-Aid to sip once training camp begins, I’m sure. There always is.
S Cody Davis
A Fisher holdover, Davis was a core special teams member and contributed on defense. After already signing former Broncos special teams ace and do-it-all DB Kayvon Webster, the Rams took S John Johnson in the 3rd round leaving Davis’ role on defense somewhat in question. Before the draft the Rams floated around the possibility of CB Lamarcus Joyner playing some safety too. Davis can still make the roster due to his abilities on special teams but any ideas of him playing significant snaps on defense after T.J. McDonald’s departure should be squashed.For his third Christmas, Tina bought Brandon a first-rate Army set—complete with a Kevlar hat, walkie-talkies, and a hand grenade. Both Tina and Brandon’s father had served in the Army, and she thought their son might identify with the toys. A photo from that day shows him wearing a towel around his head, a bandanna around his waist, and a glum expression. The Army set sits unopened at his feet. Tina recalls his joy, by contrast, on a day later that year. One afternoon, while Tina was on the phone, Brandon climbed out of the bathtub. When she found him, he was dancing in front of the mirror with his penis tucked between his legs. “Look, Mom, I’m a girl,” he told her. “Happy as can be,” she recalls.
“Brandon, God made you a boy for a special reason,” she told him before they said prayers one night when he was 5, the first part of a speech she’d prepared. But he cut her off: “God made a mistake,” he said.
Tina had no easy explanation for where Brandon’s behavior came from. Gender roles are not very fluid in their no-stoplight town, where Confederate flags line the main street. Boys ride dirt bikes through the woods starting at age 5; local county fairs feature muscle cars for boys and beauty pageants for girls of all ages. In the Army, Tina operated heavy machinery, but she is no tomboy. When she was younger, she wore long flowing dresses to match her long, wavy blond hair; now she wears it in a cute, Renée Zellweger–style bob. Her husband, Bill (Brandon’s stepfather), lays wood floors and builds houses for a living. At a recent meeting with Brandon’s school principal about how to handle the boy, Bill aptly summed up the town philosophy: “The way I was brought up, a boy’s a boy and a girl’s a girl.”
School had always complicated Brandon’s life. When teachers divided the class into boys’ and girls’ teams, Brandon would stand with the girls. In all of his kindergarten and first-grade self-portraits—“I have a pet,” “I love my cat,” “I love to play outside”—the “I” was a girl, often with big red lips, high heels, and a princess dress. Just as often, he drew himself as a mermaid with a sparkly purple tail, or a tail cut out from black velvet. Late in second grade, his older stepbrother, Travis, told his fourth-grade friends about Brandon’s “secret”—that he dressed up at home and wanted to be a girl. After school, the boys cornered and bullied him. Brandon went home crying and begged Tina to let him skip the last week.
Since he was 4, Tina had been taking Brandon to a succession of therapists. The first told her he was just going through a phase; but the phase never passed. Another suggested that Brandon’s chaotic early childhood might have contributed to his behavior. Tina had never married Brandon’s father, whom she’d met when they were both stationed in Germany. Twice, she had briefly stayed with him, when Brandon was 5 months old and then when he was 3. Both times, she’d suspected his father of being too rough with the boy and had broken off the relationship. The therapist suggested that perhaps Brandon overidentified with his mother as the protector in the family, and for a while, this theory seemed plausible to Tina. In play therapy, the therapist tried to get Brandon to discuss his feelings about his father. She advised Tina to try a reward system at home. Brandon could earn up to $21 a week for doing three things: looking in the mirror and saying “I’m a boy”; not dressing up; and not wearing anything on his head. It worked for a couple of weeks, but then Brandon lost interest.I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying at Rajagaha in the Bamboo Grove, the Squirrels' Sanctuary. Then Vassakara the brahman, the minister to the king of Magadha, approached the Blessed One and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: "I am of the view, of the opinion, that when anyone speaks of what he has seen, [saying,] 'Thus have I seen,' there is no fault in that. When anyone speaks of what he has heard, [saying,] 'Thus have I heard,' there is no fault in that. When anyone speaks of what he has sensed, [saying,] 'Thus have I sensed,' there is no fault in that. When anyone speaks of what he has cognized, [saying,] 'Thus have I cognized,' there is no fault in that."
[The Blessed One responded:] "I do not say, brahman, that everything that has been seen should be spoken about. Nor do I say that everything that has been seen should not be spoken about. I do not say that everything that has been heard... everything that has been sensed... everything that has been cognized should be spoken about. Nor do I say that everything that has been cognized should not be spoken about.
"When, for one who speaks of what has been seen, unskillful mental qualities increase and skillful mental qualities decrease, then that sort of thing should not be spoken about. But when, for one who speaks of what has been seen, unskillful mental qualities decrease and skillful mental qualities increase, then that sort of thing should be spoken about.
"When, for one who speaks of what has been heard... what has been sensed... what has been cognized, unskillful mental qualities increase and skillful mental qualities decrease, then that sort of thing should not be spoken about. But when, for one who speaks of what has been cognized, unskillful mental qualities decrease and skillful mental qualities increase, then that sort of thing should be spoken about."
Then Vassakara the brahman, delighting & rejoicing in the Blessed One's words, got up from his seat and left.Wynk is the music app for every mood! From Rahman to Rihanna, it has over 1.8 million songs across Indian and International music. Stream and download songs by genres, moods, artists or simply tune into one of the many Radio channels and let it surprise you. Plus, it’s all ad free! Get the latest and greatest hits of Bollywood, English, Indipop, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Bengali, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi & Rajasthani songs. Subscribe to Wynk Plus or Wynk Freedom to get unlimited downloads and enjoy music offline without data charges! More reasons to start Wynk-ing : • Unlimited ad-free Streaming • Playlists by moods, artists and genres • Internet Radio for hours of un-interrupted music • Song and album purchase – Get mp3 downloads • Set caller ring back tone for any song* • Vernacular UI – Interact with app in English or Hindi • Use on mobile internet or wi-fi • Flexible sound quality - HD(320/256 kbps) / High(128 kbps) / Medium(64 kbps) / Regular(32 kbps) • Support for Chromecast Wynk Plus offers : • Unlimited in-app downloads at Rs99 per month. Download songs to play them offline • First month subscription is free as trial offer. • Special subscription price for airtel customers is Rs29. Wynk Freedom* offers : • Unlimited streaming and downloads at Rs129 per month. No data charges apply • First month subscription is free as trial offer. All payments can be made using Carrier billing**, net banking, credit or debit card. Subscription automatically renews every month unless auto-renew is turned off a least 24 hours prior to expiry of current subscription period. You can manage renewal from ‘Settings’. *Wynk Freedom is only available for subscription to airtel 3G customers. ** Only available for airtel customers Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/wynkmusic Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wynkmusic Mail us for Feedback: contact@wynk.in Rate us with 5 stars if you like the app.The U.S. Navy has been testing the use of 3D printers on its ships to produce custom drones outfitted for specialized missions.
The project, being carried out by researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School, is investigating whether modern communications and fabrication technology can be combined to give sailors a new tool for whatever mission they are deployed on.
Holding a quadcopter drone in his hands, Alan Jaeger, a faculty research associate at the school, said it was designed by engineers on shore based on requirements of the sailors at sea. The drone was printed on board the USS Essex last December, he said.
The 3D design file was emailed to the ship over a satellite link, and sailors loaded it into the printer. They printed the parts and then followed instructions for assembly, marrying the plastic parts with electronics that were already on board. Those parts included the motors, radio, controller and a GPS unit.
Jaeger said the idea is that ships could set sail with kits of the core electronics parts, since they are common to most drones, but have the bodies designed according to specific requirements for each mission.
“The challenge aboard a ship is logistics,” he said. “Once a ship leaves, getting additional parts to that ship becomes difficult.”
In the case of the USS Essex drone, it was designed to carry a small camera and transmitter that would send live video back to a head-mounted display being worn by a sailor. The drone’s mission was to fly over ships in support of anti-piracy work.
The ship already had a 3D printer onboard, installed to support its medical role and be used for printing surgical tools.
The flight tests on the Essex revealed some of the potential problems, most of which were associated with operating the drone rather than the printing itself, Jaeger said.
“Even with a small amount of wind, something this small will get buffeted around,” he said. They also had to figure out the logistics of launching a drone from a ship, getting it back, how it integrated with other flight operations, and interference from other radio sources like radar.
In a brief flight demonstration during an event at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Jaeger took the drone up to prove it flew. Other maneuvers were restricted because of the facility’s proximity to the Moffett Field runway.Description: Details the moment when Crooked Hillary realized her campaign was over.
Trump just finished speaking at a rally in Charlestown, West Virginia.
Tomorrow, he's holding rallies in both Omaha, Nebraska,
and Eugene, Oregon, the stronghold of hipster cucks in the Northwest.
Then on Saturday, he's appearing in Spokane, Washington,
at the Convention Center, overlooking the Spokane River.
Soros has ads for protesters on Eugene's Craigslist.
BLM will whip those worthless hipsters into a frenzy.
Madame Secretary...
Protesters...
Protesters only succeed in getting Trump more votes.
He won Illinois after Chicago, and polls show him crushing California.
The following people will stay here: Huma Abedin, Dana Milbank, Nate Silver and Chris Matthews.
This was supposed to be my turn!
I got Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC on my side!
The New York Times and the Washington Post do nothing but trumpet my propaganda!
The media's used every trick in their book.
They called him a racist, a sexist, a xenophobe.
But it's only making him stronger!
You think it's Kryptonite to Superman, but it's actually spinach to Popeye!
And what rhesus monkey came up with the idea of calling him Dangerous Donald?!
Madame Secretary, we ran that through countless focus groups.
I pay $4 million to learn how to stump Trump and this is the best we've got?
Madame Secretary, we've still got the Woman Card.
That might have worked if we didn't use the international symbol for the ladies' room!
Nobody's even buying them!
You useless twats who majored in political science
because you thought it would get you laid.
Do they even teach you how to wipe your ass in pundit school?!
You might as well have taken lesbian dance therapy. At least you'd have a skill to fall back on.
With all your credentials, not one of you can tell me how to stop an orange-faced baboon with no political experience from becoming president.
How am I going to beat Trump with all his High Energy,
when I'm still struggling against a senile old cuck who thinks he's Stalin?!
I still don't know why I'm still not clinching the younger women demographic.
I mean, I am "a battle-tested warrior for women and children" after all.
I'm fighting for us as the women's candidate.
God damn, Bill.
All these years he's been preying on other women, and like a dumbass, I've been protecting him.
I think he's passive-aggressively torpedoing my campaign.
Yelling at those BLM thugs...
Yesterday I saw a meme of Trump choosing Monica Lewinsky as his running mate!
All I get are memes about Elizabeth "The Indian" Warren!
It's okay, Anna. Elizabeth Warren isn't REALLY an Indian.
History books won't remember my accomplishments, no.
They'll write about how Trump trolled me with that goddamn taco bowl
Why did I say "Hispanics?"
My campaign is done.
At least when I get sent to prison, they'll name Season 3 of Orange Is the New Black after me.
Who's got the TV show now, Donald?
Maybe Trump will pardon me when he's elected.Dawn party most fearful, Greens most tolerant according to EU-wide election calculator
Prague, May 16 (ČTK) — About two-thirds of Czechs who have used the European election calculator EUvox consider Islam a threat to Czech society, according to an analysis of the results carried out by the Academy of Sciences Sociological Institute, released today.
The institute assessed the opinions of 18,000 Czechs. More than 1 million people used the application throughout the EU.
EUvox is to help voters in their decision-making. It offers 30 questions. The result is the highest-percentage accord with a party running in the elections.
Islam is feared mainly by those who agreed most with the opposition Dawn and the Civic Democrats (ODS), the extra-parliamentary Party of Free Citizens, and partially also the government ANO movement.
Only about 10 percent of Czechs are not afraid of Islam. The least afraid of it are supporters of the Green Party.
“The all-European comparison shows that Czech users of EUvox take stands that can be marked as the least tolerant of Islam. Islam is seen as a threat in the Czech Republic more than in France or the Netherlands, whose inhabitants have a direct experience with coexistence with the religious minority,” Michaela Vojtková, from the Sociological Institute, said.
According to EUvox, one third of Czechs definitely consider Islam a threat. Overall, two thirds of Czechs are afraid of it.
On the contrary, less than one tenth of EUvox users are definitely opposed to this opinion. About 20 percent of people do not know, or are indifferent to it.
“The results have shown that Europe is afraid of Islam. Practically all over Europe, there are no negligible groups of voters who believe that Islam threatens their cultural traditions,” Vojtková said.
More than 90 percent of Czechs, who agree with the Dawn of Direct Democracy movement see Islam as a threat. More than 70 percent of “voters” of the Party of Free Citizens and the ODS and about 70 percent of those whose opinions are closest to ANO’s consider Islam a threat. About 60 percent of persons whose opinions are closest to the Communists’ (KSČM) and the junior government Christian Democrats’ (KDU-ČSL) are afraid of Islam.
This also applies to about a half of “voters” of the Pirates, the senior government Social Democrats (ČSSD) and the opposition TOP 09. Twenty percent of Greens’ “voters” are afraid of Islam, which is the least proportion.
Islam is feared more by older people. Some 70 percent of people over 60, compared with 44 percent of those aged 18 to 29, are afraid of it. This does not apply to the Dawn’s supporters, who consider Islam a threat irrespective of age.
Some parties and politicians directly speak against Islam. The Dawn movement has taken over in its EP election campaign a poster of Swiss nationalists featuring a black sheep which white sheep are kicking out from their midst.
KDU-ČSL EP election leader Pavel Svoboda first said his party does not want a “Europe full of unadaptable migrants,” but later the sentence was removed from his manifesto.
The spot of the Czech Sovereignty party features politician Jana Volfová enveloped in a burka, warning against Islam and “the stoning of daughters and grand-daughters” over kissing in the street.AB de Villliers walks off the field after being dismissed against India in a Pool B Cricket World Cup match.
Cape Town - Proteas captain AB de Villiers says he has taken note of former New Zealand cricketer Martin Crowe's letter to him.
With the South Africans feeling the heat at the Cricket World Cup, Crowe wrote a letter for the ESPNcricinfo website in which he gave the SA skipper a few words of advice.
The Proteas beat Zimbabwe by 62 runs in their first game of the tournament, before taking a battering against India last Sunday, losing by 130 runs.
Crowe says all is not right with the South African bowling attack and he also advised De Villiers to give the struggling Wayne Parnell a shot at opening the bowling.
In his letter, Crowe also gave De Villiers advice on the rest of the bowling attack, as well as the batsmen.
CLICK HERE to read Martin Crowe's full letter to AB de Villiers
De Villiers spoke to the media ahead of his side's clash against the West Indies in Sydney on Friday.
De Villiers told the Sport Rack website that he did read Crowe's letter.
"It's quite interesting," said De Villiers. "Some valuable points he made there, some points also not that valuable.
"But I think he comes from a good place and that makes me want to read it and want to take the good points from that.
"So, point taken and, what can I say, just thank him for that, for the input, and hopefully we'll make some of the points count."
The 52-year-old Crowe announced last year that he had suffered a cancer relapse.
He was first diagnosed with lymphoma in 2012, but after months of chemotherapy, he said doctors had told him the cancer had shrunk to safe levels, although there was always the possibility of a relapse, which occurred in September 2014.
A cousin of Hollywood star Russell Crowe, Martin Crowe is widely regarded as the best batsman to have represented New Zealand.
He averaged 45.36 in his 77-Test career, which included 17 centuries.
In 1991, he scored a New Zealand record for the most runs in a single Test innings when he was dismissed for 299 playing at Wellington's Basin Reserve against Sri Lanka.
The record was not broken until last year when current captain Brendon McCullum reached 302 on the same ground against India.About
The 1800s were alive with danger, hard work, and adventure … and no internet, air conditioning, or cell phones! What was it like on the old frontier? Every day was a struggle, every day was a challenge, yet they pressed on. In some ways, we have to wonder today where the fun is in waking up in a safe, comfortable world? Imagine what it would have been like to live in the old west, riding horses through the open plains, growing your own food, building your own towns, hunting for food, and protecting your homes. Survive the West is an engaging, adventurous game that is realistic, fun, and historically accurate. Can you Survive the West?
You begin the game with only a few items: clothes, boots, hat, water sack, and a mysterious book from your cousin. Starting from zero, you build your way up, but it is easier said than done. You must watch out for desert predators, rogue bandits, natural disasters, and unfriendly Indians! But don't worry, you are not alone. You can invite your friends, gain trust among the traders, and make peace with the Indians. Because the game is realistic, you can do just about anything you want, and there are no must-dos, requirements, or game restrictions to make you perform a set of tasks. It is up to you, live your story, and Survive the West … if you can!
You can choose to be anyone you want: man, woman, cowboy, Indian, bandit, farmer, miner, lumber jack, and more!
As far as gameplay goes, your character's body and head follows your mouse, and WASD controls the movement (W to follow mouse, S to move away from the mouse, A and D to stray side to side, and space to jump). You left click or press E to execute an action, such as shooting, placing an item, etc. There are other shortcuts to perform specific actions, such as dodging, ducking, picking up items, throwing, etc. You begin with several pre-made Western outfits, but you can swap out your clothing if you want. You can also buy in-game outfits in an in-game general store, or weave and dye your own. Select Kickstarter backers get to have a Kickstarter Exclusive Wardrobe of outfits nobody else can ever get, make, or find!
The game is intentionally as close to reality as possible, though with a voxel-like appearance. Water, for example, flows and splashes about, but it retains the voxel grid. Sand, dirt, gravel, and other raw materials collide and influence your surroundings, but still retain their voxel shape.
Keep in mind that the environment has a great effect on your character. At night, the temperature drops, and so does your body temperature. You had better get some thicker clothes or build a fire so you don’t get too cold. In the blazing sun of the afternoon, you should drink a lot of water and put on a hat to avoid getting too hot, or worse, a heatstroke! Also, you need to keep an eye on your food meter. If you run out of food, you could starve to death!
Your temperature is high! You should find shade, drink more water, or put on a hat.
Yikes! You look very cold! Build a fire or put on some warm clothes.
Your body temperature is fine, but you are very hungry and thirsty. You should find food as soon as you can!
What do you need to do? You can build your house, grow crops on a farm, mine for minerals and metals, make friends with Indians, collaborate with other players, create a town, protect yourself from bandits, govern the land, create weapons, explore the wilderness, trap animals, or do anything you choose on the wild frontier! There is a lot to discover out there. Many surprises await! What will you do in the wild west?
Some of the many dangerous creatures you should avoid!
Occasionally, you will see NPCs (non-player characters) that you can interact with. Some are actually historical figures who also lived in the 1800s. If you spot Annie Oakley, you might get a chance to test your shooting skills, and if you meet Buffalo Bill, you can join a roundup of buffalo. The Old West characters can appear anywhere at any time, which is another reason to keep your eyes open.
When you help support Survive the West, you will receive rewards according to your pledge level. The perks and rewards are listed below.
Your name will be on the Backer List found in the credits of the game and on the website. Thank you for your contribution!
You get to reserve your username so nobody else can take it. You will be able to reserve your username months before the public can!
Digital Copy! Receiving a Premium Account lets you have unlimited singleplayer worlds and access to the multiplayer server.
You receive all updates days before the public does!
You will be sent a CD that contains the PC, Mac, and Linux versions. This should ship out before Christmas 2016.
Gain an exclusive Sheriff Star next to your username so other players know you are special and backed the game launch! (Kickstarter Exclusive)
Your name will be integrated into a Wanted Poster in-game to be seen on buildings, saloons, in towns, and more. This does not affect your character or your rank in any way. It is just for decoration and awareness of your name (all names must be approved).
Gain access to backer-only clothes and boots. (New ones will be added to the wardrobe.) These can never be bought or made and are unique for Kickstarters only.
The name you choose (must be approved) will be assigned to a computer generated NPC. This allows you to choose names for the people you see throughout the game. You can still pick your name as your own username.
You choose a name for a town that will be randomly placed in both singleplayer worlds and multiplayer servers (town names must be approved).
You receive a code that turns one free account into a Premium Account.
You are sent a CD containing the PC, Mac, and Linux versions, along with a Premium Code sticker on the back.
Design an original pixel art painting that will be shown in-game. Your pixel-painting will be seen in bars, homes, general stores, jails, and more (pixel paintings must also be approved). This unique opportunity allows you to display your pixel artwork to a worldwide audience. The title of the painting, artist's name, and a non-clickable link to the artist's website will be shown in-game. Also a clickable link will be on the Survive the West website. This helps increase your fanbase! Note: pixel art is not required immediately, you have a few months to create it. The available pixel art sizes that you may create are as listed (sizes are in pixels):
Example: Players will be able view who created a painting!
Get in-game money when your pixel painting is bought by other players!
Add your original instrumental Western-themed music in-game as a record to be played in jukeboxes in every town across the frontier! You get paid in-game when it is selected or bought by other players who want it for their own in-game record players. Your music could also be used as background music, saloon music, or general store music! (Note: Your music must be original and created by you. Music must be non-vocal (instrumental). All music must be approved.) This is a great opportunity to permanently showcase your musical talents in front of an ever-increasing global audience. The title of the music, artist's name, and a non-clickable link to the artist's website will be shown in-game. Also a clickable link will be on the Survive the West website. Your name (and website) will appear: on top of jukeboxes, on top of record players, in the corner when the music plays in the background, saloons, general stores, and where ever you hear your music! Gain even more exposure and recognition for your musical abilities! Musicians need to reserve their space today, but songs will not be required for a few more months. Already created a western-bluegrass-country-ish song, but with vocals? Thats ok! you can create an instrumental version with a guitar melody instead of the vocals, for example. Note: music is not required immediately, you have a few months to create it.
Example: Players will be able to play the musicians' music in a jukebox.
The initial Kickstarter goal is $7,000, which covers most of the costs and labor to get Survive the West up and running, but more money means Survive the West can be created more quickly! The plan is to develop and release the game first for Windows, Mac, and Linux and then later develop the iOS, Android, and other versions. If sufficient funds are raised, the other versions will be created alongside the development of the computer versions.
Where is all the money going to? This chart shows how the estimated expenses break down:
Inspired by the western books by Louis L'Amour, we decided to create a game around surviving the harsh conditions of the Wild West. We originally planned to create a flat 2D pixel game (you can view the “2D demo” here). Later we realized that to create a game about real life, the 2D pixel version lacked depth and excitement. It was far from the realistic 3D voxel version we have today. Also, after visiting Kauai and seeing the amazing and wonderful Waimea Canyon, also known as the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific,” we were inspired to create a much more visually appealing game. We believe people will gain a new understanding of the Old West and the struggles people faced back then! We hope you enjoy, and survive, the West!THE Abbott Government has today passed a new law that will make illegally downloading movies and TV shows, such as Game of Thrones, much more difficult.
The law is designed to block Australians from accessing sites that house pirated content, such as KickassTorrents.
The new anti-piracy legislation, which cleared Parliament today with bipartisan support, empowers copyright holders to apply to the Federal Court to block overseas websites that offer content that infringes copyright.
The federal government says Australians need to be reminded that if they take too much from creative industries, such as film or music, without giving back, they will jeopardise content.
The legislation is a win for Hollywood studios and record companies, which will now be able to apply directly to the court for an injunction to disable access to the sites without having to establish whether the carriage service providers, which house the sites, are liable for the offending content.
Torrenting sites, such as The Pirate Bay, and streaming services, such as Project Free TV, are likely to be blocked.
The power to block offending sites would only apply to those operated outside of Australia.
The Bill states that the copyright holders would need to meet and “intentionally high threshold test” so that only sites that “flagrantly disregard the rights of copyright owners” are blocked.
The crackdown is designed to be an efficient way to “disrupt the business models” of infringing sites.
SO, WILL IT ACTUALLY WORK?
The same type of torrent blocking system has been in the UK since 2011 with little success. Some of the most popular torrenting sites in the world, including The Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents, have all been blocked, but people keep finding ways to download content.
Typically, within hours of a site being put on the block list by an internet provider, hundreds of mirror sites that offer the same content pop up for users to access. Then, by the time those sites are blocked or taken down, there are more to replace them. It’s a never-ending circle.
UK residents have also worked around blocks by using proxy websites, which stop the internet service providers (ISPs) from thinking they are actually visiting those websites.
As a result, proxy sites have also been blocked.
However, The Pirate Bay, the world’s biggest torrenting site, now uses a new service to host the site, which stops most ISPs from being able to block it. The new service effectively hides the information about The Pirate Bay from internet providers, making it harder for them to block access to their main site.
James Brandes from ORGZine, a UK digital rights magazine, says: “Not only is the block policy fundamentally failing, but it raises important censorship.”
‘A SIGNIFICANT NEW CENSORSHIP POWER’
Consumer advocacy group Choice slammed the reforms last week, saying they amounted to an “industry-run internet filter” that would “limit access to international websites that offer consumers a greater range of more affordable products and services”.
“At its heart, this is about protecting uncompetitive local industries who have failed to provide timely and affordable content and services,” Choice campaigns manager Erin Turner said.
Ms Turner said the reform wasn’t about just stopping access to torrenting sites. It was also designed to stop Aussies from using virtual private networks (VPNs), which can allow Australians to circumvent geoblocks in order to access overseas streaming services.
Many Aussies use VPNs to access the US version of Netflix because it offers more content than the recently launched Australian version.
“We know both sides of politics are under a lot of pressure from big rights holders to support this new law and it looks like they have given in,” Ms Turner said.
The Greens submitted a report criticising the Bill, saying that it would give a “significant new censorship power” to the court and copyright holders.
At the same time, the submission questioned the effectiveness of the crackdown.
“There is a substantial weight of evidence showing that it will be relatively easy to evade the Bill’s provisions, that it does not contain appropriate safeguards, and that it may result in legitimate online sources being blocked,” The Greens submission read.
“Most importantly, there is also a significant weight of evidence showing that the Bill will not meet its aims, as it does not address the underlying cause of online copyright infringement: The continual refusal of offshore rights holders to make their content available in a timely, convenient and affordable manner to Australians.”
The law passed the Senate today 37-13. It was opposed by The Greens, David Leyonhjelm, Glenn Lazarus and Ricky Muir.
— With AAPLOS ANGELES, CA |
new industry for the economy."
Dope tourists could also be lured by cheap, legal, high-quality marijuana, but the authorities are adamant that they last thing they want is for Uruguay to end up as the "Amsterdam of Latin America". Only residents will be entitled to buy cannabis. Re-sales are prohibited. Coffee shop that put Indica, Sativa or Hash Browns on their menu will be closed down. "We are trying to learn from the mistakes made by other countries," Fernandez says.
Juan Vaz, a marijuana grower and long-time legalisation campaigner, hopes the regulation strategy can be applied to other narcotics.
"It would make a big health impact if we could do the same for cocaine, crack and other drugs so users could avoid accidental overdoses. That would also make a lot of profit for the government."
So far, however, Uruguayan officials have dismissed suggestions that they might use the same approach for harder drugs. They say the health risks posed by cocaine and heroin are far greater than those associated with marijuana so they require a different strategy.
Nonetheless if the senate passes the cannabis bill as expected, it won't only be the country's smokers who are delighted. Several Latin American leaders have also called for a shift from the current prohibition approach as the war on drugs takes a rising death toll with no sign of victory. Uruguay, once again, looks set to take the first step for the region.
Vaz, who spent 11 months in prison for marijuana growing, says he now feels responsible for making the policy a success. "I will celebrate. It will be a victory. For many years we have been asking for this. Now we can ask nothing more," he says. "Now it is up to us to make it work."
Additional research by Mauricio RabuffettiThe water tower at the Flint water plant. (Photo: David Guralnick, Detroit News)
Flint — Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration is considering hooking Flint back up to Detroit’s water system temporarily in an effort to get a handle here on troublesome water quality and lead issues.
Officials have identified $1 million in state funding that will be used to buy water filters for residents. The state will also work to expedite construction of a new water line to Lake Huron so a planned water authority that would service Flint could get up and running as soon as possible.
The Snyder administration’s steps are part of the state’s response to rising fears of lead contamination in the water reaching Flint homes, particularly in its low-income neighborhoods. For a year and a half, the city has drawn its drinking water from the Flint River – an arrangement that has led to major problems for residents.
Snyder’s decision on temporarily reconnecting Flint to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department system, its former source of water, is expected within a week.
A Detroit water official said the department is “excited about the possibility” of resupplying water to Flint.
“I think at this point it makes sense we speak directly to the city of Flint,” said William Wolfson, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s general counsel as well as chief administrative and compliance officer. “We want to provide services to any community.”
Only Flint officials would know how long or how difficult it would be to hook back into the Detroit system, but Detroit would not charge a special fee for reconnection, Wolfson said.
In January, Flint officials said a Detroit offer to reconnect to its water system would cost Flint an additional $12 million a year or more.
For some residents, reuniting with the Detroit system can’t happen soon enough.
“I feel like I can’t even breathe anymore with how bad it’s gotten...,” said Carrie Younger-Nelson, a 60-plus-year resident of Flint. “We need to go back (to DWSD).”
State officials appeared at Flint’s Kettering University Friday to announce multiple steps meant to improve water safety and reduce fear after reports that city children are showing higher amounts of lead in their blood. The moves include:
■Immediately testing drinking water at each of the city’s traditional public, charter and private schools.
■Expanding exposure testing in individual homes, free of charge and using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency laboratories to process the samples quickly.
■Making free water testing available to residents.
■Increasing corrosion controls at Flint’s water treatment plant.
■Strengthening the existing Flint area safe drinking water committee by adding Dr. Eden Wells, Michigan’s’ chief medical executive.
Researchers from Virginia Tech and Hurley Children’s Hospital in Flint said last week that lead levels in local children have risen since the city, under Snyder’s appointed emergency manager, started getting its water from the Flint River instead of the Detroit system in April 2014. Studies showed that in some areas lead levels doubled and, in two local ZIP codes, the levels tripled.
Lead poisoning can cause learning disabilities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At very high levels, it also can lead to seizures, coma and even death.
A crowd of roughly 30 protesters gathered at Kettering to show their frustration over the city and state’s handling of Flint’s water problems. Some of the signs read “Not Your Labrats,” “Our Health Matters” and “No More Filters – Back to Detroit Water.”
Mona Haydar was among those demonstrating.
“There’s just this feeling of being duped,” Haydar said. “They’ve been telling us it’s safe to drink, and now we hear that it’s not. It’s not fair.”
Sebastian Robins brought his 19-month-old son to the protest.
“We’ve just been getting more and more concerned as more information has come out,” he said. Robins said he would welcome a return to the Detroit system, even with a monthly price tag of up to $2 million per month for the city.
Through December 2014, Flint’s water was testing at 6 parts per billion for lead, Snyder said. But during summer testing it rose to 11 parts per billion, much closer to the federal limit of 15 parts, he said.
“I think it’s prudent given the increase that we take action,” Snyder said. “I think it’s very prudent that we take these action measures going forward.”
The plan’s release came as the Genesee County Health Department said 4,000 water filters, purchased by local agencies, would be handed out Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the University of Michigan – Flint’s Recreation Center at 401 Mill St. The priority is to give the filters to low-income Flint families with children younger than 5.
But U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, said he wants “all parties to adopt a greater sense of urgency than I’ve seen demonstrated thus far” and ensure every Flint resident in need gets a lead-clearing filter.
Kildee worries that corrosion control hasn’t been started yet in the Flint water system.
“Experts acknowledge that corrosion control treatment takes time once introduced – weeks or even months – to move throughout the water distribution system and fully take effect,” he said in a statement. “Thus, delaying corrosion control treatment will only delay improving the water quality.”
Local officials have long complained of high rates the Detroit water system charged its customers and wanted instead to tie in to the planned Karegondi Water Authority, which is expected to begin drawing water from Lake Huron some time next year.
At the heart of the problem are the lead plumbing connections that tie much of Flint’s old housing stock to city water lines. Water that tests clean at withdrawal and after treatment can take on lead once it reaches the lead connections at the home.
State officials repeatedly emphasized Friday the testing has shown the water meets safe levels when sampled at stops before it reaches the home.
“We’re going to commit to working with the city to accelerate the long-term replacement of lead service lines,” DEQ’s Wyant said. The state will also work to ensure permits and work tied to the Karegondi Water Authority project are not held up unnecessarily. he said.
jlynch@detroitnews.com
(313) 222-2034
Staff Writer Chad Livengood contributed.
Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/1FLp7PnSALT LAKE CITY — A new essay published Tuesday by the LDS Church on its website says scholarly or critical efforts to determine Joseph Smith's ability to translate papyri are "likely futile."
The essay, titled "Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham," is about the origins of a single book in the canon of Mormon scripture.
"The veracity and value of the book of Abraham cannot be settled by scholarly debate concerning the book’s translation and historicity," the essay concludes. "The book’s status as scripture lies in the eternal truths it teaches and the powerful spirit it conveys. The book of Abraham imparts profound truths about the nature of God, his relationship to us as his children and the purpose of this mortal life. The truth of the book of Abraham is ultimately found through careful study of its teachings, sincere prayer and the confirmation of the Spirit."
Critics and some scholars have questioned the origins of the book because the only fragments of the papyri that still exist include nothing related to Abraham. The essay addresses the criticism in some detail and includes links to additional responses.
"This Gospel Topic page is important because many people have had questions about the origin of the book of Abraham but have had a difficult time knowing where they can find good answers," said Kerry Muhlestein, director of BYU's Egypt Excavation Project and associate chairman of the Department of Ancient Scripture, in an email.
"The Book of Abraham Gospel Topic page clearly outlines the things we know, and, more importantly, the things we don’t know about the Book of Abraham," Muhlestein added. "It also fits it into the important context of Joseph Smith as a translator and the doctrinal contributions of this valuable book of scripture."
The LDS Church published the five chapters of the Book of Abraham in 1842. It entered the Latter-day Saint canon in 1880 as part of the Pearl of Great Price.
This Gospel Topic page is important because many people have had questions about the origin of the book of Abraham but have had a difficult time knowing where they can find good answers. –Kerry Muhlestein
A group of Latter-day Saints obtained four mummies and several papyrus scrolls excavated from a tomb near Thebes in 1835, when an entrepreneur brought them to LDS Church headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio.
The Mormon faith's founder, Joseph Smith, wrote in his history that after he began to translate some of the characters on the papyri, “much to our joy (we) found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham.”
That book was the final set of scriptures translated by Joseph Smith. Most famously, he previously had translated the Book of Mormon. He also produced a translation of the Bible. The Pearl of Great Price is chiefly comprised of revelations he received between the founding of the church in 1830 and his death in 1844.
He didn't claim to be an expert in languages. He and the church considered the translations to be inspired, and he used multiple methods, including revelation.
For example, the Book of Moses, also included in the Pearl of Great Price, came via revelation as he studied the Bible. The essay says that the Book of Abraham also could have come that same way as Joseph Smith studied the papyri.
The papyri moved with the church from Kirtland to Nauvoo, Illinois, but after Joseph Smith's death they remained behind with the Smith family when the Mormons moved west to Utah beginning in 1847. The essay says the family sold the papyri and mummies in 1856. Most of the artifacts vanished in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
Efforts to discredit Joseph Smith's translation begin with a facsimile, a type of drawing, included in the book. Some Egyptologists, according to the essay, said his "explanations of the various elements of these facsimiles did not match their own interpretations of these drawings."
So often critics of the church have been the ones to articulate the church's 'position' regarding the translation of the Book of Abraham, and rarely have they been accurate in their representations. This will no longer be the case, we can now see what the church itself has to say about the source of the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith's abilities to translate. –Kerry Muhlestein
In 1967, a fraction of the papyri was discovered in a museum and returned to the church. None of the characters on the recovered papyri mentioned Abraham or any of the text in the Book of Abraham, but the papyri are incomplete and the essay said it is likely that much of what was available to Joseph Smith is not among these fragments.
"The Gospel Topic page addresses all of these difficult issues head-on, with clarity and full forthrightness," said Muhlestein, whose own work appears in the essay's footnotes three times.
"It is likely futile to assess Joseph’s ability to translate papyri when we now have only a fraction of the papyri he had in his possession," the essay says. "The loss of a significant portion of the papyri means the relationship of the papyri to the published text cannot be settled conclusively by reference to the papyri."
The publication of the essay continues an effort begun late last year by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to provide more information about the faith's history and doctrine through its Gospel Topics section on LDS.org.
The essay focuses on how the Book of Abraham "supports, expands and clarifies" biblical accounts, how the church obtained the papyri, what is known about how Joseph Smith translated them and the role of faith in understanding scripture.
The essay is divided into seven sections covering 2,900 words. There are 46 footnotes. Three-fourths of those are scholarly references, while a quarter are scriptural.
"So often critics of the church have been the ones to articulate the church’s 'position' regarding the translation of the Book of Abraham, and rarely have they been accurate in their representations," Muhlestein said. "This will no longer be the case, we can now see what the church itself has to say about the source of the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith’s abilities to translate."
Other Gospel Topics pages enhanced or added at LDS.org since early December include "Race and the Priesthood," Becoming like God," "First Vision Accounts," "Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah," "Book of Mormon and DNA Studies" and "Book of Mormon Translation."
The new or enhanced Gospel Topics pages are approved by the senior leadership of the church, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and are intended to help church members and others learn and understand more about the faith's history and doctrine.
Scholars say the new pages represent an effort by the church to bring more transparency to its history.
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Mega rich Chinese club Tianjin Quanjian have confirmed they are “still working” on a deal to sign Diego Costa.
Mirror Sport revealed on Wednesday the Chinese Super League club are willing to pay Costa £650,000-a-week AFTER TAX and the fear at Chelsea is that may be affecting his form and the reason behind his goal drought.
Tianjin Quanjian billionaire owner Shu Yuhui told Sina Sports: “I can only say that we are still working on the deal [to sign Costa]. And we have already made contacts with several players.
"We have high standards [in buying foreign players] and those players prefer top clubs such as Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
"It's safe to say that we have the same transfer targets as those illustrious clubs.
(Image: John Peters)
(Image: Michael Regan)
“We may have to pay bigger price because our club are now competing with Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.”
Tianjin Quanjian tried to sign Costa in January in a stunning £90m deal with the belief among the Chelsea players that the Spain international will go in the summer.Seth Rosenblatt/CNET
LAS VEGAS -- With all the intensity and sincerity of a drill sergeant rallying his troops to war, former FBI Executive Assistant Director Shawn Henry urged hackers to do their part to fight the biggest cybermenace out there: cadres of unknown attackers infiltrating government and corporate networks to steal data and potentially do worse.
"I implore all of you to be committed to your cause, because the stakes are too high. And I believe our failure to step up is a failure to society," Henry, wearing a business suit and sporting a shaved head, told the crowd during the keynote presentation that started off the 15th annual Black Hat security conference here. "Our failure to do so means people are going to get hurt and people are going to die."
The keynote started with video footage of members of the FBI's critical incident response group leaping from helicopters, shooting guns, setting off incendiaries, and doing other very loud things in unidentified places. Henry said that when he led that unit he learned that "we need warriors to fight the enemy."
Now the threat from computer network exploitation and computer attacks is the most significant threat society faces, other than a weapon of mass destruction going off, because so much data integral to our lives is stored electronically and is thus vulnerable, he said. And despite all the news of consumer passwords leaked and credit card data being stolen, 90 percent of the computer-based attacks affect classified systems, he added.
The attackers can range from anybody with a $500 laptop and an Internet connection to terrorist groups hell-bent on pulling off the cyber-equivalent of September 11, he said. Meanwhile, it's business as usual for many organizations. "We need to have a paradigm shift in the way we all do business," Henry said.
Companies can't just rely on defending the perimeter of their networks with firewalls anymore, Henry said, without providing too many specifics (though more detail may come from his new security firm, CrowdStrike, which he surprisingly did not plug in his keynote speech). In more general terms, he said companies need to be more proactive. And no, he's not talking about hacking back against other countries that appear to be launching the attacks in a strike back kind of action.
"There is a lot we can do to create a hostile environment for an adversary, maybe it's denial and deception," such as allowing cybercriminals to steal decoy files, he suggested. He also praised efforts at shutting down botnets by seizing command-and-control servers. "I would argue that your data is being held hostage and that the life of your organization is at risk."
So, defense starts in the corporate network and it's up to the elite cyberwarriors in the audience to put this battle front and center, he seemed to be saying.
"I can only ask you to stand side by side to protect that line between good and evil. People might think I'm being dramatic, but I believe it," Henry said. You have a responsibility and an obligation to your company, to your customers, to your families, to your co-workers. You have an obligation, because if we don't do that, bad things are going to happen. This is the time to step up. Together we can change this game."
The polite applause and lack of rousing cheers afterward could be seen as a sign that Henry's keynote failed to strike a chord among the mild mannered security researchers and corporate white hat hackers in the audience. Several other speakers, however, had no trouble expressing their opinion.
"I lose my cool when I hear people from the government, or formerly from the government, say the private sector needs to step up" Marcus Ranum, chief of security for Tenable Security, said in a panel following the keynote presentation. "Providing for the common defense is what the government is supposed to do."
Bruce Schneier, founder of Counterpane Internet Security, concurred, saying: "He's right (pointing to Ranum). Government needs to step in and do the national security stuff."By 2018, card fraud is expected to more than double, reaching $6.4 billion. As the U.S. migrates to EMV, CNP fraud in particular is expected to not shockingly spike with fraudsters turning to new channels. Tackling CNP fraud, however, is particularly tricky – the underlying secret, says Dr. Thomas Rand-Nash, Director of Operations at Brighterion, is to acknowledge that it will always occur, but just shifts and evolves. MPD CEO Karen Webster recently sat down with Rand-Nash in a live digital discussion to find out how behavioral analytics can mitigate fraud damage, predict and prevent fraud in real-time, and act as a crucial part of a multilayered CNP fraud approach.
The discussion kicked off with a brief intro by Julie Conroy, Aite Group Research Director, who provided industry context related to the migration of EMV in the U.S., and the subsequent rise of CNP fraud. Conroy indicated that many merchants and consumers still don’t know about EMV, which has stirred up a lot of chaos and confusion – something that fraudsters thrive on.
Over the course of this year, as the U.S. is the last G-20 country to enable the EMV standard, the largest U.S. credit card issuers will upgrade their credit cards. By the end of the year, said Conroy, 70 percent of credit and 41 percent of debit cards will be EMV chip enabled.
The majority of credit card issuers are going to market with chip and signature, not chip and PIN, as a method of verification. Issuers say that there are two driving factors of that – one is the fact that globally, it’s split. Sixty percent have gone PIN, 40 percent signature.
Second, the U.S. has the most competitive card environment on the planet – consumers have an average of 3.5 cards in their wallets. Issuers say there is risk associated with having a more difficult consumer experience, said Conroy.
The only thing that PIN addresses is lost and stolen fraud, which represents a very small portion of U.S. issuers’ fraud problem now.
One of the good things about being the last to migrate, however, is that the U.S. has learned a lot of lessons from other countries. Looking at Canada, as Canadian migration progressed, the dark blue line on the graph below represents counterfeit fraud coming down, explained Conroy.
“EMV is very effective against counterfeit card fraud, but there is also a dollar for dollar displacement into CNP fraud,” said Conroy. “The pressure will be even more intense in the U.S. market with that CNP fraud.”
In addition, as the U.S. migrates to EMV, cross-border fraud will displace to CNP fraud. That’s because there is no other card market like the U.S. of a similar size and scope to serve as an outlet for cross-border fraud. So that will introduce additional pressure on the CNP channel, said Conroy.
Overcall, card fraud will double from about $3.1 billion to over $6.4 billion in 2018. It will therefore be increasingly important for merchants and issuers alike to turn to advanced analytics to help them better assess the risk of the transaction so they won’t be part of the $6.4 billion problem, and so they can ensure customers a safe/easy user experience.
It was at this point in the discussion that Dr. Thomas Rand-Nash, Director of Operations at Brighterion, took over to jump into the complexity of CNP fraud and how to go about solving the problem.
REDUCING CNP FRAUD
CNP fraud, he said, is “not your parent’s fraud.” It is much more complex and technical in nature with the recent and rapid introduction of novel payment methods and mechanisms. CNP fraud, he said, is complex, organized and involves continuously evolving fraud schemes.
And because it is more technical in nature, technologies used for CNP fraud result in a more sophisticated, tech-savvy type of criminal.
‘
As we know, said Rand-Nash, there’s no single silver bullet for a problem like CNP fraud. It requires a comprehensive, layered approach.
That prompted MPD CEO Karen Webster to ask, how do tokenization, 3-D Secure and behavioral analytics all work together?
Tokenization, said Rand-Nash, makes stolen data useless. But it’s susceptible to other downfalls.
“As we saw with Apple Pay, while tokenization wasn’t compromised, it was about social engineering to gain credentials to put real cards on fake phones to use those to make purchases. Tokenization worked as planned, but fraud happened somewhere else,” he said.
Next, 3-D Secure adds an extra layer of security, like a password or PIN. But one of the downsides is that it adds complexity and inconvenience in terms of the customer experience.
Finally, behavioral analytics makes and assists authorization decisions. It realizes that fraud will always occur in one place or another.
“For example, if you have a balloon and fill it with water, and you grab the balloon anywhere, you cannot grab the water inside – it just moves around to different locations. Behavioral analytics mitigates damage and predicts fraud where possible, but overall it operates with the understanding that fraud is always occurring.”
Webster then asked, are things like device forensics bundled under behavioral analytics?
Somewhat, responded Rand-Nash, specifically with regards to device identification.
“There’s something we call behavioral device ID, which is focused on verifying, validation and authentication of devices based on a number of parameters to create profiles for devices.”
“How would you address multi-factor authentication?” asked Webster.
That, said Rand-Nash, seems like something more for the 3-D Secure methodology, with things like one-time passwords for banks. While sometimes that’s good, he said, for customers, that can really detract from the seamless experience of purchasing.
Next, Rand-Nash pulled up a poll question for the audience, asking viewers to indicate the effectiveness of each of the following technologies at reducing card fraud and data security issues: tokenization, 3-D Secure, and behavioral analytics.
The results showed that 47 percent of audience members who voted thought tokenization to be most effective, 32 percent voted behavioral analytics and 18 percent voted 3-D Secure.
That was surprising to Rand-Nash. When he asked merchants the same question, results (shown above) were slightly different. Most saw the value in behavioral analytics first, then tokenization, then 3-D Secure.
BEHAVIORAL ANALYTICS LEGACY APPROACHES
Previously, in looking at how behavioral analytics was tackled in the past, solutions in the marketplace involved the following:
Business Rules: Experts write rules based on past experiences with fraud to identify risk.
Data mining & neural networks: Looking at past sets of training data to identify fraud using mathematical models.
But in the context of CNP, explained Rand-Nash, the applicability for each of these breaks down.
“While these approaches are good at identifying past elements of fraudulent behavior, they tend to apply the same logic to all cards, merchants and devices, and that starts to devise things like false-positives,” he said.
In addition, they are built based on past fraudulent behavior. Being that they’re pattern recognition models, they may be able to identify past behavior in the future, but they are not good at identifying changing behavior in future.
“With CNP fraud, fraudsters’ methods are continuously evolving. By the time you identify a new pattern and have a set of experts write up rules to test it, the fraudsters have moved on and are looking for new methods,” noted Rand-Nash.
These legacy approaches also require a lot of resources in terms of the time spent to implement them (12-15 months of a process) and the cost of the equipment or databases they require. They also deliver poor results, with an average of 18 percent CNP fraud decline rate and 5 percent CP fraud decline rate.
“Existing approaches in the marketplace alone are not enough.”
Enter: Brighterion’s solutions. The company, explained Rand-Nash, takes a comprehensive approach to fraud protection and prevention. First, it uses unsupervised learning. On the contrary, supervised learning is when one can identify or label the type of behavior that they are trying to recognize (like past instances of fraud). Once the behavior is labeled, artificial intelligence models are trained to spot this behavior in the future. Most of the AI methods mentioned earlier – neural networks, data mining – fall into the supervised learning category.
With unsupervised learning, models need to automatically identify key features of data that could be indicative of CNP fraud behavior. There is no transaction labeled in advance. Models cluster similar types of merchants with certain behaviors, for example, automatically.
Brighterion uses this method to enrich its incoming transactional data – and to identify frequent and infrequent behavior through techniques like clustering. This approach is good for automatic data enrichment and feature identification.
Brighterion also uses an optimized, multi-dimensional profiling engine. The company performs real-time and long-term profiling of every entity in the system.
“As people, we think of an entity as a credit card or merchant, but with our solution, entities are any characteristic of the data that gives us insight into fraudulent behavior. That goes beyond cards and merchants to geographic regions and periods of time,” said Rand-Nash. “Once we create the entity, we create virtual smart agents that track their behavior over time, all in real-time.”
With behavioral profiling, Brighterion also uses adaptive learning – its solutions learn the behavior of every entity in system over time. Brighterion can monitor behavior in real time, and detect and stop previously unknown fraud schemes as they occur. The model, said Rand-Nash, has the longest lifespan of those on the market.
Finally, a real-time behavioral device ID helps monitor and profile mobile devices and computers over time, as the world of online and offline shopping blurs. That, said Rand-Nash, will become more important as mobile payments become more widely used.
BRIGHTERION CNP IN ACTION
A question that came in from the audience asked about how Brighterion’s CNP fraud solutions work with ACH transactions, stored value cards, and things other than credit and debit cards.
“For the merchants and banks that used these solutions, the intelligence that’s gathered is spread and shared across channels. With the single tools we’ve developed, we can secure CNP, SP, ACH, wired, etc. because of that shared intelligence,” said Rand-Nash. For example, for one business customer now, Brighterion started off providing them with money laundering solutions, but has since moved into offering credit risk solutions, chargeback prevention and more.
Brighterion has supported clients in Germany, Brazil and Canada while those markets adopted and rolled out EMV. According to Rand-Nash, it currently scores billions of transactions in real time for hundreds of millions of cardholders worldwide, and has seen 75-95 percent CNP fraud detection improvements.
Webster then asked, how are Brighterion’s solutions implemented in just 6-8 weeks?
Brighterion is able to implement their solutions in just a short time partly due to their experience, but overall, the secret sauce comes down to the automation of these processes, Rand-Nash said.
“In our case, we have the technologies and algorithms that enable us to automatically identify and start tracking and building features.”
“So how does all of this work together, if you think about the portfolio of solutions that issuers and merchants are currently contemplating or investing in? When you have conversations with them about the prioritization of something like this versus tokenization in particular, how do you help them understand where this fits?” asked Webster.
Brighterion’s solution is complementary to a more holistic, layered solution, said Rand-Nash. It’s not built to replace one or the other, but it recognizes that some of these methods are not ready to go “prime time,” like in the case of tokenization, for example.
“Our solution is fitting for merchants and issuers that want a seamless and invisible solution. It recognizes that fraud will occur no matter what, and we need to identify it as quickly and as much as possible, while also reducing instances of false positives,” he said.
“It’s an integral part of that multilayered approach – but no matter what we do, there will always be fraud.”
To watch the full digital discussion, please view the video below.Long faded are the voices of the women at Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 fighting for women's rights, and long past are the reiterative pleas of Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells of the Black Women's Suffrage Movements who fought to have women of color included in the Women's Rights Movements in America.
Now, new voices emerge.
#SayHerName, a movement started by the African American Policy Forum in response to the death of Black Activist Sandra Bland who died in police custody in Waller County, Texas after a routine traffic stop and other women who died in police presence. What started out as a vigil commemorating black women lost to police brutality has emerged into a prevalent social media movement sparking a discussion on police brutality against women in the United States.
Black men in the United States have had a long, well-known history of having to warn their sons about the dangers of "Driving While Black" and the probability of being racially profiled and harassed by police.
Largely, daughters have been left out of the discussion, but high profile cases like the death of Sandra Bland and Natasha McKenna are forcing examination of whether the brutality against women is being appropriately included into larger discussion of lives mattering.
Brutality against women in the United States and worldwide is not a new phenomenon. It is an issue that has been an ongoing problem within individual communities and families. And in order to force those in authority to stop brutality against black women, as in #SayHerName, an examination of women's rights within communities and families is needed.
"Seventy percent of women have experienced physical/ and or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime," according to the European Agency for Fundamental Rights. Globally, it is estimated that almost half of women victims of homicide were killed by intimate partners or family members compared to less than six percent of men victims of homicide in that same year, according to 2014 data from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Women of all colors face gender discrimination and violence, which can offer insight into why women of color are sometimes powerless in combating brutality, considering the intersections of racial inequality and gender discrimination.
Extra barriers make women of color more vulnerable to brutality and limit their ability to speak against such treatment. "For women of color, high rates of poverty, poor education, limit job resources, language barriers, and fear of deportation increase difficulty finding help and support services," according to the Women's Institute for Leadership Development for Human Rights.
Specifically, black women are estimated to have a higher rate of domestic violence than white females and are less likely to utilize services available to them when encountering domestic violence, according to the Feminist Majority Foundation's Choice Campus Campaign. Adding to this caution to speak out against intimate partner brutality is the mistrust of police due to racism against black women, religious beliefs and the stereotypes surrounding black women that exist in society-- the angry black woman, oversexualized image, and being seen as less educated, to name a few. The mistrust for acting against brutality can be seen in Marissa Alexander's case where she spent three years in jail and was threatened a lengthy prison sentence for firing a warning shot against her domestic abuser. Many other women face similar plights as survivors of domestic violence.
The recent conviction of former police officer Daniel Holtzclaw for the rape of more 13 women further highlights the vulnerabilities black women face in terms being victims of brutality. Holtzclaw played on the vulnerabilities of various black women with hopes of escaping consequences based on known societal, community, and familial biases related to black women from lower socio economic backgrounds with criminal records.Maurice Harkless watched the Finals and saw what the rest of us did: The Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers switched just about everything. Tristan Thompson had to chase Stephen Curry on the perimeter and Klay Thompson had to battle Kevin Love on the block. The ball movement that had created so many open 3s for both teams was not the same, and exploiting individual matchups became paramount. Harkless, who will become a free agent at 12 a.m. ET on Friday, noted that it was similar to the two playoff series the Portland Trail Blazers had just played.
Blazers coach Terry Stotts made Harkless the starting power forward late in the regular season. Harkless hung onto that role through the playoffs because of his versatility. In today's game, 4s are expected to defend 1s and make 3s. Harkless, who is 6-foot-9 with a 7-foot wingspan and moves like a guard, knows this shift is great for him.
"Really, what we're doing is just going out there playing basketball," Harkless said. "And that's what I like. I just like to hoop. I play basketball all day long. I love it. So we're just out there just hooping. Especially in the series against Golden State, a lot of times there'd be five guards on the floor or five wings on the floor for each team. At that point, you're just hooping. The positions really go out the window."
In Game 1 of the first round against the Los Angeles Clippers, Harkless was matched up against Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and roaming on defense. In the second game, he started on Chris Paul. Portland switched every pick-and-roll, so his job was complicated.
"Half of the possession, I would guard Chris Paul; half of the possession, I would guard Blake Griffin," Harkless said. "It's just different. It shows how versatile you have to be to play those positions now in this new-age NBA."
As well as seamlessly switching between guarding various All-Stars, Harkless was asked to attack the basket, score off cuts and shoot 3-pointers without hesitation. He had to compete with bigger, stronger players for rebounds. Given that the previous year he was at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. doing offseason workouts before the end of April, he was not complaining about this workload.
"It meant everything to me," Harkless said. "As a kid when you're watching playoff basketball, you picture yourself in those moments, you know? Your name being called in front of thousands of fans on the biggest stage. It was, especially in the playoffs, a crazy feeling that first game being out there, starting. And the role that I had in the playoffs was a lot different from the role I had throughout a lot of the season. They expected more out of me. They put more on my shoulders."
Moe Harkless throws down a dunk. USATSI
Portland rescued Harkless from the Orlando Magic last July. He finished a workout at IMG and a bunch of young campers ran up to him saying, "Hey, you got traded." The Magic essentially gave him away for nothing.
Harkless had been involved in a deal once before -- on draft night in 2013, the Philadelphia 76ers traded his rights to Orlando. He took the first trade personally; |
can be reduced and the risks associated with such events effectively managed.
First, the Facts
No earthquake triggered by fluid injection has ever caused serious injury or significant damage. Moreover, approximately 140,000 wastewater disposal wells have been operating safely and without incident in the U.S. for many decades.
That said, we have known for more than 40 years that earthquakes can be triggered by fluid injection. The first well-studied cases were earthquakes triggered by waste disposal at the Rocky Mountain arsenal near Denver, Colo., in the early 1960s, and by water injection at the Rangely oilfield in western Colorado in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
Such quakes occur when increasing pore pressure at depth caused by fluid injection reduces the effective normal stress acting perpendicular to pre-existing faults. The effective normal stress on a fault can be thought of as a force that resists shear movement — much as how putting a weight on a box makes it more difficult to slide along the floor. Increasing pore pressure reduces the effective normal stress, allowing elastic energy already stored in brittle rock formations to be released in earthquakes. These earthquakes would someday have occurred anyway as a result of slowly accumulating forces in the earth resulting from natural geologic processes — injection just speeds up the process.
As there has been an appreciable increase in hydraulic fracturing associated with shale gas development in recent years, it should be pointed out that the water injection associated with hydraulic fracturing is not responsible for the triggered seismicity in question. The reason for this is that pressurization during hydraulic fracturing affects only limited volumes of rock (typically several hundred meters in extent) and pressurization typically lasts only a few hours. Thus, while very small earthquakes have occurred during hydraulic fracturing (such as a magnitude-2.3 earthquake near Blackpool, England, in April 2011), these are extremely rare events. The concern about triggered seismicity associated with shale gas development arises after hydraulic fracturing, when wastewater that flows back out of the wells is disposed of at dedicated injection wells.
Five straightforward steps can be taken to reduce the probability of triggering seismicity whenever we inject any fluid into the subsurface. First, it is important to avoid injection into active faults and faults in brittle rock. Second, formations should be selected for injection (and injection rates should be limited) to minimize pore pressure changes. Third, local seismic monitoring arrays should be installed when there is a potential for injection to trigger seismicity. Fourth, protocols should be established in advance to define how operations will be modified if seismicity is triggered. And fifth, operators need to be prepared to reduce injection rates or abandon wells if triggered seismicity poses any hazard. These five steps provide regulators and operating companies with a framework for reducing the risk associated with triggered earthquakes.
Step 1: Avoid Injection into Active Faults
Aside from plate boundaries where large earthquakes occur with regularity, earthquakes also occur in brittle rocks nearly everywhere within continental interiors around the world as a result of natural geologic processes. It is thus no surprise that fluid injection occasionally triggers earthquakes. In fact, building dams for surface reservoirs occasionally triggers small- to moderate-sized earthquakes even though resultant pore pressure increases at depth are extremely small.
Modern 3-D seismic imaging methods are sufficiently advanced that we can identify faults capable of producing potentially damaging earthquakes at depth. Faults large enough to produce damaging earthquakes — say, those above magnitude 6.0 — should be easily detectable as part of geologic characterization studies of potential injection sites because they are associated with slip on faults that are many tens of kilometers in size. Smaller faults may be harder to detect, but will only produce small earthquakes that might be felt locally but will not cause damage.
We also know a lot about the relationship between the orientation of potentially active faults and the ambient stress field in a given region. This also enables us to identify (and avoid) potentially problematic faults prior to injection. Potentially active faults can be identified because the relationship between the orientation of active faults and the regional stress field is well known from basic principles of structural geology and rock mechanics. In other words, only faults of certain orientations are potentially activated during injection in a given area. The earthquakes apparently triggered by fluid injection at Guy, Ark., occurred on northeast trending, near-vertical faults, consistent with what would be expected from knowledge of the regional stress field and quite similar to the trend of active faults in the New Madrid Seismic Zone immediately to the east. Had these faults been identified during site characterization studies carried out as part of the permitting process, this site would not have been used for injection.
Step 2: Minimize Pore Pressure Changes at Depth
Rocks in the upper part of Earth’s crust contain pre-existing pore space, fractures and flaws. These void spaces are normally filled with freshwater near Earth’s surface (in the upper 1 kilometer or so) and filled with saline brines at greater depths. Injecting fluids into the subsurface will increase the pressure in these voids, depending on the rate it is injected and the volume of pore space available to accommodate the injected fluids. It should be pointed out that injection always occurs at depths where the injected fluids are isolated from near-surface water supplies.
To minimize the potential for injection to trigger seismicity, it is obviously a good idea to minimize the pore pressure perturbations associated with injection. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways.
The best way, of course, is to minimize the injected volume of fluid. Consider the case of the disposal of flowback waters following hydraulic fracturing associated with shale gas development in the Marcellus Formation of the northeastern U.S.
Typically, 25 to 50 percent of the water used during hydraulic fracturing flows back and needs to be disposed of. However, because it has been difficult to find suitable injection sites in this region (and quite expensive to haul water great distances to already operating injection wells), it is common practice to recycle flowback water by using it in subsequent hydraulic fracture operations rather than disposing of it in injection wells. In the Marcellus, nearly all of the water is recycled. That certainly minimizes the pore pressure perturbations.
Another way to reduce the pressure buildup associated with injection is to utilize highly permeable regional saline aquifers to dispose of wastewater. These aquifers can accommodate large volumes of injected fluids without experiencing significant pressure changes. The Ellenburger Formation in Texas is regionally extensive and highly permeable — one reason why many of the approximately 50,000 permitted wastewater disposal wells in the state have operated for so long, essentially without the occurrence of triggered seismicity. In cases where saline water is used for hydraulic fracturing, it is possible to reinject the water that flows back after fracturing into the same formations. When flowback water is injected into the same saline aquifers from which the water used for hydraulic fracturing was produced, pressure in the aquifers decreases over time as more water is produced for hydraulic fracturing than injected following flowback.
Alternatively, weak, poorly cemented and highly permeable sandstone formations would also be ideal for injection. Such formations deform plastically and do not store elastic strain energy that can be released in potentially damaging earthquakes. No earthquakes have been triggered in the 15 years during which a million metric tons per year of carbon dioxide from the Sleipner gas- and oilfield in the North Sea has been injected into the Utsira sand, a highly porous, regionally extensive saline aquifer.
Obviously, cases will arise where well-cemented, less permeable and more brittle formations must be used for injection. In those cases, care must be taken to avoid large pore pressure changes. This can be done through modeling prior to injection once the permeability and capacity of the injection intervals have been determined. Well-established procedures have been developed over many decades by petroleum engineers to do this.
Step 3: Install Local Seismic Monitoring Arrays
Potentially active faults that might cause large and damaging earthquakes should be identifiable during the site characterization phase of permitting potential injection wells. Because smaller faults can escape detection, seismic monitoring arrays should be deployed in the vicinity of injection wells when there is a cause for concern that injection might trigger seismicity.
The locations and magnitudes of naturally occurring earthquakes are routinely determined on a real-time basis in numerous seismically active regions around the world. The instrumentation, data telemetry and analysis techniques used to accomplish this monitoring are well developed and easily implemented at relatively low cost. By supplementing regional networks with local seismic arrays near injection wells, accurate locations of earthquakes that might be triggered by injection can be used to determine the locations and orientations of the causative faults.
Although small faults cannot cause large earthquakes, even small earthquakes felt by the public will be a cause for concern and should be monitored.
Step 4: Establish Modification Protocols in Advance
Following precedents established to deal with earthquakes triggered during the development of enhanced geothermal systems, operators and regulators should jointly establish operational protocols for injection sites located in areas where there is concern about the potential for triggered seismicity. These protocols are sometimes referred to as “traffic light” systems.
Green means go: Once operational protocols and local seismic networks are in place and injection begins at agreed-upon rates, operators would have a green light to continue unless earthquakes begin to occur that appear to be related to injection. The occurrence of seismicity would be a cautionary yellow light. Once seismicity occurs, operators would slow injection rates and study the relationship between the seismicity and injection. Should seismicity cease, operations could potentially continue at reduced injection rates. In fact, it was demonstrated 40 years ago at Rangely that earthquakes could be turned on and off by modulating the injection rate and resultant increase in pore pressure at depth. With such protocols in place, the potential occurrence and associated response to triggered seismicity are pre-defined and known to all parties.
Step 5: Be Prepared to Alter Plans or Abandon Wells
In the same way that it’s important to plan for the possibility of triggered seismicity in advance, we have to be prepared to reduce injection rates, or even abandon wells if triggered seismicity cannot be stopped by limiting injection rates. That would be the red traffic light: Seismicity has been detected that appears to be associated with a fault potentially capable of producing a moderate-sized earthquake. In the case of the Arkansas triggered earthquakes, as well as a series of quakes thought to have been caused by wastewater injection in the Barnett Shale in Texas near the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area in 2008, the seismicity abated once injection in the problematic wells was terminated.
Overall, it is important for the public to recognize that the risks posed by injection of wastewater are extremely low. In addition, the risks can be minimized further through proper study and planning prior to injection, careful monitoring in areas where there is a possibility that seismicity might be triggered, and operators and regulators taking a proactive response if triggered seismicity were to occur.After less than three months in the organisation, Christian "rezex" Bjerregaard and his team have left eFuture due to contractual issues.
Known in beginning of 2017 as Team123, the Danish roster showed promise by beating teams like BIG, Flipsid3 and Space Soldiers, and ended up signing for Chinese multigaming organisation eFuture in February.
While representing eFuture, the team placed 5th-6th at the China Cup, 3rd-4th at the Danish Championship and 9th-12th at Copenhagen Games.
Rezex and his men were unhappy with their situation in eFuture
But the players never received their final contracts from eFuture, prompting them to bring their time with the organisation to an end. Back to their old name, Team123, the roster has had some changes, with Rasmus "SandeN" Sanden being replaced by former Copenhagen Flames player Casper "Celrate" Andersen.
“To make a long story short, we are no longer part of eFuture as we have decided to part ways," Dennis "sycrone" Nielsen told HLTV.org. "In addition, we have some news about the starting five, too. Basso and NatoSaphiX have become permanent solutions in the lineup and are therefore no longer on tryout. "In the meantime, we have decided to split ways with SandeN. To replace him, we brought in Celrate, who recently played with CPH Flames. "We will now start the hard work that is required and as everyone on the team will play full time, we will be looking for an organization to represent."
The team is looking for an organization to represent and can be contacted through the following e-mail address: dennisbenthin96@gmail.com
Team123 consist of:Junk food and makeup are basically two of our favorite things in the world. However, the two don’t typically go together as well as we would like. If you’ve ever tried to eat french fries without getting salt all over your perfectly lined lips, or a cupcake without smearing frosting all over your foundation, you know our very real #struggle.
But one very talented, very pro-snack artist found a way to combine the two in a way that keeps your makeup on fleek. Tim O, better known as @skelotim on Instagram, creates eyeshadow looks inspired by the colors in the packaging of his favorite junk food, like Pop-Tarts, Funyuns, and Cheetos.
A photo posted by Tim O (@skelotim) on Jan 16, 2016 at 9:49am PST
A photo posted by Tim O (@skelotim) on Sep 16, 2015 at 9:15pm PDT
He expertly blends the colors so the effect is suble and extremely wearable. Since the source of inspiration is more about the color combos than the artistry, this is really easy to do yourself at home.
A photo posted by Tim O (@skelotim) on Jan 11, 2016 at 5:26pm PST
Huffpost Canada got in touch with the makeup artist regarding his creation, and his response is as awesome as his makeup: “My whole inspiration from my snack looks is because I love colour combos, and I just happen to be a fat bitch who eats all day long lol!” he said. “So all these snacks I love have amazing colours on them, and I said to myself, ‘Damn these colours would look really good on my face.'”
A photo posted by Tim O (@skelotim) on Jan 12, 2016 at 9:02pm PST
Yes, they look absolutely gorgeous on his face — even good enough to eat!
(Images via Amazon, Instagram/Tim O.)A broken pipe line resulted is more than 9,000 barrels of oil being released into the Gulf of Mexico, the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement announced Friday (Oct. 13) night. The pipe belongs to the Covington-based LLOG Exploration Offshore LLC.
According to a news release from BSEE, the company told federal officials on Thursday that as much as 9,350 barrels of oil were released by a broken line 4,463 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico about 40 miles southeast of Venice.
Covington-based LLOG Exploration installs Delta House hub in Gulf of Mexico, part of $2 billion project LLOG Exploration, a Covington-based oil and gas exploration company, said it started installing its $2 billion Delta House floating production hub in the Gulf of Mexico this week. The facility is expected to start producing oil and gas in early 2015.
The leaking oil was released from a subsea infrastructure of pipes connecting wells at the company's Mississippi Canyon Block 209 oilfield. The company reported to BSEE that production from the field has been shut in and the release of oil has ceased.
"LLOG reported that through the use of a remotely-operated vehicle, a fracture was observed in a jumper pipe leading from Mississippi Canyon Block 209, Well No. 1 to a manifold located on the seafloor," said a BSEE news release issued Friday night. "As a result of shutting in the well, the flow through the fracture in the pipe has ceased.
"A sheen was observed and reported through the National Response Center," the news release said. "Monitoring of the residual sheen continues. No shoreline impacts have been reported. There are no reports of personnel injuries."
The company reported to BSEE that it has estimated the amount of oil released during the incident at between 7,950 and 9,350 barrels of oil. The company said it has found no recoverable oil at the surface above the broken line.
"LLOG has also reported that two skimming vessels sourced from Clean Gulf Associates and Marine Spill Response Corporation are on location and are prepared to respond," the news release said.
A BSEE engineer was at LLOG's incident command on Thursday to verify the release location using the live feed from the company's remotely-operated vehicle, and two inspectors traveled offshore to the company's Delta House platform to begin an investigation.
The Delta House floating production facility, located atop Mississippi Canyon block 254, is used to gather up to 100,000 barrels of oil and 240 million cubic feet of natural gas a day from nine different wells in the Gulf before it is moved onshore.
On its web site, LLOG says it is the largest privately owned oil producer in the U.S. and one of the largest private producers in the Gulf of MexicoSkyMapper's Southern Sky Survey is led by the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University, in collaboration with seven Australian universities and the Australian Astronomical Observatory. The goal of the project is to create a deep, multi-epoch, multi-colour digital survey of the entire southern sky. This will facilitate a broad range of exciting science, including discovering the oldest stars in the Galaxy, finding new dwarf galaxies in orbit around the Milky Way, and measuring the effects of Dark Energy on the Universe through nearby supernovae.
On this site you can read about SkyMapper and its surveys, browse the latest data releases and query images and catalogues using simple forms or Virtual Observatory web services. Before downloading or publishing data we ask that you review the policies section to familiarise yourself with the authorship and protected science policies. As part of SkyMapper's status as a National Facility, Australian astronomers will typically enjoy exclusive access to each data release for 12-18 months. International astonomers are welcome to use the data after such time, or collaborate with Australian colleagues. Please contact us for more information.
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DR2 live to Oz from 1 March 2019 | 20 Feb 2019
DR2 has just been released for beta testing access functionality to ANU users. It will be fully released to Australian astronomers on 1 March 2019.
Read more →Even in this fast-paced, globalized 21st century of ours, quite a few people in long-term relationships have managed to reach that stage by going on actual dates with their significant others. Even in this fast-paced, globalized 21st century of ours, quite a few people in long-term relationships have managed to reach that stage by going on actual dates with their significant others. Instead of merely hanging out or chillaxing with their partners until both parties became too out of shape and infirm to seek greener pastures, many of your friends have taken the old-fashioned route to emotional satisfaction: scheduling activities with someone they find interesting and then waking up before the crack of 5 p.m. to carry them out.
If that sounds daunting to you … well, that’s because it is. Once you’ve located a cool person through texting or online dating or Facebooking — topics we’ve discussed in greater detail in earlier columns — you might be required to do something with him in order to win his affections. This will often entail going on a first date, the onerous prerequisite to second, third and any other subsequent dates.
Fortunately for you, we’ve gone on hundreds of first dates. The tips and tricks we learned during these encounters aren’t transferable to later dates — not that it would matter in our case, since we’ve only been on a handful of second and third dates — but they’re guaranteed to ensure that you and your special someone wind up having the gr8est — nay, the gr9est — evening imaginable.
So where to commence this awesome outing? At a fancy restaurant, of course, but also one that’s safely within your price range. Remember: Money doesn’t grow on those pizza boxes you meant to throw out two months ago — mold does. And until there’s a mechanism in place to harvest that mold and convert it into cold hard cash, you’ll have to pinch your pennies, give Indian burns to your nickels and lovingly caress your 50-cent pieces.
If you’re looking for a luxury dine-in experience on the cheap, consider a top-flight burger joint like Five Guys. Budget about $15 for the hamburgers, fries and sodas you’ll be consuming — nothing impresses a date quite like a healthy appetite — while reminding him as frequently as possible that you plan to “go dutch” tonight. Here’s a classy example of how to do that through text messaging:
u: hey look I hope u know I’m not payin for u tonite
urdate: yeah ok
u: so make sure you bring your own money cause like I said I’m not payin for ur crap
urdate: got it
u: that means u should have cash in ur wallet cause the $15 I’m bringin is 4 my own food. I’m hardgainin wut wut!
urdate: all right dawg, chill the f out. I’ll bring $$$
When you arrive together at the restaurant, you’ll face another hurdle: small talk. Until now, you’ve probably been able to slide by with cute emoticons and monosyllabic texts. But how on earth are you going to fill those five or so minutes when you’re not stuffing your face with vinegar-soaked french fries and greasy bits of hamburger? Take a page from our book:
You: Hey, tell me an anecdote about your childhood. Anything will do, really.
Your date: Well, when I was seven, my parents took me to Busch Gardens, and I nearly drowned …
Here’s your chance. While your date drones on with this shaggy-dog story, you can resume your favorite activities: setting your Yahoo! Sports fantasy football lineup, checking Facebook on your celly, texting the person you’re dating a few hours from now, daydreaming about what it’d be like to have so much money that you’d never have to get out of bed again and the like. When your current date forces you to comment on his tall tale — and invariably he will — just do the following:
Your date: So what do you think about that?
You (after a pregnant pause): Huh, that sure was something you just said. Of the different parts, my favorite part was the end.
After you’ve finished your meal, you might feel tempted to take your date to a movie or a club. We must urge you to resist these impulses and do the right thing: Invite your date back to your efficiency apartment to chillax with your four roommates. If this person can’t hang with your besties, what good is he or she to you?
Once you two crowd into that filthy rat hole you call home, you should begin ignoring your date and focusing on those besties. You haven’t seen them for a few hours, and they deserve your total attention. Sit as far away from your date as you can, and make little to no eye contact. Start saying whatever it takes to alienate your date. If your date happens to be a sweet, gentle soul, here’s the kind of coarse dialogue that’s sure to put him or her in high dudgeon:
You: Hey dude, remember that time I puked all over the place, and there was all that puke, and we didn’t clean it up for a few months, and I kept stepping in the puke, and you thought it was awesome?
Your bestie: Yeah, it was so frigging awesome! Remember how our commode didn’t flush for four straight months, and we started wearing diapers but were too lazy to take them downstairs and just heaped them in the corner and eventually the place got swarmed by houseflies that laid eggs and then there were maggots everywhere and you were like, “Dude, what the f? Why are we wearing diapers?”
You: Ha ha ha, we are so awesome!
Since it’s a studio apartment, there won’t be any need to show your date the door. He or she should be able to find it unassisted, after which you can begin preparing for your second first date.
What’s that? Yes, as we hinted earlier, you should have scheduled a second first date for approximately two hours after this first one. If our experiences are any indication, you’ll have at least an hour to freshen up between dates. You know the drill: Febreze your sweatpants, pick some of the caked-up makeup off your face and squeeze a few drops of Visine into the eyes to kill off any remnants of early afternoon 420-friendliness.
Happy hunting, true believers. It’s a jungle out there and so forth.
Oliver Bateman is the co-founder of the Moustache Relationship Research Facility of America. Visit moustacheclubofamerica.com to take our award-winning 266-question compatibility test. Is love just around the corner for you? Email oliver.lee1@gmail.com to find out!Some truly brilliant minds attempted to adapt Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter-centered novels to the screen, including Ridley Scott, Jonathan Demme, and Michael Mann, but none quite captured, bottled, and presented the essence of the wicked words on the page quite like show runner Bryan Fuller. Loosely based on The Red Dragon, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising, Fuller’s television program simply titled Hannibal interprets Harris’ work with grace, humility, and even a little wit. Starring Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Hugh Dancy as Will Graham, the show tells the story of a Graham, a special consultant for the F.B.I., who has resorted to therapy sessions with Dr. Lecter as a way to deal with his ability to empathize with the serial killers he helps hunt down. Little does Will know, the man he confides in the most is actually the copy-cat killer he’s been trying to track, and each of his therapy sessions has been a purposeful slow descension into madness, orchestrated meticulously by Lecter who seeks who frame Will for his murders. As the show drums on, it becomes clear that this crime drama isn’t just about telling the cat and mouse tale of a killer and the detective chasing him, but also, an exploration of the male bond between two monsters who only feel like men when they look into each others’ eyes.
As a gay man, creator Bryan Fuller has always been intrigued by straight male partnerships, and the way that they flourish. It’s only natural that eventually that interest would bleed into the show. “It didn’t start out as being homoerotic as much as it was about an exploration of male friendships, in a way,” explains Fuller. “As a gay man, I’ve always been fascinated with heterosexual male friendships, and seeing patterns of romance and devotion that are not sexualized, but are nevertheless very deeply felt. So, it was really about unpacking that in a way, and I think as it progressed, the lines became blurry”.
The lines blurred, indeed, as the seasons progressed, and Will finally realized that Hannibal was the man whom he was searching for, all this time spent searching for the copycat of the Minnesota Shrike and the Chesapeake Ripper, when all he had to do was turn and look at the man standing in front of him, charged to look after Will’s mental well being. Sadly, Will’s epiphany came too late, and fell on deaf ears, as Hannibal had already finished perfectly setting up Will as the deranged killer, and manipulated Will’s mind enough to make him believe that it was true. It’s not until Will has spent some time in prison and out of Hannibal’s sessions that he comes to terms with the reality of the situation, but by that point, no one will listen to the crazy man locked up in a straight jacket behind cold iron bars. What Hannibal does is without a doubt a betrayal, but for some reason, this backstabbing stings a little more than the average treachery. This feels more like the backlash of a jilted lover, rather than the cold deception of a casual colleague.
It takes a long time, and a little help on Hannibal’s end, but eventually, Will is released from his incarceration. Dead set on killing the man who condemned him to the shadowy corners of the law, Will devises a plan to set up Hannibal and let him be captured by the police, once and for all, so he can receive his just punishment, and Will can finally be at peace. However, his plan backfires, as he’s clearly underestimated his old romantic foe. Hannibal escapes and runs off to Florence, Italy, but not before carving a chunk out of Will Graham’s flesh as penance for his double-crossing.
Waking up in the hospital bloody and bruised, Will makes up his mind to chase after the man who put him in this bed, hooked up to all of these monitors, atrophied and broken. Will feels foolish, angry, and…a little bit hurt? Could it be that Will isn’t just feeling damaged because of his physical injuries, but because he’s been cast out of a meaningful, albeit destructive friendship with the only person who’s ever truly understood and accepted Will for who he is?
“If somebody’s wronged you in some way, like you’re mad at them for whatever reason, you just go, like, ‘Well that’s how they are and I can’t change them, and I have to accept them or reject them’…Will sort of accepts who Hannibal is” interprets Bryan Fuller. “It’s also narcissistic. Like, we fall in love with people who make us feel better about ourselves, like make us feel like we’re the better version of ourselves, and that makes us feel more secure in our bodies, and the dysmorphia of ‘who I am on the inside versus how I project on the outside’, that disconnect just sort of narrows dramatically when somebody sees you, understands you, accepts you, and loves you”.
Hannibal and Will undergo many dramatic phases of their relationship, as Will hunts down his old friend in Italy, and through outside forces out of his control, unintentionally brings his old friend back to the States to become a meal for Mason Verger and his hungry swine. After their narrow escape, and a short but much needed imprisonment for the good doctor, the odd couple comes together again to find and destroy the F.B.I.’s latest target, Francis Dolayhyde, a.k.a. the Great Red Dragon. Together, the two men go up against their greatest challenge yet, and nearly don’t live to tell the tale. Standing blood-soaked and broken on the edge of a cliff, the moment that fans had been waiting for for three full seasons finally happens, as Will and Hannibal grab one another in a loving embrace, before plunging off the side of the mountain and into the icy waters hundreds of feet below.
“I think one of the reasons that it seemed so organic for Will to go over the cliff with Hannibal at the end was that in his mind, as he understood the universe in his world, he had peaked,” Fuller comments with a saddened tone. “That’s also [him] stopping the monster, and stopping himself from becoming the monster, but I think part of him is thinking, ‘That was beautiful and I don’t think I can do that again and feel as high as I do now, and everything that’s overwhelmed in me went over the cliff,’ because there was an apex to his experience in a way that was poetic and dramatic.”
Apparently, Fuller was not present on the day of shooting the final scene in the series, but when he dropped by the next morning to watch the pick-up shots, Mads Mikkelsen excitedly filled him in the details, gleefully describing how he and Hugh Dancy had finally reached the sexual pinnacle hinted at during the entire run of the show. “Mads came bounding in, like he was across the room, he was so excited, like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna love the dailies! We got really close! We were almost kissing! You’re gonna love it!’ and I was like, ‘Well, but it should be authentic to the characters, so they’re not like…’ and he was like, ‘Oh no, we gave you everything, everything you need, you can take it, or you can leave it, you can do whatever you want, we gave you everything that you want in the that finale'”.
Although there are undoubtedly some very obvious and very satisfying homoerotic overtones present in the complexities of the joining together of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, it was always important to Fuller to remain true and accurate as possible in the portrayal of the two men Thomas Harris wrote about back in the ’80s. Every aspect of their partnership needed to come across as relatable and believable, because in the end, it proved just as important and critical to the story as the anthropophagite and the gruesome murders he committed.
“For as pretentious and arty and cinematically aggressive and experimental as we were, I’m proud of the emotional authenticity of the relationship between these two guys” beams Fuller, “Because I feel like, if you take out all of the cannbalism, and everything like that, [you can] just chart a male friendship”.
As for the post credits shot at the very very end of season three, Fuller talked about how he read different interpretations of the scene with Bedelia, and what her amputated limb really meant, and although he found the different interpretations entertaining, he has his own vision for the story: “At the ending, the tag with Gillian, there’s two place settings for a reason,” teases Fuller. “For me, that scene was, Hannibal survived, and took her leg and was cooking it for her, and she grabs that fork because the next person that comes in that room, she’s gonna fucking stab that fork in them as many times as she possibly can, and then maybe we’ll see Gillian Anderson limping down the road with a wooden leg”.
He may have said it jokingly, but fear not Fannibals, Fuller definitely confirmed the survival of Hannibal Lecter.
“I would love to see Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs and see Mads Mikkelsen with Clarice Starling, and as long as I’m alive, I’ll still be trying to do that” Fuller promises.
As for Will Graham, however, it still seems more up to the fates to decide, although Fuller is definitely fond of him, and he isn’t nearly ready to give up on the idea of a fourth season of Hannibal.
“I still feel like the most interesting chapter of Will Graham’s life has yet to be told,” reasons Fuller, “Just like, he’s on the other side of it. Like, everything we’ve experienced so far has been on the other side of a wall for him, and the next chapter of his story is on the other side of the wall, so it just feels like there’s great opportunity to explore that psychologically”.
When asked about the future adaptation of Harris’ 1988 novel, Fuller revealed that he indeed, already has big plans for the cast.
“I wanted to cast Lee Pace as James Gumb, to have him be Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs,” Fuller says with a smirk, “and that may still happen. He’s into it! He’d love to do it!”
As for the opposing role of agent Clarice Starling, Fuller is less sure about who he wants to recruit specifically, but knows without a doubt that he doesn’t want to fall back on conventional casting when such an opportunity is at hand to shake things up.
“I think if you were going to do a traditional adaptation a la the movie, which is dangerous, because it’s a perfect movie with perfect performances, somebody like Ellen Page is great, and I think has that spark,” Fuller states matter-of-factly, “but I would rather cast a non-white actor in that role, because I think it changes [the story]. A poor white woman from the south is different from a poor black woman from the south, and has a completely different experience.
This wouldn’t be the first time that Fuller decided to go against the grain and choose actors to play his roles that wouldn’t normally make the cut. Whereas Manhunter features an entirely white cast made up of mostly men, Fuller gave fans their very first black Jack Crawford, their very first black Reba, and even stirred the pot with some gender swapping, with characters like Freddie (Freddy) Lounds, and Alana (Alan) Bloom, two people previously played by men.
When questioned about his refreshing choices regarding the cast, and why he purposely chooses to include more women and people of color in his execution of the story, Fuller had this to say: “Because it’s a more accurate representation of the world, and if we just did Red Dragon again, it’d be a sausage party with a bunch of white guys. I mean, when I first started writing, my protagonists were always young women, and there’s something about that point of view…you can do some things with a female character that you can’t do with a male character. Like, I always think that, to make a character female gives you so many more opportunities of expression.”
“I feel like what Thomas Harris wrote was so solid that it wasn’t dependent on gender or race to define the characters, although if we get the chance to tell Silence of the Lambs, I think it would be really interesting to have a black Clarice or a non-white Clarice, because as much as you want to say, ‘Oh, race doesn’t matter!’ Race totally matters. It totally changes your point of view, it’s a different experience, so that would be something that would make that story worth telling again”.
Tough truths, bleak moments and social commentary abound in Fuller’s extensive and thoughtfully complicated work, but even in the midst of all of the bloodshed, murder, mayhem, and heartbreak, the man who made Dead Like Me never forgets his sense of humor.
Hannibal may be too disturbing for some television fanatics to even witness, but to Fuller, the fact that the show goes so far with the horror is quite uproarious. “I think the dark comedy comes from the absurdity of the situations, and I find certain things on the show hilarious because they’re so egregious and over-the-top ridiculous that it makes me laugh.” Apparently, Fuller’s sinister chuckles have even bothered those close to him. “I’ll watch horrific scenes with friends, you know, for instance, Chilton getting his lips bitten off, and just snickering because it’s so bonkers but enjoyable in its extremes, you know?” Smiles Fuller, “I was cackling so hard and like, it was one of those movie takes where like, three heads slowly turned simultaneously to wonder why I was getting such joy out of a guy getting his lips cut off, because |
fascinating about The Babadook and It Follows. Both are bone-chilling, but they’re also instructive about how to cope with the impossible. At times of growing despair, people like to go to the movies to escape—and here are two films saying, essentially, that some things are inescapable, and that we have to learn to live with them. That’s unusually honest, and may explain why both are cult hits, not cultural phenomena. But if they are part of a trend, and these kinds of stories become widely popular, well, that could say a lot about how resigned we’ve become to the end-times.
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The good news is that nearly every generation has felt the same way at some point. It’s part of our innate narcissism to presume that our time on this Earth is the most important in recorded history, and that there won’t be much left for those who come after us. That’s the subtext of all of horror’s shifting trends: Something’s worrying us, and once we’ve devoted as much of our conscious and subconscious as we can to it, we move on and start worrying about something else. That doesn’t mean our real-life fears are unfounded, or that we shouldn’t rage against the dying of the light (regardless of what may be doing the dimming). But the story of genre cinema is in part the story of our fatalism—and thus the story of our continuing survival, despite our certainty that all is lost.For the first time in years, the IRS was knocked down a peg or two.
In a hearing that escalated into a boisterous public shaming of one of the country's most-feared government agencies, lawmakers took turns Friday calling outgoing IRS Commissioner Steven Miller on the carpet for his department's scandalous practice of targeting conservative groups.
Miller rebuffed attempts to extract the names of those responsible, saying he did not know. But lawmakers vowed that the tense hearing would mark only the start of a series of investigations, in which criminal activity could be probed.
Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., seemed to capture the angst against the agency toward the end of the hours-long hearing, as he described the ways its agents are capable of ruining lives.
"You can put anybody out of business that you want.... When the IRS comes in there, you're not allowed to be shoddy," he said, suggesting the agency's leadership was being held to a different standard now that it is coming under scrutiny.
"This is absolutely an overreach, and this is an outrage for all Americans," he said.
When he finished, the committee room erupted in cheers and applause that lasted several seconds.
The hearing, though, was more than just venting.
While Democrats voiced concern that the latest scandal would be used to score "political points," lawmakers on both sides of the aisle scolded the agency. And they made clear they'd be pressuring the IRS in the weeks to come on several points -- namely, who was responsible and whether lawmakers were overtly lied to last year.
On the first question, they got few answers from Miller during Friday's testimony.
But they repeatedly confronted the acting commissioner -- who was ousted from him job earlier this week -- about his and other officials' failure to disclose the program last year despite being aware of it.
"In fact, we were repeatedly told no such targeting was happening. That isn't being misled, that's lying," said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Miller seemed to frustrate lawmakers' attempts to dig deeper. He claimed, a week after the scandal broke and a year after he first learned of the practice, that he still did not know who was responsible.
"I don't have that name," he testified, after Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., asked who was behind the program.
Miller also claimed -- over and over -- he was being honest with Congress during a hearing last year.
"You did not share the information you knew," Reichert charged.
"I answered all questions truthfully," Miller replied.
This claim was met with deep skepticism Friday. Miller acknowledged he learned of the practice during a May 3, 2012, briefing. Yet when he was asked about it at a July 25 hearing that year, he said only that some applications fell into a particular category -- and that those organizations were grouped for "consistency" and "quality."
A letter he wrote to a Republican lawmaker the month before also gave a general description of the process without acknowledging that some groups were being singled out based on words like "Tea Party" and "Patriot."
"How can we not conclude that you misled this committee?" Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., former GOP vice presidential nominee, asked Miller.
Miller said he "did not mislead the committee" and stands by his answer.
Asked whether his answer was "incomplete," he said again he answered "truthfully."
Miller objected to the term "targeting," and claimed political motivations were not at play in the program, which began in 2010. But he apologized for the program and said "foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient."
"As acting commissioner, I want to apologize on the behalf of the Internal Revenue Service for the mistakes that we made and the poor service provided," Miller said. "The affected organizations and the American public deserve better."
The hearing is the first to examine the scandal, and will likely kick off a string of subsequent hearings and investigations. Republicans made clear that the two retirements or resignations to date would not satisfy their concerns.
Camp ripped the tax-collecting agency over the practice at the start of the hearing. "Now we know the truth -- or at least some of it," he said. "We also know that these revelations are just the tip of the iceberg. It would be a mistake to treat this as just one scandal."
He questioned how high the scandal went, and also suggested there was other targeting of conservatives that has not yet been acknowledged by the agency. He called it part of a "culture of cover-ups."
"This systemic abuse cannot be fixed with just one resignation, or two," he said. He said the problem is not just personnel, but the size and scope of the IRS.
The inspector general who released a scathing report on the agency also testified Friday. J. Russell George -- the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration -- said his findings raised "troubling questions" about the agency, while claiming some of the wrongdoing was apparently done with no-to-little supervision.
But he said all three allegations against the agency turned out to be true -- that it was using "inappropriate criteria" to screen conservative groups, it was delaying applications and it was asking unnecessary questions.
Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., the top Democrat on the committee, said the agency's management "completely failed the American people." At the same time, he urged Republicans not to use the hearing to "score political points."
Republicans, though, expressed more concern after they learned Thursday that the IRS official who led the tax-exempt organizations unit when the targeting took place -- Sarah Hall Ingram -- has since moved over to the IRS office responsible for ObamaCare.
Miller said Friday he was the one who promoted her and called her a "superb civil servant."
The acknowledgement comes after the administration announced that Ingram's successor Joseph Grant -- who had only been on the job a few days -- would be retiring.
President Obama, meanwhile, maintained Thursday that he didn't know about the investigation into the IRS program until it was made public. Obama also appointed a new acting commissioner -- White House budget officer Daniel Werfel -- after the prior IRS chief announced his resignation.Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 031454
ALBERTO R. GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL, et al., PETITIONERS v. ANGEL McCLARY RAICH et al.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
[June 6, 2005]
Justice Scalia, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Courts holding that the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) may validly be applied to respondents cultivation, distribution, and possession of marijuana for personal, medicinal use. I write separately because my understanding of the doctrinal foundation on which that holding rests is, if not inconsistent with that of the Court, at least more nuanced.
Since Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146 (1971), our cases have mechanically recited that the Commerce Clause permits congressional regulation of three categories: (1) the channels of interstate commerce; (2) the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and persons or things in interstate commerce; and (3) activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Id., at 150; see United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 608609 (2000); United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 558559 (1995); Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U.S. 264, 276277 (1981). The first two categories are self-evident, since they are the ingredients of interstate commerce itself. See Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 189190 (1824). The third category, however, is different in kind, and its recitation without explanation is misleading and incomplete.
It is misleading because, unlike the channels, instrumentalities, and agents of interstate commerce, activities that substantially affect interstate commerce are not themselves part of interstate commerce, and thus the power to regulate them cannot come from the Commerce Clause alone. Rather, as this Court has acknowledged since at least United States v. Coombs, 12 Pet. 72 (1838), Congresss regulatory authority over intrastate activities that are not themselves part of interstate commerce (including activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce) derives from the Necessary and Proper Clause. Id., at 78; Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294, 301302 (1964); United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U.S. 110, 119 (1942); Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U.S. 342, 353 (1914); United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U.S. 1, 3940 (1895) (Harlan, J., dissenting).1 And the category of activities that substantially affect interstate commerce, Lopez, supra, at 559, is incomplete because the authority to enact laws necessary and proper for the regulation of interstate commerce is not limited to laws governing intrastate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Where necessary to make a regulation of interstate commerce effective, Congress may regulate even those intrastate activities that do not themselves substantially affect interstate commerce.
I
Our cases show that the regulation of intrastate activities may be necessary to and proper for the regulation of interstate commerce in two general circumstances. Most directly, the commerce power permits Congress not only to devise rules for the governance of commerce between States but also to facilitate interstate commerce by eliminating potential obstructions, and to restrict it by eliminating potential stimulants. See NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 3637 (1937). That is why the Court has repeatedly sustained congressional legislation on the ground that the regulated activities had a substantial effect on interstate commerce. See, e.g., Hodel, supra, at 281 (surface coal mining); Katzenbach, supra, at 300 (discrimination by restaurants); Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 258 (1964) (discrimination by hotels); Mandeville Island Farms v. American Crystal Sugar Co., 334 U.S. 219, 237 (1948) (intrastate price-fixing); Board of Trade of Chicago v. Olsen, 262 U.S. 1, 40 (1923) (activities of a local grain exchange); Stafford v. Wallace, 258 U.S. 495, 517, 524525 (1922) (intrastate transactions at stockyard). Lopez and Morrison recognized the expansive scope of Congresss authority in this regard: [T]he pattern is clear. Where economic activity substantially affects interstate commerce, legislation regulating that activity will be sustained. Lopez, supra, at 560; Morrison, supra, at 610 (same).
This principle is not without limitation. In Lopez and Morrison, the Courtconscious of the potential of the substantially affects test to obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local, Lopez, supra, at 566567 (quoting A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 554 (1935)); see also Morrison, supra, at 615616rejected the argument that Congress may regulate noneconomic activity based solely on the effect that it may have on interstate commerce through a remote chain of inferences. Lopez, supra, at 564566; Morrison, supra, at 617618. [I]f we were to accept [such] arguments, the Court reasoned in Lopez, we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an individual that Congress is without power to regulate. Lopez, supra, at 564; see also Morrison, supra, at 615616. Thus, although Congresss authority to regulate intrastate activity that substantially affects interstate commerce is broad, it does not permit the Court to pile inference upon inference, Lopez, supra, at 567, in order to establish that noneconomic activity has a substantial effect on interstate commerce.
As we implicitly acknowledged in Lopez, however, Congresss authority to enact laws necessary and proper for the regulation of interstate commerce is not limited to laws directed against economic activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Though the conduct in Lopez was not economic, the Court nevertheless recognized that it could be regulated as an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated. 514 U.S., at 561. This statement referred to those cases permitting the regulation of intrastate activities which in a substantial way interfere with or obstruct the exercise of the granted power. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U.S., at 119; see also United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 118119 (1941); Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U.S., at 353. As the Court put it in Wrightwood Dairy, where Congress has the authority to enact a regulation of interstate commerce, it possesses every power needed to make that regulation effective. 315 U.S., at 118119.
Although this power to make regulation effective commonly overlaps with the authority to regulate economic activities that substantially affect interstate commerce,2 and may in some cases have been confused with that authority, the two are distinct. The regulation of an intrastate activity may be essential to a comprehensive regulation of interstate commerce even though the intrastate activity does not itself substantially affect interstate commerce. Moreover, as the passage from Lopez quoted above suggests, Congress may regulate even noneconomic local activity if that regulation is a necessary part of a more general regulation of interstate commerce. See Lopez, supra, at 561. The relevant question is simply whether the means chosen are reasonably adapted to the attainment of a legitimate end under the commerce power. See Darby, supra, at 121.
In Darby, for instance, the Court explained that Congress, having adopted the policy of excluding from interstate commerce all goods produced for the commerce which do not conform to the specified labor standards, 312 U.S., at 121, could not only require employers engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce to conform to wage and hour standards, id., at 119121, but could also require those employers to keep employment records in order to demonstrate compliance with the regulatory scheme, id., at 125. While the Court sustained the former regulation on the alternative ground that the activity it regulated could have a great effect on interstate commerce, id., at 122123, it affirmed the latter on the sole ground that [t]he requirement for records even of the intrastate transaction is an appropriate means to a legitimate end, id., at 125.
As the Court said in the Shreveport Rate Cases, the Necessary and Proper Clause does not give Congress the authority to regulate the internal commerce of a State, as such, but it does allow Congress to take all measures necessary or appropriate to the effective regulation of the interstate market, although intrastate transactions may thereby be controlled. 234 U.S., at 353; see also Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S., at 38 (the logic of the Shreveport Rate Cases is not limited to instrumentalities of commerce).
II
Todays principal dissent objects that, by permitting Congress to regulate activities necessary to effective interstate regulation, the Court reduces Lopez and Morrison to little more than a drafting guide. Post, at 5 (opinion of OConnor, J.). I think that criticism unjustified. Unlike the power to regulate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, the power to enact laws enabling effective regulation of interstate commerce can only be exercised in conjunction with congressional regulation of an interstate market, and it extends only to those measures necessary to make the interstate regulation effective. As Lopez itself states, and the Court affirms today, Congress may regulate noneconomic intrastate activities only where the failure to do so could undercut its regulation of interstate commerce. See Lopez, supra, at 561; ante, at 15, 21, 22. This is not a power that threatens to obliterate the line between what is truly national and what is truly local. Lopez, supra, at 567568.
Lopez and Morrison affirm that Congress may not regulate certain purely local activity within the States based solely on the attenuated effect that such activity may have in the interstate market. But those decisions do not declare noneconomic intrastate activities to be categorically beyond the reach of the Federal Government. Neither case involved the power of Congress to exert control over intrastate activities in connection with a more comprehensive scheme of regulation; Lopez expressly disclaimed that it was such a case, 514 U.S., at 561, and Morrison did not even discuss the possibility that it was. (The Court of Appeals in Morrison made clear that it was not. See Brzonkala v. Virginia Polytechnic Inst., 169 F.3d 820, 834835 (CA4 1999) (en banc).) To dismiss this distinction as superficial and formalistic, see post, at 6 (OConnor, J., dissenting), is to misunderstand the nature of the Necessary and Proper Clause, which empowers Congress to enact laws in effectuation of its enumerated powers that are not within its authority to enact in isolation. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421422 (1819).
And there are other restraints upon the Necessary and Proper Clause authority. As Chief Justice Marshall wrote in McCulloch v. Maryland, even when the end is constitutional and legitimate, the means must be appropriate and plainly adapted to that end. Id., at 421. Moreover, they may not be otherwise prohibited and must be consistent with the letter and spirit of the constitution. Ibid. These phrases are not merely hortatory. For example, cases such as Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), and New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), affirm that a law is not proper for carrying into Execution the Commerce Clause [w]hen [it] violates [a constitutional] principle of state sovereignty. Printz, supra, at 923924; see also New York, supra, at 166.
III
The application of these principles to the case before us is straightforward. In the CSA, Congress has undertaken to extinguish the interstate market in Schedule I controlled substances, including marijuana. The Commerce Clause unquestionably permits this. The power to regulate interstate commerce extends not only to those regulations which aid, foster and protect the commerce, but embraces those which prohibit it. Darby, 312 U.S., at 113. See also Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, 220 U.S. 45, 58 (1911); Lottery Case, 188 U.S. 321, 354 (1903). To effectuate its objective, Congress has prohibited almost all intrastate activities related to Schedule I substancesboth economic activities (manufacture, distribution, possession with the intent to distribute) and noneconomic activities (simple possession). See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a), 844(a). That simple possession is a noneconomic activity is immaterial to whether it can be prohibited as a necessary part of a larger regulation. Rather, Congresss authority to enact all of these prohibitions of intrastate controlled-substance activities depends only upon whether they are appropriate means of achieving the legitimate end of eradicating Schedule I substances from interstate commerce.
By this measure, I think the regulation must be sustained. Not only is it impossible to distinguish controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate from controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate, but it hardly makes sense to speak in such terms. Drugs like marijuana are fungible commodities. As the Court explains, marijuana that is grown at home and possessed for personal use is never more than an instant from the interstate marketand this is so whether or not the possession is for medicinal use or lawful use under the laws of a particular State.3 See ante, at 2330. Congress need not accept on faith that state law will be effective in maintaining a strict division between a lawful market for medical marijuana and the more general marijuana market. See id., at 2627, and n. 38. To impose on [Congress] the necessity of resorting to means which it cannot control, which another government may furnish or withhold, would render its course precarious, the result of its measures uncertain, and create a dependence on other governments, which might disappoint its most important designs, and is incompatible with the language of the constitution. McCulloch, supra, at 424.
Finally, neither respondents nor the dissenters suggest any violation of state sovereignty of the sort that would render this regulation inappropriate, id., at 421except to argue that the CSA regulates an area typically left to state regulation. See post, at 67, 11 (opinion of OConnor, J.); post, at 89 (opinion of Thomas, J.); Brief for Respondents 3942. That is not enough to render federal regulation an inappropriate means. The Court has repeatedly recognized that, if authorized by the commerce power, Congress may regulate private endeavors even when [that regulation] may pre-empt express state-law determinations contrary to the result which has commended itself to the collective wisdom of Congress. National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 840 (1976); see Cleveland v. United States, 329 U.S. 14, 19 (1946); McCulloch, supra, at 424. At bottom, respondents state-sovereignty argument reduces to the contention that federal regulation of the activities permitted by Californias Compassionate Use Act is not sufficiently necessary to be necessary and proper to Congresss regulation of the interstate market. For the reasons given above and in the Courts opinion, I cannot agree.
* * *
I thus agree with the Court that, however the class of regulated activities is subdivided, Congress could reasonably conclude that its objective of prohibiting marijuana from the interstate market could be undercut if those activities were excepted from its general scheme of regulation. See Lopez, 514 U.S., at 561. That is sufficient to authorize the application of the CSA to respondents.
Notes: The Punjab Pradesh Committee is all set to roll out its intensive worker-level booth-level outreach programme.Confirming the development, Punjab Congress affairs incharge said today riding on the new slogan “Ghar Ghar Congress, Har Ghar Congress.” The Congress leadership right from vice-presidents, general secretaries and district-level office-bearers would be going to booth level to take forward the campaign.
Asha Kumari has been interacting with party workers at district-level meetings to access in-house problems and issue of dissidence. She claimed that party workers at the grass-roots level were happy with the fact that it was for the first time that a general secretary-level leader from the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) was interacting with them.“The organisational structure in Punjab is strong, but the frustration in workers stems from not being heard” she said.
While holding a district-level meeting, she said there’s no groupism within Congress at the grassroot level. The problem stems due to the frustration of not being heard, she asserted. “For now on, the PPCC will keep its announcements and strategy a guarded secret as the ruling SAD-BJP is taking decisions on the issues being raised by the Congress. We will do it pre-maturely. The party will come out with its promises and announcement close to the elections,” she added.HSBC executives were offering apologies today for providing tax avoidance advice after it was revealed the bank’s CEO had a Swiss private bank account and kept money in a private bank in Panama.
The scandal over CEO Stuart Gulliver’s finances was broken Sunday by the Guardian newspaper in the wake of revelations that HSBC coached its clients on how to hide their wealth using Swiss bank accounts.
The Centre for Investigative Journalism and CBC were among the media outlets revealing last month that the British bank helped hundreds of people, including wealthy Canadians, hide Swiss accounts from authorities to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes.
The bank released a statement saying Gulliver had paid tax to the U.K. on his worldwide income since returning to the U.K. to live. He previously was based in Hong Kong and paid Hong Kong taxes, the bank said.
There was fresh disappointment over the bank’s earnings, which fell 16 per cent in 2014 to $13.7 billion US.
Penalties for price-fixing
Among the contributing factors to the loss were $550 million the bank set aside last year to cover penalties for manipulating foreign currency markets. That comes two years after it was caught in a money-laundering scandal.
In Canada, HSBC said fourth-quarter profit was down 11.2 per cent from a year earlier to $206 million Cdn, which according to the bank is a result that reflects lower consumer spending and higher costs.
In a written statement, chairman Douglas Flint said HSBC is addressing the wrongs by its private Swiss bank exposed by journalists earlier this month.
"The recent disclosures around unacceptable historical practices and behaviour within the Swiss private bank remind us of how much there still is to do and how far society's expectations have changed in terms of banks' responsibilities," he said.
Flint is due to appear before British lawmakers on Wednesday to answer questions about the bank's alleged complicity in tax evasion.
CEO's 'privacy' defence
In a conference call, Gulliver defended his use of a private bank account in Panama, saying he used the account to keep his earnings private from others within the company.
Other executives at HSBC's Hong Kong offices were able to see what their colleagues were earning, he said, adding the account "enabled me to have confidentiality within my own firm.”
The bank account in Switzerland was set up in 1998 to hold bonus payments, but Gulliver claimed he declared this account to U.K. tax authorities.
The bank said Gulliver’s compensation for the year would be reduced five per cent to £7.6 million ($14.7 million Cdn) because of the bank’s poor performance.
Gulliver said HSBC’s declining financial results were a result of rapid growth that had caused control issues. HSBC, founded 150 years ago as the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp., now has more than 6,100 offices in 73 countries.
Barclays viewed HSBC’s disappointing results in Canada as an indication of more declining profits among Canadian banks.
Weaker credit in commercial banking including higher credit risk and more loan impairments, in part from the oil and gas sector, could “resonate across the Canadian banks," Barclays said in a note to investors.Neal Adams explained to Kevin Smith who he thinks should play the next live-action version of the Joker, the Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith.
On a recent episode of Kevin Smith’s Fat Man on Batman podcast, iconic comic book figure Neal Adams gave his opinion on the next actor that should play a live-action version of the Joker. His answer… Matt Smith.
Adams said the following about the former Eleventh Doctor:
“Matt Smith. He’s not gonna seem like a challenge to the previous one. He’s got that look, the smile. Fan favorite. It’d be fantastic. And he’s got the shape. He’s got everything; everything’s there.”
image: deviantART user AlAN-SP
Adams went on to reveal his fantasy casting for Batman…
“If Ted Danson were a young man… what is he, 6’3″ and half… OK. He’s got all this hair, but when you take the hair down he’s got this thick neck. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, looks athletic. THAT’s Batman. Put him in a suit that shows off the muscles. You could pump it up a little bit, but not too much.”
I’m not sure about a Ted Danson Batman, but I’m completely in support of Matt Smith as The Joker.
What do you think?? Tell us in the comments below.Every year on the third Wednesday of November, map geeks around the world (myself included) celebrate GIS Day. Short for geographic information systems, or occasionally geospatial information science, GIS is all about using computer systems to collect, store, analyze, and display geographic data, or really any data that has a spatial component.
The past decade has changed GIS immensely. With the advent of data mining, machine learning, mobile applications, the Internet of Things, social media, and other recent additions to the computing landscape, there are orders of magnitude more data available across every discipline, and the race to do useful and interesting things is in full throttle. Once limited to more traditional realms like land records, agriculture, natural resources, and urban planning, GIS now permeates practically every field.
But how does one get started exploring the vast world of GIS? Before exploring advanced modeling, spatial analytics, and data management, the most logical place to begin learning about GIS is with the most basic representation of geographical data: a map. And if you come to GIS with any background in basic web programming and markup—JavaScript, HTML, and CSS—a web map is probably the path of least resistance to getting started.
Many people familiar with Google Maps immediately turn to the Google Maps API for getting started, but Google Maps are far from the only option. In fact, there are many open source alternatives which are better fit to specific needs, whether those needs are displaying something very basic with minimal overhead, or a complex application with many diverse components and integrations.
If you're looking to get started with web mapping, here are three libraries which are worth checking out.
Leaflet
Leaflet has in the past couple of years become one of the most popular options for creating interactive JavaScript maps. It's basic library is fairly small, making Leaflet a great option for mobile applications or other situations in which load time or size is at a premium. But it also has a ton of available plugins so that you can add on just about any functionality available with a heaftier mapping library.
Leaflet also has a strong documentation project behind it, making it a good choice for beginners, and there are a number of community-contributed examples out there on the Internet for when you get stuck, as well as many examples on the project homepage. Leaflet's source code is available on GitHub and it is licensed under a BSD license.
Modest Maps
Though Leaflet can be considered a minimalist library, Modest Maps may win an award for being even smaller. Also very modular in design, Modest Maps is a great choice for both simple maps and for people who wish to pick-and-choose components. Check out their example library for more ideas of what you might do with it.
Modest Maps is open source under a BSD license, and you can view its source on GitHub as well.
Polymaps
Polymaps is a JavaScript mapping library for creating interactive maps with both SVG-based vectors as well as tile-based maps for raster data. The nice thing about using SVG (scalable vector graphics) for creating maps is that it means that many of the same styling options which can be applied to web documents with CSS will also work with your map design. I also find that Polymaps handles zooming incredibly well compared to some other libraries
Like othe others above, Polymaps is open source under a BSD license, and you can view its source on GitHub.
Others
Of course, the three we looked at aren't the only options. There are many others, and depending on what your specific needs are, you should probably spend some time exploring all of the options before making a decison of where to get started. Some others I like include:
OpenLayers, which you might think of as the kitchen sink of web map programming. I often use OpenLayers when working with GeoServer; if you use the open source OpenGeo Suite for building a complete GIS solution, all of the components integrate nicely.
Mapael, which is a jQuery library for building attractive map visualizations with vector data.
D3.js, which is a more general-purpose JavaScript visualization library, but has some great features for creating simple maps easily. If you're more interested in the broader world of data visualization, D3 is a great place to start.
Cesium, which is very specifically meant for creating WebGL visualizations of data mapped onto 3D globes. If this interests you, some of the demos are amazing.
For others, the OpenGeo Foundation provides a fairly comprehensive list of web mapping tools, but be warned, they are in various states of scope and production-readiness.
The nice thing about using these libraries is that they encourage mixing and matching to style maps perfectly for your needs. Don't like the default map layer which sits underneath your map? Pick a different one. Prefer a different icon for representing points on your map? No problem.
Is there a favorite web mapping API we didn't mention here that you think would be a good fit for beginners? Let us know in the comments below. And have a happy GIS Day!Sigi Schmid gave Softy specifics about injuries and playing status today during his near weekly show on KJR. He addressed Obafemi Martins' availability, the club's need for players being at 100% and a couple players that played themselves out of the lineup who may be reentering it as well.
"Oba's back in town but he will not be able to play this Saturday," Schmid said to to the afternoon host. The statements about the other injured starters were very similar to what was said post-training.
When asked about changes being made to training or game approach Sigi admitted that some of the players used early in the season were not at 100%. The coaching staff is fixing that through more intense practices and resting players that are injured. He also mentioned "a couple guys" that were benched for their lack of intensity and that they may be coming back to the lineup.
Softy asked "Who would those players be?"
Sigi Schmid replied that Jhon Kennedy Hurtado and Mauro Rosales have stepped up their practice performances and sub appearance (for Rosales) that could earn themselves returns to the XI.
He then ended guaranteeing a victory over the Revolution.
Schmid appears weekly with Softy, usually on Thursday afternoons.The weekend before President Obama’s planned farewell address was a good one by Chicago’s violent standards — only one person was killed by gunfire and eight others were wounded.
As Mr. Obama returns home Tuesday to deliver his final speech as president, Chicago is in the grips of a soaring homicide rate and reeling from a horrific black-on-white torture hate crime that was captured on video. Over Christmas weekend, 12 Chicagoans were killed in a total of 27 shootings.
Amid criticism that the president and his former chief of staff, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, have failed for eight years to address the city’s violence and racial divisions, Mr. Obama nevertheless will bask in the adoration of thousands of friends and supporters in a prime-time speech reviewing his presidency and offering his prescriptions for the challenges ahead.
Some Chicago residents say it’s shaping up as a hollow valedictory speech.
“He didn’t need to come to Chicago for the speech, and he knows that doing so calls attention not only to the city’s troubles but to his administration’s failures to solve them,” said Charles Lipson, a political science professor at the University of Chicago. “Chicago’s troubles highlight the deep national divisions, social breakdown, income inequality and gun violence that Barack Obama was elected to ameliorate. His administration not only failed, most of the problems grew worse.”
He said the question of who is responsible for those failures “will be the debate about his presidency.”
Brunell Donald-Kyei of Chicago, a lifelong Democrat who became a member of President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, said Mr. Obama brought no real change to the city.
“It’s really sad,” she said on Fox News. “Promises of hope and change with jobs and educational programs never came.”
In 2009, the year Mr. Obama took office, Chicago recorded 459 homicides. Last year, that number was 762 — an increase of 66 percent — with a total of 4,331 shooting victims. The city’s homicide rate was the highest in 20 years.
President-elect Donald Trump said last week that it might be time for Washington to step in.
“Chicago murder rate is record setting,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter. “If Mayor can’t do it he must ask for Federal help!”
Chicago Police Board Chairwoman Lori Lightfoot agreed that the city needs federal help.
“We need to have more federal gun prosecutions in Chicago,” she told NPR. “Our federal partners from the U.S. attorney’s office, the ATF, the FBI need to be much more invested in this overall strategy. |
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